Word: aplio
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...services like IDT's Net2Phone that patch them through to any phone in the world for about 10[cents] a minute. I've been holding out for a gadget that will let me make long-distance Internet calls without using my PC at all. That's where the Aplio (pronounced ah-plee-oh) fits...
...which looks like a telephone-answering machine, has been out for a year but was only recently spiffed up and just last week became available in retail stores like J & R Music World. I talked to Oliver Zitoun, Aplio's co-founder, who is French and very ambitious. "The whole plan is to have Aplio everywhere," he says. "Built into phones, set-top cable boxes and anywhere you have Internet access...
Sounds good. But as soon as I try to call my wife with mine, I run into Aplio's biggest drawback: you can only use it to call another Aplio owner. No Aplio-to-telephone or even Aplio-to-PC calls, I'm afraid. You also need a real Internet service provider; America Online won't work...
...that hurdle, setup is pretty straightforward. You plug a standard phone line into one hole in the back of the box and a standard telephone receiver into the other. You use the telephone to dial your Internet provider and to punch in your log-in and password. Then the Aplio--with its built-in modem--takes over, connecting you to the party you are trying to speak to. It connects you, that is, if the party has an Aplio synched to yours, which probably requires enough prearrangement by telephone to eat up most of that 95% saving...
More about Aplio at time.com/personal And watch Anita Hamilton Wednesdays on CNNfn's Digital...