The reason was simple: distance. At the beginning of the construction they used walkie-talkies—which are light, durable, and have a long battery life—across the site. However, these stopped working after some time, as the tower kept raising over the desert. With unreliable communications, Samsung Corporation—the main contractor—had to turn to a different kind of link between workers to avoid misunderstandings that may have jeopardized the safety of workers (even more, because plenty of people have had fatal accidents in the tower) and delayed the project.

Fortunately for them, they turned to mesh networks, which are similar to the ones used in mobiles, but local. For that they used a company called Firetide, using several Wi-Fi-enabled VoIP phones over a HotPort wireless mesh, which also serves as the transport for the security video in the site.

What about your household? In mine, we definitely spend more on our cells than our obligatory, barebones land line. Of course, if you factored in all of our wired services (including internet and television), the phones lose by a small margin. [nyt]

One of the Canopy's touted features is better audio quality, something that is practically impossible to get from shitty-sounding cellphones with their transistor radio-like audio fidelity. Yeah, if all you need to do is gossip with your friends, cellphones might be fine, but for a conference call with venture capitalists where you're begging for a billion dollars, a dropped call, clipped audio, distortion, delays and missed words thanks to craptastic cellphone providers might not fly. Could this thing actually do any better? We can only hope.

We're also intrigued by its claim of having the "world's best privacy," along with third-party applications support. But wait. Why is this vaporware credible at all?

Buzz began to build for the Ripcord Canopy a couple of months ago and was mostly ignored, but then we started looking at the eyebrow-raising cast of characters behind this company. Its Board of Directors brings considerable credibility to the project, with its veritable who's who of Apple history including Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak, former Apple CEO Gil Amelio, former Apple CTO Ellen Hancock and former Apple VP Michael Connor.

Nobody's jumped out of any planes yet, but when the Ripcord Canopy opens, the smart money says it could prove to be a high flyer. – Charlie White

Prototype Page [Ripcord Networks]

The DUALjack is rated to have a data throughput of up to 50kbps and communicates on the 2.4GHz part of the spectrum. This is one of those things that you could probably live without until you realize that your bedroom has no telephone outlet after you've installed the dish—now how are you supposed to watch SummerSlam? – Nicholas Deleon

Product Page [New York Communications via Chip Chick]

The VoiceKey plugs into a USB port on your PC or laptop, and then you can plug a regular old phone into it, even a cordless phone or PBX. Place and receive Skype or VIVOphone calls to any other users on those systems for free, or pay their uncommonly low rates to contact anyone with a phone in the world. The thing even lets you hook up nine people at the same time and switch between calls with the press of a button, or you can conference up to five people together. No pricing was available yet. – Charlie White

Product Page [VIVOphone]

Minoli's Motorola PVOT is a great design not only for developing nations, but it could come in handy for us developed countries, too, as we wind our way through Peak Oil and into World War III. If the phone's durable enough, it might even last until World War IV, which will no doubt be fought with sticks and clubs.

Motorola PVOT [Andre Minoli, via Yanko Design]

Telephoneboxing [We-make-money]

Just a small heads-up to let you know that if you have a Skype phone, you'll soon be able to buy any of Warner Music Group's songs to use as ringtones. Labels include Atlantic, Asylum and Rhino so get ready for your fave Bjork and Black Sabbath songs to ring in your ears. It's always been a dream, I know. No specific details yet, but we'll keep you updated.

Warner Music to sell ringtones for Skype [Reuters]

I feel horrible only finding out about this item now because my cousin had to do a phone interview with a drunken Bam Margera two weeks ago and she wanted to record it. Well, for future interviews she can use the Blast R-1000 Phone Recorder. You can record phone conversations, voicemail, or even a live convo with the built-in microphone connected to your computer. Hook it up via USB to a Windows PC (no word on Mac), and you can save the conversations to the hard drive for future reference. Absolutely perfect for phone interviews for your next podcast. It even allows you to listen to recorded conversations through your phone handset. Neato. Goes for $130 and is available now.

USB Phone Recorder [Red Ferret]