Netgear Skype WiFi phone wins Popular Mechanics award

Popular Mechanics magazines has recognized Netgear’s Skype WiFi phone (SPH101) as a “Breakthrough Award” winner for 2006 for its innovation and excellence in both design and engineering. The phone was recently launched in the Middle East.

Popular Mechanics covers how today’s technologies affect the things men are most interested in, including consumer electronics. The magazine’s second annual Breakthrough Awards were created to celebrate and distinguish ideas and inventions that are changing and expanding the possibilities in the realms of science, technology and exploration. Netgear’s Skype WiFi phone was selected as a groundbreaking product on the basis of reviews conducted by Popular Mechanics editors, industry experts, scientists, engineers, authors, and other academics.

Netgear’s Skype WiFi phone is the first publicly announced and shipped mobile device certified to make Skype Internet calling over WiFi a reality for the more than 113 mln registered Skype users across the globe. It enables customers to call anyone on Skype, anywhere in the world for free, with no PC required. Skype is the world’s fastest-growing Internet communication offering, enabling unlimited free voice and video communication between Skype users. Skype is available in 27 languages and is used in almost every country around the world. Netgear began shipping the phone in August.