Linux Magazine: 2005: A Skype Odyssey

"Almost exactly four years ago, in my January 2001 column for Linux Magazine I wrote a rather long diatribe about how many predictions in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (based on the novel by Arthur C. Clarke) have been left unfulfilled.

"Among those was the common use of videophones, used in a visually dramatic scene where Dr. Heywood Floyd, a senior government official representing the United States space agency, calls from the space station to wish his daughter to wish her a happy birthday. At the end of the call, Floyd is charged $1.70, an obscenely inflated amount by 1968 standards ($1.70 back then would have bought you five gallons of gasoline), but only a modest amount today, especially for a long-distance pay phone call..."

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Related Stories:

• Linux Magazine: Say Hello to Skype(Mar 10, 2005)
• internetnews.com: Skype, Xandros Bundle VoIP, Linux(Feb 16, 2005)
• vnunet: Skype Launches Client for Linux and Apple(Feb 02, 2005)