Skype users ready for climb time

A recent entry on the fascinating extreme-exploits-meets-geekdom site Human Edge Tech, there's a piece you should check out about hooking up a laptop running Skypeto a satellite phone.

True, little if any per-minute savings were achieved. Still, the unbylined authors report excellent quality, plus rave about the impossibility of eavesdropping on such calls.

And the fact that the solution sounds ideal if you aren't around an Internet or Wi-Fi hookup. "Into Thin Air," literally.

While the authors did not expressly use the hookup onone of their vertical expeditions, they say the arrangement is ready for climb time.

"Now," they write, everybody will have a permanent Internet connection for e-mail and Web uploads... and can cuddle up in their sleeping bags chatting away with friends back home. Cool or what?!"

"Cool," maybe. "Cold," definitely.