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Technology Stocks : Semi Equipment Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Return to Sender who wrote (3066)	5/8/2002 10:26:50 AM
From: Ian@SI	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95480

For those looking for the "NEXT BIG THING" that will pull tech out of the doldrums, Walter Mossberg's column wrote about it in today's WSJ. :-) +++++++++++++++++++++ TeleZapper Successfully Reduces Annoying Marketing Phone Calls Telemarketing is one of the banes of modern life. The volume of unsolicited sales calls pouring into the average American home is so irritating that many folks would do just about anything to stop it. The calls always come at inconvenient times, often under false pretenses ("This is a courtesy call") and usually include bad mispronunciations of your name, or fake familiarity ("Hi, Walter, how are you this morning?"). But technology may now provide consumers with at least partial relief. An Ohio company named Privacy Technologies has introduced a $50 gizmo called the TeleZapper, which is designed to block many telemarketing calls and help prevent them in the future. The TeleZapper works by jamming all incoming calls that are dialed by the special auto-dialing computers telemarketers use. These machines make hundreds of thousands of calls a day, trolling for people the marketers can prey upon. When the telephone is picked up, the computer transfers the call to the telemarketing salespeople and the torture begins. TELEZAPPER [[TeleZapper]] by Privacy Technologies Price: $49.99 Where to buy: Best Buy, Radio Shack, Kmart, Target, Wal-Mart, or online at amazon.com More info: www.telezapper.com The TeleZapper, which is about the size of a generous sandwich, plugs into your phone line between the phone and the jack. When a computerized call comes in, and the phone is picked up by either a person or an answering machine, the TeleZapper blocks it, but it also goes one step further. It sends an electronic signal to the dialing computer, fooling it into thinking the phone number is disconnected. Because the dialing computer now thinks the line is out of service, it removes your number from its calling list, thus preventing future calls as well. We tested the TeleZapper in two different homes, in two different area codes. It seemed to work. In both locations, we noticed a significant drop in telemarketing calls. Because we had no way to do an exact measurement of attempted calls before and after we installed the gadget, this test was hardly scientific, but the decline in calls was tangible. One unit will work for multiple phones and even fax machines connected to the same telephone number. Junk faxes sent by computerized dialers are also blocked. It doesn't interfere with answering machines or home computers. But the gadget emits an intrusive tone each time the phone is answered, so you may have to re-record your answering-machine message to leave a space at the beginning so the tone doesn't obliterate your greeting. There are downsides to the TeleZapper. For one thing, it doesn't stop manually dialed telemarketing calls, so it can only reduce, not eliminate, the sales assault. And, it doesn't work if you use a phone company's voice-mail service instead of your own answering machine, because the phone must be answered at your house -- by a human or an answering machine -- for TeleZapper to function, and phone-company services intercept calls before that can happen. Another problem: TeleZapper will also block some legitimate, or desirable, calls that happen to be dialed by a computer. These include calls from public and charitable organizations, the police station, even calls made using certain long-distance calling cards. But, if the telemarketing vultures are driving you nuts, TeleZapper can bring relief. -- With reporting by Danielle Belopotosky.