Corinex's affordable video phone
Corinex Internet VideoPhone
The product: Corinex is now shipping its Internet VideoPhone and is showing it off here at CES. The package includes a USB Webcam, a microphone, and softphone software that together let you stream audio and video across the Internet with friends, family, or even business partners. The softphone delivers images at rates up to 30 frames per second and is compatible with a number of free VoIP services, including Free World Dialup, AddaVoice, SIP Phone, Ecuity, and VoIPTalk. Requiring a mere 128Kbps for a connection, the softphone is designed to work with even the slowest broadband connection. Other features and key specs include:

• 320,000-pixel USB Webcam, allowing 640x480 video size
• 15fps in VGA (640x480), 30fps in CIF (352x288)
• MPEG-4 video encoding/decoding
• Call log (outgoing, incoming, and missed calls)
• SIP 2.0 compliant

The price: The Corinex Webcam softphone bundle can be had for $99.

The prospects: VoIP took the world by storm in 2004. Throwing video into the mix adds value to services that are already growing in popularity and is the next logical step. It's unclear whether prices will drop quickly enough to make 2005 the year of the video phone, but expect to see more solutions along the lines of Corinex's Internet VideoPhone in 2005.

By Allen Fear, senior editor, CNET Reviews