Have you heard of this trueCall device? Two Brits designed it, and what it does, or aims to do, is sit between the outside world and your landline telephone in order to weed out unwanted calls. You set up a whitelist and blacklist—all whitelisted phone numbers come through without hassle, while all blacklisted numbers are greeted by an automated “leave me alone” message.

When an unknown number rings, the device asks the caller to state their name or number, thereby giving you the option to take the call or not.

Even better, there’s a modem inside the device, one that the company is planning to use to download updated blacklists. Thus, your distractions are kept to a minimum.

Useful idea, this. Then again, you could be a part of the year 2008 and drop your landline altogether.

via BBC News