Ambient google talk??

Since I started my internship in Dublin, my mom and I use google talk to call eachother. Because both of us are online most of the time, it is almost like calling a phone. But, this weekend she did something amazing. She took her laptop to my aunt's place (about a mile away from our home) and called me. After talking for a while, she just left the laptop in the living room without disconnecting the call. I could hear their conversations and they could hear me. They were not directly talking to me, nor was I sitting at my computer listening to everything they said. I was doing my regular tasks in my room and their voices were just floating in the background. Whenever I heard something that caught my attention, I would join their conversation. It felt great, I felt so "connected" :) Isn't that simple ambient technology at its best!