AT&T Corp’s hot property for the annual turn-of-the-year Consumer Electronics Show was a unit that links to the television set and a phone line, and doubles as an answering and a facsimile machine. When you come home to a light flashing, signalling that there are messages, you turn on the television and you will see a list of messages displayed with the caller’s name, phone number and time and length of the call. To play back the messages, the remote control is used to highlight them in turn. Facsimile messages are also displayed on-screen and an add-on printer will be available later this year. AT&T also plans a peripheral that will enable users to write a note on an 8 square electronic screen and transmit it to any facsimile machine. Additional services are planned to provide on-screen electronic banking, bill-paying or retrieving share price quotations and accessing of other news services. The system requires the user to subscribe to the Enhanced Caller ID service. AT&T says that the new h ome peripheral will be available in April, and it will retail for $330.
