AT&T chief hints at future iPhone tech

Phone that downloads news and tells your coffee machine to start brewing

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7 November 2008 17:41 GMT / By Katie Scott

AT&T Mobile chief Ralph de la Vega has laid out what sort of technologies we could get from our iPhone in the future.

In an interview with TechCrunch, de la Vega started off by saying that an AT&T sanctioned method of using the iPhone as a 3G modem for a laptop is on the way “soon”.

But he then also spoke about what other services the iPhone could offer in the future and they range from automatically downloading the morning's news feeds to sending a message to your coffee maker to start brewing.

And it didn't end there.

De la Vega reckons we'll all be able to use the handset to lock our doors on the way out each morning, start our car and then drive as the iPhone reads out the day's news using its text-to-speech capabilities.

At work, the iPhone could come into play during conference calls when two different languages are being spoken thanks to its ability to handle the automatic translations in real time.

But is all of this pie in the sky?

Says AppleInsider: "De la Vega added that AT&T is performing extensive testing within its labs in order to integrate the handset with U-Verse, its suite of Internet television and VoIP services".

Commented PC World's Mark Sullivan: "Some of this sounds pretty far-flung to me, and if this were some start-up company talking about these 'exciting new plans,' I'd probably take it with a grain of salt. But in my experience, AT&T plays it pretty close to the vest on its future plans, and usually does what it says it will do, eventually".

Hmmmmmmm.