On those occasions where you can't talk on your mobile phone, and who you might need to speak to either doesn't have, or can't use their mobile phone (but can use a regular land line phone), a device could be made that is a hardware add-on to said land-line phone. It can receive text messages sent out by SMS, translating them to an actual voice message.
This would only be handy when an actual conversation is not necessary, eg. 'I'm stuck in a meeting and will be late'. The other advantage is, the SMS sender doesn't have to learn a new telephone number (see link).-- jetgrrl, Aug 07 2001 The talking SMS lady http://www.infosync.no/en/news/n/398.aspSame idea-ish, but it involves sending the SMS to a different number, not to the actual recipient. [jetgrrl, Aug 07 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004] Vera Vox http://www.sms1980....rvlet/VGVoxMessage/SMS to any phone in Norway [badger, Dec 02 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004] Theoretically, this is possible even on my less-than-cutting-edge home computer. The TAM software allows transmission and reception of data files, and the sound card software has the facility to render plain text files as spoken sound.-- angel, Aug 07 2001 I think this is baked, in the UK. If you SMS a landline, you get a message left on your phone (1471, call minder, I think.)-- Dub, Aug 22 2005 I would bone this for mentioning text messaging due to personal experiences, but that wouldn't be fair to you.
Can't see how this is any better than a fifteen minute "NEVER TEXT ME AGAIN!" rant... but at least this lets me communicate by phone the way It was inteded... through speaking and listening.-- ye_river_xiv, Aug 24 2006 random, halfbakery