Remocon controls appliances by cellphone, sort of
Controlling your home appliances from anywhere via cellphone sounds great, but we suspect that the way NTT DoCoMo is going about it in Japan isn't exactly going to be a huge success. The telco is marketing something called the Remocon (as in Remote Control) Saucer, a ¥12,000 ($102) device that lets you turn appliances on and off by cellphone -- if, that is, you're willing to pay for either a second cellphone or wireless card to hook up to it. Once you've set that up, you need to make a video call every time you want to send a command. Sounds like DoCoMo's main goal is to make a killing on the fees, which isn't likely to happen -- unless, of course, you can also use this as a remote spycam, in which case, DoCoMo will clean up.
