1 potato, 2 potato, 3 potato..!. . .Couch Potatoes..caller ID on your TV. . .

[NewtonMP2100]

. . .if you get phone service through your cable company. . .


Cablevision Offers On - Screen Caller ID
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK (AP) -- Couch potato alert: If you get telephone service through your cable TV provider, you don't have to get up while watching TV to see who's calling.

Several cable companies have been experimenting with a feature that will display an incoming caller's name and number in a little box in the corner of the TV screen.

Cablevision Systems Corp., which operates around the New York City area, has offered this feature in several areas and now says that as of Friday it will be available to all 3 million of its cable television customers.

Comcast Corp., the largest cable TV operator in the country, offers the service in one market -- which the company declined to identify -- and has plans to offer it elsewhere later.

Time Warner Cable Inc. offers it in several areas.

Cablevision says its on-screen caller ID -- including an option to turn off the notifications -- carries no additional charge. About half of Cablevision's television customers also subscribe to its digital phone service.

[blusubaru]

This service has been around for a while, but not provided by the cable co.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Caller-TV-Display-Ca...dZViewItem

[AAA]

Not sure about caller ID, but my friends had some tv that would display a phone on the picture, and you pressed the answer button on the remote, and you would talk in speaker-phone to the connected party. Pretty cool. I think they called it SPACE PHONE?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenith_Elec...pace_phone

[BigGuynRusty]

[quote AAA]Not sure about caller ID, but my friends had some tv that would display a phone on the picture, and you pressed the answer button on the remote, and you would talk in speaker-phone to the connected party. Pretty cool. I think they called it SPACE PHONE?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenith_Elec...pace_phone Yeppers, the later models showed the CID info.

BGnR

[kj4btkljv]

My Dish Network receivers can display phone number info on the screen, since it's always plugged into a phone line. I have it disabled because I record everything on a ReplayTV, and don't want phone numbers popping up into the recordings.

Jeff

[rz]

I have something even better: talking caller id. When the phone rings, it either calls out the number (or name if there's one that shows up), or says either "number unknown" or "out of area" (usually a telemarketer). We're on the do not call list, but still get a fair number of calls from our credit card companies and their "affiliates". So even if we're not watching TV, we can hear whether it's worth it to get up to answer the phone.