I just found out about BT (British Telecom)'s new SMS service for landline phones, its quite interesting. In order to send an SMS from your landline phone, i think you have to have a special phone with texting capability, but any BT landline phone can now receive an SMS message! If the phone has CLI (caller line identification) i think the message is displayed via the screen, but if you have a basic no frills phone, you get a phone call and a computer voice reads you the text message.
I just tried it out, sent myself a text from a t-mobile phone to my home number. The message took about an hour or so to arrive, but the fact it got there at all is quite impressive. Its quite freaky having your SMS read out to you, the voice isnt too bad, its better than Stephen Hawkings voicebox anyway, its a calm female voice, it just sounds a bit lifeless. A cool option would be to let you choose the characteristics of the voice that reads the message, such as whether its male or female and the speed of reading, something like the voice functionality on Apple Macs would be brilliant, the computerised voice on the Mac cant be beaten, well i've yet to hear something as entertaining as the serial killer voice or the singing voice, hilarious stuff!
BT Text SMS service for BT landline phones.