Nokia Announces 'Home Control Center'

Oh man, I want to work in their technical support centre when that launches. The quality calls they'll get will be fantastic.

"Hi... I sent my UHHHHH (people who call tech lines have to say 'UHHHHHH')... friend a text, and now the taps won't turn off. The oven smells slightly of chips, and every time I sent an alarm the SHOWER TURNS ON."

Oh this is going to be excellent.

Wii Motes will be nothing compared to the damage this will do.

5-6 years ago I was dreaming of a phone with a touch-screen interface and Apple a few years later releases the iphone.

When I was in Primary school only a few years earlier than that, I hoped for a device that could control everything around me after reading some wacky stories by Paul Jennings and the rage that was watches that could turn off televisions.

This is excellent news. It will become reality, and phones are the future. They are becoming the "house key". You don't leave the house without your keys. Increasingly, you don't leave the house without the phone.

I can imagine profiles being created for different appliances that can selected in the phone much like you select the "phone profile" and with the co-operation of hardware manufacturers, you can select your specific DVD player, download the profile off the internet and use the device from your phone.

@Dark

I really, really can't see that happening. The future isn't in clumsy remote control emulation on a phone handset, it's in no remotes at all.

What happens, for example, if your mobile rings, you answer it and then while you're talking someone tries to break in, your dinner starts burning in the oven and for some unfathomable reason you desperately need to turn your laptop, which you can't possibly see or use, in another room on? You'll be stuffed.

The only upside will be that hopefully the robber, after walking past your switched off alarm system, will with any luck steal your stupid phone, leaving you no option but to use the controls that manufacturers carefully design for their individual products.

Oh, and I forgot to add that I've bought 2 all in one remotes. It took HOURS to set the damn things up, and they never ever worked properly.

One of them required finding specific model numbers, which after ripping the TV off the wall and turning it upside down to find you then entered into the handset, which would think for a moment or two and then flash up "Pfft. Whatever. Kiss my buttons." or something similar along the lines of "Not recognised".

You then had to go to a website, enter the model number there (which, of course, you hadn't written down, so the TV comes off the wall again) and it would come up with a list of models which MIGHT work in a similar fashion to yours. So, you'd enter one of those into the handset at random, point the remote at the TV, hit the power button and watch in quizical horror as your TV ignores you completely but your neighbours automatic garage door descends at speed into their car.

Thanks, but no thanks.