The Herndon, Virginia US Order Inc subsidiary of WorldCorp Inc has unveiled a screenphone that costs $200 and is designed to enable consumers shop and bank from home: it looks like a telephone but adds a four line-by-20-character screen and a keypad; users enter information via the keypad to perform transactions over the phone; US Order will also be charges $12 a month for the services, which include bill paying and banking, catalogue shopping, grocery shopping and a personal organiser, and the launch is set for April; the shopping service will enable a consumer to select a catalogue, fill out an order form and slide a credit card through a built-in card reader for the order, and will also be linked to an information service through Knight-Ridder Inc that will provide access to share quotes, execute stock trades, classified ads and sports scores and users can also play Jeopardy with other consumers; according to Reuter, US Order has signed marketing pacts with Sprint Corp, BellSouth Corp, Banc One Inc and First National Bank of Maryland; US West Inc will test the system next year, and US Order is also holding talks with Nynex Corp and Southern New England Telephone Corp among other phone companies.
