It's been nearly a year since Parrot announced its DF7700 GPRS-endowed picture frame, said to possess the mystical ability to pull photographs straight out of the ether. Now T-Mobile has pledged to bring Parrot's magic frame to the US as the CAMEO, a $100 device that, when coupled with a $10/month service fee, can be the recipient of picture-bearing messages. When you get bored with that feature (or that fee), there's a mini-USB port plus slots for SD/MMC cards that will enable it to accept pics in a more traditional manner. Its 7-inch screen has a 720 x 480 resolution and is surrounded by an interchangeable leather border guaranteed to look cheap in any decor -- not just those with golden mirrors astride a marble mantelpieces.

[Thanks, Mark]

If you get a pair of blindingly bright clown shoes in the mail a few days after a late night of drunken revelry that you don't particularly recall... well, we think we know what happened. A new service from Nike in some European countries called "PhotoiD" allows cameraphone owners to snap a picture of pretty much anything their little hearts desire, send it to a short code via MMS, and get a rendered shoe in reply that uses the picture's two most dominant colors as its highlights. If you're feeling the kicks -- 1985 Dunk hightops, if you must know -- you can even buy them, which we figure is where things really start to get interesting. Creative on Nike's part, yes, but also a danger to the good sense of shoe-wearing shutterbugs everywhere.

[Via guardian.co.uk]

The Zero Day Initiative has revealed that a vulnerability exists in older RAZR firmware versions that could potentially -- under very rare circumstances -- allow some baddie to execute arbitrary code on your beloved phone. Basically, you'd have to accept an MMS from someone you don't know, it'd have to contain a JPEG with a specially malformed EXIF header, and of course, you'd have to be running an outdated version of your phone's firmware. In fact, ZDI reported the problem to Moto way back in July of last year and only revealed it to the public last week, giving 'em plenty of time to cook up a fix -- which thankfully, they have. Everyone did their part here, it seems, so don't even bother trying to exploit this one, criminals of the world. You know who you are.

[Via IntoMobile and CNET]

Whoa there, didn't these just go up not long ago? Indeed they did, but in the fast-paced, money-grubbing world we call home, two price bumps spaced a year apart are sadly par for the course. AT&T has started informing customers that unless they're subscribed to a messaging plan, they'll be paying 5 cents more for both text messages and picture / video messages -- now up to 20 and 30 cents per, respectively. The change takes effect March 30, so we'd recommend you either tell all your peeps to cut it out with the messaging or sign up with a package by then. Follow the break for AT&T's full manifesto.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Golly, we heart iPhone hackers. Seriously, is there anything these cats can't do? Short of magically bestowing our favorite Apple phone (see what we did there?) with 3G data, we're pretty confident that the dev community is going to end up fulfilling every last wish that Apple doesn't. A ModMyiPhone member has busted out an early release of a true, honest-to-goodness native MMS app, filling in perhaps one of the biggest gaps in the iPhone's out of the box functionality (yeah, we know you can MMS most carriers' phones via email, but it's still super annoying), and even better, it seriously looks stock from the screen shots. It's apparently still got a few issues -- and it's send-only for the moment -- but it's a great start. Keep on keepin' on, fellas!

Fingers are busy over at Verizon Wireless where it is being reported that subscribers fired off and received some 10 billion SMS messages in June -- think unlimited messaging is catching on? Another finger-mangling figure saw 200 million Multimedia Messages (MMS) sent in the same period. Those are pretty mind-numbing numbers and are allegedly up 100 percent over September 2006's 5 billion mark. We love it, so congrats Verizon typists, keep sending those missives of love, drink invites, and requests to walk dogs and we'll see if we can best that record in another few months.

[Via textually.org]

Leave it to the Japanese to be at the forefront of having the latest bleeding edge service for their customers. In the United States, we're lucky to get a calorie count of our meal when we go to our favorite restaurants. In Japan, though, all they'll need to do is snap a picture message of their meal and send it the Public Health Offices in Osaka, and ta-da -- the calorie count is give to you. Albeit, it's three days after you ate. Not exactly real-time, but at least you'll how bad you were to your body a few days back..

[Via Slashphone]

The unlimited text, picture, and video messaging that Verizon customers on plain-vanilla plans have enjoyed for a few weeks now is moving on to spread its love to other segments of the market. Push-to-talk plans are next, with unlimited messaging running $20 above and beyond the standard plan cost -- a tad steep, yes, although it includes messaging on any network. With the new feature, individual PTT plans start at $70.

What a better way to tell Mommy you care than with a 160-character greeting on her celly? Okay, okay, there might be a few ways, but we appreciate T-Mobile's effort nonetheless. The carrier will be offering unlimited free messaging for the entirety of Mother's Day (that's this Sunday, May 13, for the forgetful children among us), giving us all one fewer excuse to give a shout out to our mothers on their most special of days. Break out those textin' thumbs, folks!

[Thanks, Raymond]

It doesn't seem too useful at first glance, but imagine being able to text your mates with a simple "I'm here" to get your point across. Especially on a device with a numeric keypad, busting out an SMS with crossroads or landmarks can suck since predictive text systems aren't terribly skilled with proper nouns. Korea's KTF has launched what it calls "location-tracking MMS," allowing users to automatically attach zoomed in maps of their present location to outgoing multimedia messages. The carrier is also shopping around the feature for emergency use, since it's a quick and easy way for a subscriber to communicate their coordinates to rescue personnel (a la e911). With accuracy to within about 500 meters, though, you better deploy a big ol' group of rescuers.

If you're in England's public school system, that pervasive and addictive SMSing between you and your buddies, girlfriends or even enemies may get you in trouble even if you are prone to being able and text ever so discreetly. Adroit Global Technology has developed (and is selling) a new device that detects cellphones hidden on kids' clothes, packs or anywhere else on the body so that instructors can rid the classroom environment of those bothersome texting devices. Each of these "cellphone detector" devices costs £150 (about $290) and the company has so far sold them to more than 20 schools in Britain. British school authorities by law can't block cellphone transmissions, but this is totally legal -- and since text cheating and other nefarious uses of SMS can change exam grades, we suspect this is going to be a pretty popular device in the headmaster crowd.

[Via textually.org]

We kind of get a kick out of possible laws that have to spell out common sense to people lacking it, so we chuckled a bit when we saw that legislators in Oregon and Washington want to pass laws against DWT, or "Driving While Texting." To those that just can't enjoy the peaceful gridlock of that daily commute, better not whip out that handset or even the beloved BlackBerry and start sending SMSs, emails, or whatever your own text-based poison may be. Considering how many distractions already plague drivers in modern vehicles, we suggest just a fave DAP with a preset playlist and leave it at that, eh?

Note to self: don't ever send an email or text message that you would not want to defend in court. Apparently, that imaginary legal and mental procedure was lost on an Oklahoma resident last year and now a Kentucky middle school teacher has similarly mis-texted. Ann Greenfield, 34, wanted to get her paws on some Mary Jane but sent a text message not to her dealer -- but to a Kentucky state trooper by accident. A mass o' cops was waiting for her when when arrived to meet up with her "dealer." We suspect this middle school teacher will probably set up a phone contact in her cellphone next time to avoid a rather embarrassing mistake -- or maybe she'll ditch the habit entirely.

[Via Gearlog]

Would'ja believe that you could get used to doing all that thumb-texting if your cellphone's keypad was placed above the main display? We're not sure how a patent could be filed on a handset design that places the keypad at the top and the display at the bottom, but it's been done apparently. Umm, would having part of your palm obscure the display while you would be slamming out those T9 words to your buddies or significant other? We're not sure -- but perhaps we'll see the upside down phone design soon. Or not.

[via Textually.org]