Text Messages -- Engadget Mobile

text messages posts

kwiry adds TiVo scheduling, social networking support

by Darren Murph posted Jan 14th 2009 @ 2:20PM

kwiry's been helping texters remember things for well over a year, and now it's about to help them schedule TiVo recordings and update their Facebook / Twitter statuses. A few new kwiry shortcuts have been announced to make the lives of text messaging fiends more enjoyable, with a one-time account link between your handset and your TiVo Series2 / Series3 enabling a "tivo 30 Rock" SMS to trigger that very action. Additionally, users can now tap into Yelp and email contact information on the go, and as always, the service is completely free to end users. Hear that? Free.

[Via CNET]

O2 sees a record 166 million text messages fly during New Year's celebration

by Darren Murph posted Jan 3rd 2009 @ 5:07PM

If Americans really send twice as many text messages as Europeans, we'd hate to see the figures from the Big 4 here in the States. According to O2 UK, a record 166 million text messages were sent over its network in a 24-hour period that ended at 7:30AM on January 1, 2009. For those not exactly near their abacus, that breaks down to around 1,900 messages per second. Furthermore, over 16 million texts were saved by O2 subscribers using its own Bluebook backup service, though we can't imagine "HNY09!one1!1" messages being all that compelling to revisit, say, every day after 01/01/09.

[Image courtesy of Israelity]

The obvious truth about text messaging: you're getting ripped off

by Darren Murph posted Dec 28th 2008 @ 9:58PM

C'mon folks, does it really take an in-depth research study to figure this one out? On the whole, per-use SMS rates have doubled from $0.10 to $0.20 in the span of three years, and carriers have shown no shame in pushing messaging packs (the "unlimited" one in particular) in an effort to snag more revenue per user. We already knew that Senator Herb Kohl was looking into the matter, and a new piece in The New York Times clearly explains just how lucrative these bite-sized messages are for carriers. We're told that most consumers simply assume that it's costing operators more each year as the volume of texts sent increases; according to University of Waterloo professor Srinivasan Keshav, "it doesn't cost the carrier much more to transmit a hundred million messages than a million." You see, SMS messages are elusively hidden within the so-called "control channel," which is space already reserved for the operation of the wireless network. So long as messages are kept concise (say, 160 characters or less), they can be sent without any real implication on the channel. Will this epiphany somehow change the way we're being gouged? Tough to say, but don't think for a second that carriers won't figure out another way to nickle-and-dime you if the hand is forced.

[Thanks, Jeevan]

Group Messaging / Presence to keep your messaging sessions rich

by Darren Murph posted Dec 22nd 2008 @ 1:08PM

Not sure if you've noticed, but text / video messaging has remained fairly constant while web browsing, multimedia playback and navigation applications have all steadily improved. Thankfully, The Wireless Association and its awesomely named Enhanced Messaging Action Team has a thing or two to say about that. The group has just released its Final Set of Use Cases and Call Flows for the development of Enhanced Messaging solutions, which have reportedly been agreed to by every major US carrier. This provides said carriers with "a complete set of the tools and information" that they can use to develop interoperable Enhanced Messaging products, enabling both Group Messaging and Presence functionality. The former enables "multiple users to interact with text based communication on their mobile devices, as well as support multimedia files in group communications," while the entire Enhanced Messaging platform is said to be "a presence-enabled mobile messaging service that allows for richer real-time text messaging and communications than traditional mobile messaging." Hard to say when any meaningful developments beyond this will occur, but we're clearly just years away from SMS telepathy.

[Image courtesy of Cast-Online]

British surgeon saves life by obeying SMS instructions

by Darren Murph posted Dec 10th 2008 @ 12:11AM

Not that we haven't seen text messaging save a life before, but this situation was clearly more intense than anything we've heard of in the past. British vascular surgeon David Nott was volunteering in the Democratic Republic of the Congo when faced with a 16-year-old boy that had "his left arm ripped off." With the knowledge that it was "badly infected and gangrenous," he relied on SMS instructions from a colleague in England in order to perform a forequarter amputation. Out of respect for your stomach, we'll spare you the details (believe us, plenty are in the read link), but the end result was that the boy was able to survive thanks to the text-based how-to guide. Who says messaging has no practical purpose?

[Via textually]

Verizon could charge content aggregators 3-cents per text message

by Darren Murph posted Oct 13th 2008 @ 7:08PM

Whoa, boy, this could get ugly. A few days back, a notice was revealed to the public that explained Verizon Wireless' new $0.03 fee that would be charged to all content aggregators who sent out mobile terminated messages on its network. After the expected backlash hit, the carrier then issued another statement informing us all that the note was simply an internal memo that was meant for internal discussions alone, but that doesn't change the fact that it's at least considering the plan. Of course, it would only affect for-profit aggregators, but still, imposing such a fee could certainly shake the foundation of that sector -- particularly if other carriers follow suit. And you know how other carriers love to follow suit, now don't you?

Read - Original memo
Read - Response to memo

Timberland and GSI cough up $7 million to settle text spam lawsuit

by Darren Murph posted Sep 23rd 2008 @ 9:15AM

Not that we haven't seen victories over SMS spammers before, but this one is sure catching a lot of attention due to the names attached. GSI Commerce and Timberland have reportedly agreed to "establish a fund of up to $7 million to settle a class-action lawsuit brought against them for allegedly sending unsolicited text messages to wireless telephone users in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act." The settlement has already received preliminary approval from a judge in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division, and while the aforementioned firms vehemently deny any wrongdoing, they concede that taking this to court would be "burdensome, protracted and expensive." More expensive than $7 million? Is that guilt we smell, or what?

[Via mocoNews]

Avidyne's MLX770 provides pilots with two-way text messaging support

by Darren Murph posted Sep 2nd 2008 @ 8:29AM

It's not that texting from planes is currently impossible, it's just not terribly reliable. Thanks to Avidyne's Q4-bound MLX770, however, all that is about to change. The two-way datalink receiver will not only enable pilots to have access to the radar mosaic for most of the world along with weather conditions, but it will add support for text messaging right from the MFD. And we're not talking about CPLDC -- we're talking bona fide SMS. To keep pilots from chatting away too much unnecessarily, the system will limit messages to 32 characters, and beyond that, each message sent will run between $1 and $2. And to think, we actually have the nerve to gripe about $0.20 texts...

[Via FlightGlobal]

Verizon prepaid customers get new messaging plan

by Darren Murph posted Jul 11th 2008 @ 2:59PM

Heads-up, INpulse users! Okay, sorry for calling you out like that, but Verizon Wireless has a new messaging plan on the horizon that may please those of you texting your bill straight to absurdity. Beginning on July 14th, VZW prepaid customers can choose to get unlimited text, picture and video messaging to all other Verizon customers nationwide in addition to 250 messages to anyone else for $10 per month. Huzzah?

[Via phoneArena]

82% of America never uses text messaging

by Darren Murph posted Jul 7th 2008 @ 6:18PM

While there has been quite the kerfuffle about banning texting while driving and educating Australian youngsters on text speak, a new survey shows that the vast majority of us haven't even sent a single SMS. Research firm Ipsos MediaCT polled individuals in a variety of countries and came to one general conclusion: If folks are using SMS, "they're using it frequently." On the flip-side, those who aren't savvy with text messaging aren't apt to just dabble in it. For instance, 82% of respondents in America said "that they never used text messaging, while 3% said that they used it monthly or less" and 15% reported using it "every week or even more. Who knows what that figure would be if carriers stopping charging an arm and a leg for per-use messaging.

[Via Textually, image courtesy of ugo]

Survey finds 37% of Gen Y-ers text while driving

by Darren Murph posted May 2nd 2008 @ 3:26PM

Oh sure, Americans are adamantly against texting while driving (in theory), but that's not stopping those mischievous Gen Y-ers from getting their SMS on while behind the wheel. According to a new survey of 1,200 people conducted by Nationwide Mutual Insurance (we know, we know), a third of the Gen Y-ers admitted to "always multitasking while driving," and while the "always" bit does indeed frighten us a tad, the real juice was in the next statistic: 37-percent said they sent text messages while driving. Before you start belaboring the imprudent youth, think long and hard about your own in-car cellphone usage -- remember that time you just had to reply "y w pep plz" in order to salvage your friend's pizza order? Tsk tsk.

[Via About]

Would you elect the president via text message? 61 percent say 'Y'

by Joshua Topolsky posted Apr 21st 2008 @ 3:55PM

According to a recent, sensational survey from Samsung Mobile, 61 percent of lazy, distracted, and impossibly ignorant cellphone users over the age 18 say they would be comfortable casting their vote for President of the United States via a text message. Meanwhile, the totally serious and meaningful survey found that eight in ten (or 80 percent) of teens under the legal voting age would use their mobile devices to cast a ballot in the election. Additionally, Samsung Mobile discovered that 90 percent of cellphone users would like an ice cream cone, while another 87 percent would like an ice cream cone only after eating a quarter-pounder with cheese. Soon Samsung Mobile hopes to determine what percentage, if any, of the people surveyed know who is running for the office of president.

Texting generation carrying spelling habits to birth certificates?

by Darren Murph posted Mar 7th 2008 @ 10:25AM

It's bad enough when exams have to cater to horrific spellers due to their SMS-based vocabulary, but we're doing everything we can to make ourselves believe this latest report simply isn't true. Reportedly, a social analyst in Australia somehow believes that the wide range in spellings in a few popular names is due in large part to the fact that we spend way too much time as a whole conjugating and hyphenating in order to get text-based messages across. Said analyst was even quoted as saying that "the use of a 'y' instead of an 'i' has hit epidemic proportions, as has the use of 'k' over 'c'." Realistically, we're not about to believe the SMS craze is actually affecting children's names en masse, but please, do your next born a favor and give him / her the vowels they deserve.

[Via textually]

Finland's roadside toilets: now accessible only by SMS

by Darren Murph posted Feb 5th 2008 @ 1:05PM

While those in London can use SMS to actually find a lavatory, folks passing through Western Finland will be required to bust out their handset in order to relieve themselves in select public restrooms. In an attempt to curb vandalism, the Finnish Road Administration has implemented a system along Highway 1 which requires restroom visitors to text "Open" (in Finnish, of course) in order to let themselves in. The idea is that folks will be less likely to lose their mind and graffiti up the place knowing that their mobile number is (at least temporarily) on file, but it remains to be seen if uprooters will simply take their defacing ways elsewhere or actually excrete in peace.

[Via Switched]

Cellphone bill on the rise? Check your SMS charges

by Joshua Topolsky posted Jan 23rd 2008 @ 8:35AM

If you've been paying attention to mobile carriers' SMS pricing lately (and something tells us you haven't) you'd be surprised to discover a fairly disturbing trend amongst providers: price hikes. Over the past year or so, nearly every major carrier in the US has raised their per-price cost of SMS messages, with Verizon and Sprint jacking up the fee from $0.15 to $0.20 a message, and AT&T and T-Mobile adding another nickel to their $0.10 charge. Of course, this trend of rising prices accompanies a major spike in the use of text messages amongst customers, with some surveys marking a 130-percent jump over SMS use since June 2006 -- and telcos are taking it to the bank. What's most insidious about the inflated costs is the fact that SMS data is particularly low-bandwidth, and analysts say that the price increases aren't related to higher operating costs -- these companies are simply gouging customers for a service which they have embraced. Companies say the hikes are meant to encourage customers to go for more expensive "bundles," though we're confident they won't mention it when your Mom uses more messages than her plan allows and unwittingly pays a few extra bucks on her bill -- that stuff adds up, you know?