Just a little over a year after going to 15 cents per message, T-Mobile's at it again, bumping the rate to 20 cents for those who go over their monthly allotment. For anyone with an unlimited messaging plan, it's obviously not an issue -- but many folks aren't, so this could end up stinging the pocketbook just a bit when it goes in effect come August 29. For what it's worth, T-Mob just seems to be responding to the 20 cent trend that's going on in the industry right now -- but it still hurts something fierce, and it's a pretty solid reminder that even casual texters are better off on a legit messaging plan these days.

[Thanks, Ryan J. and Mike]

This ain't your grandpappy's My Circle. Well, actually, it pretty much is, with one small change: customers signing up for a My Circle messaging plan of $7.99 or higher on Alltel will now get unlimited messaging within their Circle, while the non-Circle bucket starts at 400 per month. The $19.99 "All Access Pass" is still available too, which rocks unlimited messaging to everyone regardless of whether they're cool enough to be in your Circle -- and it includes mobile web access, to boot. The new plans are available immediately.

Fiddlesticks, did you just leave your precious iPhone in the bathroom of that gas station back there? Why yes, we're pretty sure you did! If you're looking to verify that with a little more certainty, though, Navizon has just the answer. The company -- already no stranger to positioning apps for the iPhone -- has released its "Mobfindr" feature which allows you to text a key phrase to your beloved companion and have it reply with its current location. Great for finding a lost or recently-stolen phone, tracking children, or perhaps for tracking man's best friend should you decide to strap an iPhone to him in lieu of a Garmin DC 30. The feature's currently available exclusively for the iPhone, but Navizon expects BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and S60 versions in the near future. Follow the break for a look at Mobfindr getting its track on.

So we caught wind yesterday of rumors that T-Mobile was planning to offer several comprehensive levels of text and call blocking this summer, offering super-granular control over who exactly can reach your beloved handset. Options would include per-number blocking, SMS, MMS, IM, and email on an individual basis -- only free messages would still be unblockable. We contacted T-Mobile directly and got the following response: "We are working on a service we plan to launch this summer that would enable customers to block text messages (beyond what is available today)...stay tuned." In other words, yeah, it sounds like there are some more advanced options on the way. That's good news for us -- and bad news for our stalkers.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

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]

Although AT&T has had a specialized plan for the deaf and hard of hearing for some time now, the iPhone has been unfortunately unable to take advantage. No longer will that be the case, as said carrier has just implemented the Text Accessibility Plan for iPhone, which provides unlimited texting, unlimited data usage, $0.40 per minute pay-per-use voice and Visual Voicemail. Granted, the iPhone TAP does cost $40 ($10 more than the vanilla TAP), but you are getting limitless texts (versus 5,000) and Visual Voicemail thrown in -- not that those inclusions really warrant the extra Hamilton. Nevertheless, those with adequate documentation can get their iPhone on the plan right now, just click the read link for details / instructions.

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.

The hot new smartphone plan might be the big news out of Verizon so far this week, but riding those coattails are a series of interesting new messaging offerings as well. The plans are targeted squarely at folks who put a bigger emphasis on text allowances than they do on voice minutes, and have allegedly been willed into existence as a direct result of customer feedback. Actually, you don't even need any voice plan at all to make these bad boys happen on your bill. So-called "consumer devices" get dinged for $34.99 a month (mobile email's an extra $5 here) while owners of BlackBerrys and PDA / smartphone class devices pay $54.99, getting in return an unlimited dosage of messaging and on-device data usage; calls run 40 and 25 cents per minute, respectively. If you let your thumbs do 90 percent of the talking on a daily basis, this might just be your hook-up.

[Via Phone Scoop]

If you thought sending a SMS in order to gain entry into a public bathroom was on the weird side, get a load of this. An outlandish campaign sparked up in the UK has been sending out weekly text messages to parents in order to remind them of the need to check for head lice on their youngsters. Cleverly coined Beat the Bugs, the program led to the discovery of six cases of lice, and when polling participants at the end of the term, the majority stated that they felt more aware about treatment / prevention and that they were now checking their kids' heads at least once per week. We can hear it now: "C'mon Jimmy, time for me to look through your locks for any critters!" "Ah, bugger."

[Via Switched, image courtesy of Interior Health]

Carriers usually don't store text messages these days -- or, at the very least, they're smart enough to claim that they don't, or barring even that, they're trying to move away from storing 'em. In a society that values what little privacy it has left, we figure that coming out and telling your customers that their most intimate 160-character communiques are being locked away ad infinitum on some hard drive in a windowless tower somewhere is a recipe for backlash. Indeed, Vodafone's Kiwi outpost doesn't keep texts any longer than it has to, and New Zealand Telecom has said that it'll stop before the end of the year, but the local police have a different idea in mind. Authorities say that they want the ability to sift through messages, and that it won't be a privacy concern because they'll only get down to business after having obtained the proper warrant. That's all well and good, and we can sorta see where the cops are coming from here, except that means carriers are still going to be required to persist the SMSes to begin with -- a privacy concern in itself. The sitch is shaping up to be a bit of a deadlock, though the government is hoping everyone can come to terms without legislation being required. We're not counting on it.

[Via textually.org]

SpinVox has made quite a stink over the past few months with its voicemail-to-text tech, launching on several carriers globally in addition to offering service direct to end users. Okay, so now that that trick's played out, what's next? The British firm's new BlackBerry plug-in takes the concept to the next level by automatically linking incoming translated voicemails to contacts in the phone's address book, making it a snap to reply to the message via text or email. Admittedly, it'd freak us out if we left someone a message and got a reply via email within a few minutes with a transcription of our own voicemail attached at the bottom, but hey, that's the brave new world we live in. The plug-in will run users £5 (about $10) per year on top of their normal SpinVox fees.

[Via MobileBurn]

Callers, your worst nightmare is coming true... maybe. According to a report, a group of hackers at the Black Hat conference in Washington D.C. claim that they're able to hack GSM calls with equipment costing about $1,000. If you believe the team (and we're inclined to at least have a listen), they can decrypt GSM phone conversations and text messages on a network using inexpensive tools called field programmable gate arrays. Until now, the cost of the technology required to hack GSM transmissions has been prohibitively expensive for all but your government and large-scale snooping operations, but that's beginning to change. Not only can this technique allow access to calls, but some of the tech demonstrated at the conference might also enable a user to pinpoint a phone's distance from the surveillance hardware, and find out what type of device is being used. There was no mention of CDMA hacking, so you might want to move over to Sprint for all your seedy activities. Er, we mean stay on Sprint.

Sprint doesn't get all the buggy, texty fun anymore. Following a preorder announcement last month, the LG Rumor has gone and morphed into the LG Scoop for Alltel in three QWERTY-licious colors: Slate, Turquoise, and Citrus. Unlike the Rumor, the Scoop features Alltel's Celltop app for rocking out with various widgets of information on the phone's home screen; otherwise, you get a 1.3 megapixel camera, microSD expansion, music player, Bluetooth, and that fancy slide-out keyboard for SMSing yourself right into oblivion. Grab it now for a shade under $60 on contract after rebates.

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]

Alternately known as texting tenosynovitis, BlackBerry thumb, text messager's thumb, or simply "ow ow ow ow" as you bang out your next SMS, texter's thumb is no laughing matter for afflicted individuals. A 20 year old Kiwi is the latest to be diagnosed with the painful ailment, brought about in no small part by her 100 message per day texting habit. Though there have apparently been only three cases officially diagnosed worldwide, the authors of the case report believe it's likely that many cases go undiagnosed given the overwhelming popularity of SMS worldwide. No bother; it's nothing a little BlackBerry Balm couldn't smooth right over, we imagine.

[Via textually.org]