Texting -- Engadget

texting posts

HTC Hero having intermittent text messaging problems?

by Donald Melanson posted Oct 26th 2009 at 3:38PM

There's not exactly much in the way of official statements on the matter just yet, but it looks like support forums have been piling up with reports of text messaging problems on the HTC Hero over the past few weeks, and with no signs of a fix in sight. Apparently, the phone can send texts just fine, but runs into a little trouble when it comes to receiving 'em, with most folks reporting only intermittent problems, and at least some not receiving any at all. Interestingly, the problem seems to be occurring in both the US and the UK, so it would seem to be a problem on the phone's end and not the carrier's, and a few people seem to have had some (brief) success after resetting the device. Of course, there are also plenty of folks having no problems at all, but there doesn't seem to be any question that the issue is out there. So, have you been missing some texts on your Hero? Let us know in comments.

Tata DoCoMo launches per-character SMS pricing, and this headline just cost us close to a rupee

by Chris Ziegler posted Sep 10th 2009 at 7:36AM

Never mind "nickel and diming" -- Indian joint venture Tata DoCoMo is now rupee and paising (a paise is a hundredth of a rupee) customers who sign up for its new "Diet-SMS" messaging plan. Unlimited and ultra-high-allowance messaging plans are now commonplace in some parts of the world, but on the other end of the spectrum, Diet-SMS is actually a regression from the old practice of charging by the message -- you get charged by the character. The good news is they don't charge for spaces and characters are just a single paise each, which works out to about two-hundredths of a US cent at current conversion rates -- but still, the fact remains that a 160-character SMS costs Tata DoCoMo exactly the same to handle as a 1-character one. What's worse, you just know this is going to give rise to a new ultra-efficient shorthand notation that makes "LOL" look like a novella.

[Via textually.org]

To proceed another five miles, TXT 'DESIGN FLAW' to your Reva electric car

by Tim Stevens posted Sep 9th 2009 at 9:02PM

Not long ago a motorcycle with a fuel gauge was basically unheard of and even "low fuel" idiot lights were rare. Riders used advanced (and generally inaccurate) mathematics to calculate remaining mileage and, when the engine inevitably sputtered, switched over to a reserve tank that would let them nervously motor along a few more miles. Reva, an Indian company set to start shipping electric cars next year, plans to resurrect that most irritating sequence of events in their two-door NXR -- albeit with a modern spin. Now, instead of reaching down and turning a dial to get to that precious extra juice, drivers will need to call or text Reva HQ. Some overworked customer service agent will then remotely activate the "reserve battery," which surely doesn't even exist, to give a bit of extra range. We pity the fool who runs out of charge somewhere outside of cell range, but not quite as much as the designer who pitched this terrible idea.

Wales produces exceptionally graphic, educational film about the dangers of texting while driving

by Laura June posted Aug 16th 2009 at 7:59PM

Alright, texting while driving? Obviously stupid -- but that doesn't stop tons and tons of people from doing it. The Gwent Police department in Wales hopes that its newest PSA film will help deter this bad behavior. In much the same spirit as the drunk driving on prom night films we ourselves had to sit thorough in high school, this film is pretty graphic. Okay, it's actually shockingly graphic -- but we're pretty sure that's the idea. Video is after the break.

[Via Gizmodo]

Continue reading Wales produces exceptionally graphic, educational film about the dangers of texting while driving

Texting makes kids dumb -- science fact!

by Vladislav Savov posted Aug 13th 2009 at 2:03AM

Ready for your daily dose of wildly speculative extrapolation and unfounded fear-mongering? Predictive texting is the latest suspect in the ongoing war against things that make children dumb. A new study from Australia's Monash University has shown that predictive texters finish their exams faster and with more errors than others, because of course, when your mobile finishes your words in a text, you expect it to finish your sentences in a test. We jest, and there may be a sliver of truth to this contention, but let's be forthright here -- you could probably do more damage to your brain with a good night's alcohol intake than you can with a lifetime of texting.

[Via Switched]

Iowa 911 call center now accepting texts; Twitter and Facebook status updates can't be far behind

by Joseph L. Flatley posted Aug 6th 2009 at 7:07PM

As of this week, callers can now text their requests for fire, police, or ambulance, to the emergency call center in Black Hawk County, Iowa -- both a nationwide first and a definite improvement for deaf and hard-of-hearing residents who have thus far had to rely on TDD devices. Unlike voice calls, however, the 911 operator can't get your location from a text message, meaning that the caller must first respond to a request for their city or zip code before the call gets routed. Currently, only i wireless subscribers (a local carrier affiliated with T-Mobile) can use the service, but plans are afoot to bring other carriers on board as well. Other future upgrades include the ability to accept video and picture messages. All the operators ask is that you refrain from sending them those silly chain text messages -- that sort of thing can be really distracting when you're busy saving lives.

ATX In-Vehicle Text-by-Voice reduces the subtleties of your chatter to cold, hard SMS

by Vladislav Savov posted Aug 3rd 2009 at 12:48PM

ATX, a major but rarely heard-of telematics supplier, has become the first to offer full handsfree text messaging. While the Ford Sync already allows the sending of pre-canned missives by voice command, this new system transcribes your messages and is fully voice-operated, freeing both hands for driving. Given the forthcoming ban on regular old button mashing, you could probably do worse than grabbing one of these and continuing your bad habits. It won't be easy though, as ATX doesn't offer retrofits and market leader OnStar has said it won't be offering a competing product, leaving you to choose from among the upcoming models by Toyota, Lexus, BMW, Peugeot, Mercedes, Maybach and Rolls-Royce. Maybe we're just jaded, but we'd rather engage in the lost art of talking to people on our good old Gordon Gekko-styled carphone.

[Via Dallas Observer]

Senators to introduce legislation banning texting while driving

by Donald Melanson posted Jul 29th 2009 at 11:51AM

It's already been banned by a number of states and the District of Columbia, but a group of Democratic senators led by New York's Charles Schumer are now set to introduce legislation that would ban texting while driving throughout the United States. That, as you may be aware if you've been watching the news this past week, follows a study from the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, which found that truck drivers that texted while driving were 23 times more likely to get into an accident than non-texters -- to say nothing of several calls for a ban from major safety groups over the years. While complete details on the proposed bill are still a bit light, it would apparently withhold 25% of the annual federal highway funding from states that did not comply with the ban, and would reportedly be modeled on the way the national drunken driving ban was introduced.

[Via Phone Scoop]

Apple dreaming of object identification, new messaging UI in iPhone OS patent

by Darren Murph posted Jul 9th 2009 at 12:29PM

Seriously Apple, what's up with the patent application bender? Over the past week, we've seen a whole gaggle of new apps, though the latest few just might be the most intriguing. In essence, Apple engineers have outlined plans to integrate object recognition, face detection / recognition, a text message filter (for the parents, you know) and a new, smarter messaging interface that could remind you of unread messages before allowing you to make a call and spout off unnecessarily. Moreover, we're told of a new voice output selection that could enable Oprah or Cookie Monster to read your turn-by-turn directions, bedtime stories or recipes. Suddenly, iPhone OS 3.0 feels so... antediluvian.

[Via Unwired View]

Read - Unread messages application
Read - New messaging interface application
Read - Face detection application

Apple patching nasty iPhone SMS vulnerability

by Darren Murph posted Jul 2nd 2009 at 1:01PM

Given the hype surrounding Apple's iPhone, we're actually surprised that we haven't seen more holes to plug over the years. In fact, the last major iPhone exploit to take the world by storm happened right around this time two years ago, and now -- thanks to OS X security expert Charlie Miller -- we're seeing yet another come to light. Over at the SyScan conference in Singapore, Mr. Miller disclosed a hole that would let attackers "run software code on the phone that is sent by SMS over a mobile operator's network in order to monitor the location of the phone using GPS, turn on the phone's microphone to eavesdrop on conversations, or make the phone join a distributed denial of service attack or a botnet." Charlie's planning to detail the vulnerability in full at the upcoming Black Hat conference, but Apple's hoping to have it all patched up by the end of this month.

[Via HotHardware]

Boost Mobile says SMS bottleneck to clear up by May 7th

by Ross Miller posted May 4th 2009 at 6:21PM

So Boost Mobile's $50 per month free for all hasn't gone exactly as planned, with a surge in the carrier's customer base exacerbating excessive text message delays that have been known to plague Boost and Nextel in the past. The house of "Where You At" has acknowledged the issue, with spokesperson John Votava telling the Wall Street Journal there'll be a fix in place specifically by May 7th. He said the number of new customers that have signed up has overwhelmed the company, and with SMS a still growing trend, that iDEN network's gonna have to either get in better shape or wait for enough frustrated customers to leave and reach a more stable equilibrium.

Texting goes to hell in a handbasket on Boost; Seidenberg vindicated?

by Chris Ziegler posted May 1st 2009 at 6:07PM

The knee-jerk reaction to Verizon chief Ivan Seidenberg's recent inflammatory interview -- saying he doesn't know "what Sprint thinks it is" in response to Boost's blowout $50 all-you-can-eat calling and texting plan -- was to call him out for slamming competition (because, let's be real, no one likes executives hating on affordable stuff). His belief was that Sprint simply didn't have the network capacity to support a plan priced that aggressively because it'd bring too many new subscribers on board, and drama over on the iDEN airwaves suggests he may not have been too far off the mark. Boost resellers and customers alike are apparently experiencing insane text messaging delays -- sometimes several hours' worth between sending and receiving -- that are rendering the service useless, and while voice and push-to-talk are still said to be performing flawlessly, a strong swing toward messaging in the past 18 months across all US carriers (along with the upcoming launch of the Clutch) puts the spotlight squarely on the problem.

Texting has never been iDEN's strong suit; it's simply not what the network was originally built to do, and when we approached Boost about this at CTIA earlier this year, we were told that the situation was under control. A company spokesperson says that they're working around the clock to get the delays resolved and expect to have it smoothed out by next week -- but with the $50 plan continuing to win conquest subscribers hand over fist and a network that's being stressed in ways it's never been stressed before, we have to wonder: is this every going to be fully resolved? Even more importantly, though, with Boost's pricing undercutting its national-level competition by a country mile, do they even have to fully resolve it to keep customers on board?

[Via mocoNews]

Mobile technology even makes 20-somethings shudder... sometimes

by Darren Murph posted Mar 26th 2009 at 9:33PM

We'll go ahead and warn you that a lot has changed since 2007, but if anything, the surge in Twitter users and the overwhelming growth in social networking would likely strengthen these findings. The Pew Internet and American Life Project has just revealed some rather interesting stats from its study of age groups and their connection to mobile technology, particularly when looking at the "Ambivalent Networkers" group. Said clump is comprised mostly of males in their late 20s, which are stereotypically connected to their handsets at all times with a smile to go with it. According to the research, however, the majority of this group agreed that "taking a break is definitely a good idea," which was around ten percentage points above the average in the other four groups. We know you're about to tweet this to your 27 year old brother-in-law, but think twice before you knowingly hurt his soul like that.

[Via ArsTechnica]

MMS finally comes to Apple's iPhone 3G via OS 3.0

by Darren Murph posted Mar 17th 2009 at 12:51PM

Apple's done a decent job of implementing features that we've all been clamoring for into its forthcoming OS 3.0, and aside from copy and paste, there's probably no one single feature add bigger than this. You heard right -- multimedia messaging (MMS) is at long last coming to the iPhone 3G (sorry, first-gen iPhone owners) after years of dealing strictly with SMS. During the keynote, Apple was ~~pretty~~ remarkably short with details, simply noting that MMS "support" would be added. Frankly, we don't expect anything mind-blowing; it'll probably look a lot like the current SMS setup, and it'll definitely make AT&T happy when you start firing away picture messages without first subscribing to an unlimited messaging plan.

Update: Apple's official PR on the subject has given us just a bit more to chew on. We're told that MMS will enable iPhone 3G users to "send and receive photos, contacts, audio files and locations with the Messages app," hinting that Apple may just smash MMS and SMS together into a single 'Messages' app in OS 3.0. Also of note, owners will also be able to "forward and delete multiple messages."

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

by Darren Murph posted Dec 28th 2008 at 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]