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Filed under: Cellphones

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]

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Source: Darren Murph

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Filed under: Cellphones

Apparently, law enforcement is seriously stepping into the 21st century. According to a report, police dep artments in Boston, Cincinnati and over 100 other communities have begun using a text message tip-line in the hopes that cellphone-savvy youngsters will alert them if they see a crime being committed, or know of one ahead of time. “It’s obvious that the future of communication is texting,” said Boston Police Crime Stoppers commander (and techno-visionary) Michael Charbonnier, adding that the department’s system as yielded, “Some great drug information, specific times, dates, names of suspects, locations, pickup times, [and] license plate numbers.” The only roadblock? Getting cops to understand that OMG doesn’t refer to a terrorist attack.

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Source: Joshua Topolsky

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Filed under: Cellphones

As expected, the FCC today approved plans to roll out a nationwide SMS-based alert system, which is now all but certain to be adopted by all four national carries, and no doubt most regional carriers as well. As CNN reports, under the new plan, the FCC will appoint a federal agency tasked with creating the messages, which will in turn be passed on to participating carriers (which will have ten months to comply with the system once the agency is named). Those messages will be limited to one of three categories of emergencies, including disasters like a terrorist attack, ongoing threats like hurricanes or earthquakes, or child abductions or amber alerts. Also as we had heard before, individuals will be able to opt out of the system if they so desire, and carriers will be required to provide distinct vibration and audio alert options for people with disabilities.

[Thanks, Ron]

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Source: Donald Melanson

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Filed under: Cellphones

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]

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Source: Darren Murph

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Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Considering the plethora of facilities that have opened just in the past few years to deal solely with individuals that have become undoubtedly addicted to video games, the internet and all things Hello Kitty (we jest, we jest), we’re not surprised one iota to hear that uncontrollably texting / e-mailing could soon become “classified as an official brain illness.” According to a writeup in the latest American Journal of Psychiatry, internet addiction is a common ailment “that should be added to psychiatry’s official guidebook of mental disorders.” More specifically, Dr. Jerald Block, a psychiatrist at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, even goes so far as to argue that said phenomenon (neglecting basic drives to spend more time online) be “included in the [next edition of] Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, psychiatry’s official dictionary of mental illnesses.” Until then, we wish you the best of luck convincing that creature living in your basement with a dedicated T1 line that he / she isn’t alright.

[Via textually]

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Source: Darren Murph

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Filed under: Cellphones

digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/odd_stuff/Finnish_toilets_text_to_pee’; 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]

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Source: Darren Murph

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Filed under: Cellphones

We’d heard that the iPhone 1.1.3 update was causing major problems with SMS message order, but a new support doc up on Apple’s site points to a relatively simple fix: turning on automatic date / time updates. Apparently the problem is caused when the internal clock doesn’t match up to the carrier clock — which seems like it’ll be a continuing annoyance for frequent travelers, so hopefully a better solution is in the works.

[Thanks, Dan]

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Source: Nilay Patel

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Filed under: Cellphones

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?

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Source: Joshua Topolsky

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