SMS Weblogs / Textually / 2004 / 01

I am not sure how old this is, but sounds recent: Vodafone has developed a funky flash site, called "Vodafone Future Vision" which outlines what it envisions as the future of mobile communications, and indeed, mobile lif

In another presentation at the "Delivering Mobile Adult Content Responsibly" conference yesterday in London, Angus Cormie, head of portals at UK operator O2, gave some interesting figures on some research the company had done late last year:-- 90 percent of mobile owners claim they are definitely or probably unwilling to trial mobile adult service

I was at the "Delivering Mobile Adult Content Responsibly" conference yesterday in Londo

A new French novel claims to be the first one to be written entirely in SMS slang, with an anti-smoking story aimed at teenagers, reports AFP (via TechDirt

The latest Wired magazine has an interesting tidbit on flirting via texting, in British bar

And as a result of a complain from the French prime minister's office, Orange France has launched two new SMS pricing plans that can cut the price consumers pay by 50 percent, reports 160 Character

A UK company has launched the concept of mobile domain names, and hopes that it will spur the same revolution that cheap domain names did in the late 90s, reports New Media Ag

You've probably heard of voting for "American Idol" contestants via SMS, and how big of a success that was in

That's what Malaysian academic authorities think, at leas

Freever, a European SMS content provider has just released a survey (PDF file) that shows Brits in a pretty poor light: cowardly, careless and sneak

This is scary, straight out of some Bond movie: Cell-phone guns have become a security threat at airports in

I'm at Cannes this weekend, at Midem music conferenc

Funny this: The Norwegian royalty used SMS to announce the birth of a baby girl to the Queen of Norwa

Well, it's official, British are getting the texting thumb: about 20 billion texts were send in 2003 in UK, according to Mobile Data Association, reports Guardia

All you Matrix lovers, even ones in rush-hour traffi

So the cell phone has finally overtaken the television in

China Everbright Bank has teamed with a leading Chinese ISP to launch a new SMS banking service, reports Mobile Commerce Worl

Well, so goes this reasoning of why 3G may not take off: the beauty of SMS text messaging is that it allows you to lie to your other hal

Sprint has launched a mobile comics service, in association with Funmail's Mobile Comics Networks, somehting you've read about here earlie

Credit card issuers in Hungary and other eastern European countries are doing an interesting experiment to cope with credit card fraud: Each time a credit card is used, the cardholder immediately gets a text message on his or her cell phone confirming the transaction and notifying the cardholder of the balance, report Chicago Tribun

Well, you decid

A bomb explosion in Bulgaria yesterday has reportedly been set off by a mobile phon

Indian mobile operator Airtel has launched an SMS kiosk in the southern city of Bangalore, in an attempt to give a flavor of messaging to those who don't own a cell phone, reports Cellular New

UK mobile poerators will release the mobile content code for children, today, reports Guardia

An aggrieved father in Australia has warned people not to send SMS messages while driving, reports Herald Su

A great line: SMS may very well be the Rodney Dangerfield of the

Text your way to ether, literally: A service promising to answer people's prayers with a text message apparently sent by Jesus has been shut down after complaints by Finland's mobile services watchdog, reports Reuter

Mark this one in your favorites, for sure: Peter Rysavy, a wireless consultant, has began publishing Spotlight on SPOT, a great compendium of information about Microsoft's SPOT (Smart Personal Objects Technology) efforts, including the network, devices (the wireless watches), applications, et

This may be connected to the post below on enhanced 999 service: technologists in UK are demontsrating a new car-based device called E-merge, which automatically sends an SMS to the local emergency operator when a vehicle crashes, giving the precise location, model, colour and licence plate number in the local language of the country where the accident occurred [New Scientist

: The SMS greetings industry is having a negative impact on the small-scale local paper greeting card manufacturers in India, according to this stor

The UK police is work on an enhanced 999 (the local police emergency number) service for cell phones that will help the emergency services to locate people calling the emergency assistance number, eports Cellular New

Two of the biggest studios in Hollywood, Paramount Pictures and Universal, have signed up with mobile content delivery company mForma, to develop game-based services for cellphones, reports WirelessWee

An Australian company has started a new wireless information site with an interesting twist: people can text in their buzzwords and then choose to get iformation about that word in various way

Wireless operators are forming an ISP Messaging Anti-abuse Working Group to develop methods to shut down spammers before they appear on the networks, reports InfoWorl

Indian telecom operator BSNL was caught red-faced, after a series of false SMS messages users phones came in, hinting BSNL giving in doles Rs 150 talk time free to its prepaid mobile phone customers, reports Times of Indi

UK government scientists have given a cautious thumbs up to mobile phones and transmission masts, reports BB

UAE telecom operator Etisalat has warned its users to be careful of SMS messages asking for charity donation

Ha! Caught you ther

Soon, Dracula, Frankenstein, the Bride of Frankenstein, the Mummy, the Wolf Man and the Creature from the Black Lagoon will turn up in games on your cell phone, thanks to a deal between Universal Studios and Mforma Grou

Um, is that the cellphone vibrating in your pocket, or you're just happ

If you thought you were doing too many things on your one mobile phone, listen to this: O2 Germany has launched a solution, in association with Redknee, whereby you can have multiple-SIM cards on one numbe

Despite low adoption in

A new public Bible SMS-school has opened in the department of youth in Voronezhsko-Borisoglebskaya Diocese, in Russia, according to this stor

NTT DoCoMo has launched a new service in Japan which allows its i-mode users to post personal messages at a special i-mode site in the event of major disasters, such as high magnitude earthquake

Six of the largest mobile telecom operators in the UK--Orange, O2, T-Mobile, Virgin, Vodaphone and 3--have joined to adopt new regulations on giving children access to adult content, according to the Guardia

A very interesting story on Wildseed, a company which develops intelligent faceplates for mobile phones, aimed at the teen marke

An interesting twist on your everyday Nigerian scam: in the small kingdom of Brunei, Fillipino SMS scammers are causing some havoc, according to this stor

In Clint Swett's look for The Sacramento Bee at some of the devices that are generating buzz at this year's CES, this one related to cell phones caught my ey

MobileWhack reports that Russel Beattie has posted AT&T Wireless settings for the Nokia 660

Verizon Wireless said yesterday that it would deploy an advanced data network that will allow people to use the Internet at high speed on mobile phones and other devices, including laptop computers, according to the New York Time

Some good news: Researchers in Finland tested 12 of the most popular cell phone models worldwide, and found the phones meet safety standards, emitting radiation well below the level that would be considered dangerou

Telenor and the airline company "Norwegian" have entered into a partnership that enables customers to order and purchase air tickets for "Norwegian" flights from their mobiles, reports 160character

Here we go again, another story on a Nokia cell phone blowing u

Subscriptions to mobile phone services in Japan totaled 79,787,200 in December, up

Parents will be able to track their teenagers 24 hours a day thanks to "text track" technology using secret bounce-back SMS messages, according to The Advertiser via Mike Masnick in Techdir

Hong Kong mobile operator Sunday Communications is offering it's subscribers SMS text alerts enabling them to locate infected SARS areas; buildings or neighbourhoods where people are known to be infected with SAR

Teleflip enables you to substitute a mobile telephone number for "name" in name@telefli

The mobile Internet may have gained popularity in Japan because of cool ring tones and text messaging, but now businesses are finding that using cell phones to track information increases productivity -- and saves money, according to Japan Media Review via Smart Mob

Children under the age of 13 should not have their own mobile phones according to Norway's Ombudsman for Children Trond Waage, reports the Aftenposte

Shares in Nokia, the world's largest mobile phone maker, have soared by up to 16% after it delighted investors with an upbeat trading statement, according to the BB

Wireless Access Protocol may have been declared dead on arrival, but the technology is now experiencing a renaissance, largely driven by WAP sites offering customized phone ring tones, according to figures released this week by the Mobile Data Associatio

BT is trialing a service with UK mobile operators that will allow SMS messages from mobiles to be sent to fixed-line phones using automatic text-to-speech conversion technolog

The BBC writes that China now has more mobile phones than it has landlines, a fact previously reported by China's offical news agency in Novembe

About 80% of

Anyone wanting to talk on a cell phone while driving through the nation's capital better have a hands-free device, reports nbc

Norwegian based E-bank Contopronto claims to have been granted the first-ever European E-banking license allowing for payments and money transfers to any bank, credit card, business or individual through mobile phones from Europe, according to 160character

Justin Hall for TheFeatur

This woman wasn't fired by text message, but quit her job because she was summoned into a disciplinary hearing for sending too many SMS while at work, according to the Telegraph

"Karla Jackson, a shop manager, walked out after her staff complained that she was wasting time on her mobile telephone

The figures published from around the world on text messages sent over New Year's are quietly rounding u

A report from the WorldWatch Institute has said that in 1992, only one in 237 people worldwide used a mobile phon

Wireless entertainment publisher JAMDAT Mobile launches a series of mobile games based on "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King", according to Mobilema

Eidos, one of the world's leading publishers and developers of entertainment software, announced that the company's video game heroine Lara Croft will make a celebrity appearance at this year's Nokia Sugar Bowl, according to Mobilema

How are mobile phones changing the cultural experience of being in a city? The very experience of urbanity that is supposedly changing under the pressure of thumb-tribes is itself a sense of social place as old as civilization (the city as agora, part market, part information-exchanging machine) that was changed irrevocably by rapid mass adoption of place-altering technologies such as skyscrapers, railroads, automobiles, and wireline telephone

How are mobile phones changing the cultural experience of being in a city? The very experience of urbanity that is supposedly changing under the pressure of thumb-tribes is itself a sense of social place as old as civilization (the city as agora, part market, part information-exchanging machine) that was changed irrevocably by rapid mass adoption of place-altering technologies such as skyscrapers, railroads, automobiles, and wireline telephone

How are mobile phones changing the cultural experience of being in a city? The very experience of urbanity that is supposedly changing under the pressure of thumb-tribes is itself a sense of social place as old as civilization (the city as agora, part market, part information-exchanging machine) that was changed irrevocably by rapid mass adoption of place-altering technologies such as skyscrapers, railroads, automobiles, and wireline telephone

Techno Mart - a 10-story shopping and entertainment complex in Seoul - is holding an extraordinary office opening ceremony on January 5 for the launch of a new “010 service”, reports dong

An Israeli team has recently designed and produced a new device for monitoring cardiovascular disease, according to Arutz Shev

Mobile phones, computers and other such gadgets are seriously disrupting the sleeping patterns of a growing number of children, according to a Beglian study, reported by The Independen

Three quarters of a million old mobiles will have been discarded or dumped since Christmas, according to a survey, reports the BB

Macintosh enthusiast site MacTeens will be providing live coverage by text messaging of Steve Jobs keynote speech at the Macworld Expo San Francisco 2004, January 5-9, reports Mobile Tracke

Another sure distraction while driving, commercials sent to the text displays on VHF car radio sets, sometimes followed by a hotline numbe

As of January 1, 2004, California has banned the use of computers in the front seat of a moving vehicle, reports slashdot via MobileWhac

Total Telecom magazine have recently put together a conference entitled «Delivering Mobile Adult Content Responsibly» which will be held in London Jnuary 29th and 30th: Full details can be accessed online:

Excerpts - Overview

Adult services drive new technology:

MobileWhack mentioned Nokia's configurator a few days ago, and now draws our attention to Sony Ericsson's online configurato

MobileWhack mentioned Nokia's configurator a few days ago, and now draws our attention to Sony Ericsson's online configurato

In the UK, seven out of ten small businesses plan to impose a blanket ban on staff using mobile phones for business purposes while driving, according to The Registe

Figures are starting to come in on text messages and multimedia messages sent over New Year'