Items tagged with texting
So you're driving along minding the rules of the road when all of a sudden some moron in the other lane weaves in front of you. Is he drunk? Did he suffer a stroke? Nope, he's just firing off a text message. You could flip him off, but unless you have an appropriate emoticon for that, and his cell phone number, he'll never see it. Because of situations like this -- and worse -- most states have had the good sense to ban texting while driving. It'd be naive to think a law prohibiting an activity would stop it altogether, but surely it's helping, right? Maybe not. According to a new study by researchers at the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI), laws against texting while driving have done nothing...
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Early on, the Peek was an email-exclusive handheld device. The selling point was its simplicity, as it only did email and nothing more. It was simple in every respect. Somehow, Peek has now broaden their horizons by offering the Peek 9, which is said to be 9 times faster than the Peek Pronto and capable of many, many more tasks. Over the years, Peek's devices have slowly but surely added features rather than simply refining the original formula. The guess was that some people wanted a simple way to check their email on the go, but communication has morphed so rapidly over the past few years that Peek has had to adopt Twitter and now Facebook in order to prevent being deemed irrelevant. After...
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General Motors has been pushing OnStar in their vehicles for what feels like forever. At this point, OnStar and GM just go hand-in-hand. We've come to expect it in new GM vehicles. But the technology hasn't really evolved a whole lot over the years, at least to technology driven consumers. But the world has moved on, and the world now lives on Facebook and Twitter. And so, Facebook is coming to OnStar. Yes, really! General Motors has announced a "relaunch" of OnStar, with the brand and focus now pointing to "responsible connectivity." Apparently that also involves adding Facebook audio updates, so users can hear the status updates of their friends without having to take their eyes off of the...
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Text messaging has been a popular form of communication for teens for quite some time now, but adults are catching the craze as well. A new study from the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project reveals that 72 percent of adult cell phone users now send and receive text messages. This represents an increase from 65 percent in September 2009, and 58 percent in December 2007. The Cell Phones and American Adults report also shows that 87 percent of teens use their phones for text messaging. Although adults may be catching the texting bug, teens still send and receive the most messages: teens average 50 messages a day compared to the 10 messages most adults send and...
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We've all heard about the dangers of texting while driving. Study after study has shown the dangers and many organizations and states have responded with attempts to ban drivers from using their phones to send messages while behind the wheel. At the CTIA Wireless 2010 show, Safe Driving Systems plans to show off a new way to prevent texting while driving called Key2SafeDriving. Key2SafeDriving is a combination of handset software and a "plug-and-forget Activator" that is installed in your car. Key2SafeDriving activates when the car starts. It puts your phone into Safe Driving Mode and disables the phone's ability to send or receive calls or text messages. Incoming calls are sent directly to voicemail...
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We would take these figures with a certain grain of salt, but based on our own experiences with texting and the societal changes that have followed, we actually tend to find the numbers quite believable. MocoSpace is a social network that strives based not on web views, but mobile views. Thus, most anyone involved in MocoSpace is a heavy mobile user, and their members are certainly apt to text quite frequently.With Valentine's Day being today, the survey seems quite timely. Reportedly, MocoSpace surveyed nearly 20,000 of their 10.3 million members for this report, when asked if they had ever used a mobile phone to break up with someone, 57% admitted that they had. There's no data explaining which...
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Ready for a real shocker? That texting and driving habit you've been trying to kick may not be as bad for you as the insurance companies have led you to believe. Of course, we would still recommend putting the phone down while you're driving (we're speaking for all those cars around you, for the record), but an interesting new survey has unearthed some unexpected results.For years, we've seen state after state ban texting and driving after being told by insurance company-funded surveys that it significantly increases the risk of a crash. And frankly, it makes sense. Doing anything other than driving while attempting to drive is probably not in the best interest of personal safety. At any rate,...
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Texting and driving is already illegal for citizens in a number of US states, but now commercial truckers and bus drivers are also going to be included on the "do not text and drive" list. The Department of Transportation enacted a new rule this week that bars those classes of drivers from texting while operating their vehicle, which will probably lead to all sorts of other legislation in the coming months and years.This is actually a pretty major decision, but it sort of feels like an obvious one. Should truckers and drivers of buses that hold dozens of children be doing anything at the wheel other than driving? Not in our mind. We're kind of surprised it took this long to get a rule passed...
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Times have definitely changed. Instead of sending a check or dropping a few extra bucks in a bucket to contribute to a natural disaster relief effort, U.S. cellphone users are sending text message contributions. In what is being hailed as an unprecedented mobile response to a natural disaster, U.S. cellphone users have donated more than $11 million to Haitian earthquake relief efforts. Wireless carriers such as Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile have waived fees for customers who want to send mobile donations. These carriers are also assuring customers that they are not taking a cut of the donations. "There are no text messaging fees and 100 percent of the $10 donation goes to the...
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Think you thumbs are quick? Think again. LG, which has long been a supporter of finding out just who exactly can text the fastest in this zany world of thumb-friendly communicators, has just announced that Yeong-Ho Bae, 18, and Mok-Min Ha, 17, of South Korea are the (new) fastest texters on the planet. Hear that? On the planet! The duo defeated a host of challengers to become the world texting champions at the LG Mobile World Cup in New York City, and the competition was no joke whatsoever. The two had to use LG devices (no iPhone or Droid allowed), and they trumped their rivals in a series of tests of speed and accuracy. LG then crowned 'em the champs, and handed them a whopping $100000 for...
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It's time we, as a nation, came to grips with something. No, we're not about to go on some rant about healthcare, and we aren't talking about the Federal Interest Rate, we're talking about something far, far more endearing to the US public. Yes folks, we're talking about texting. Hold your gasps, please. But feel free to send your immediate thoughts and feelings to Twitter via SMS.Thanks to the U.S. Census Bureau's Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2010 (which is apparently a report that we didn't know existed until today), we have just learned that the number of text messages sent on cell phones has more than doubled from 48 billion in December 2007 to 110 billion in December 2008....
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For years, police have struggled with an anti-snitching culture that has made witnesses afraid to come forward with information that could help solve a crime. Now, police from across the country are getting help from anonymous text messages sent to text-a-tip programs throughout the country.Boston is one of the first cities in the country to heavily promote sending text messages to help solve crimes. Thus far, police in Boston have received more than 1,000 tips since the program began two years ago. Some of these tips have been helpful in finding key leads in at least four high-profile killings including the accidental shooting of a young boy by his cousin, an arson fire that killed two children,...
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It's no iPhone, but it should make those texting tweens of yours mighty happy. Pantech has a knack for creating text-friendly feature phones, and the new Impact looks to be yet another winner. Set to launch on AT&T, the phone will be available in both bright blue and soft pink, and it features a high-gloss faceplate with a haptic response touchpad, two screens and a full hidden keyboard, along with a host of the latest social and multimedia options. The phone flips open to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard, and aside from making calls, sending texts and generally consuming your attention throughout the day, this one can also play back music. The second color screen is also useful for watching...
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What seems to be a plethora of studies and research prove that text messaging while driving is dangerous. Despite this, a new Pew Research study (.PDF) shows that 1/3 of teens aged 16 and 17 text while driving.Here are some of the highlights, or rather, lowlights, of the report: 75% of all American teens ages 12-17 own a cell phone, and 66% use their phones to send or receive text messages. Older teens are more likely than younger teens to have cell phones and use text messaging; 82% of teens ages 16-17 have a cell phone and 76% of that cohort are cell texters. One in three (34%) texting teens ages 16-17 say they have texted while driving. That translates into 26% of all American teens ages 16-17....
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