Many of life’s major moments transpire through text messages these days. If you don’t have a phone with a high-storage capacity, you probably have to frequently clean out your text messages, which means you don’t get to keep all of those memorable messages.
Ginger Anyhow figured out how to save those moments forever and even advertise them around her home. These Embroidered Text Messages take “SMS messages and makes them keepsakes.”
While I’m not a fan of Twitter, I can understand some of its potential uses. Take for instance, a burglar alarm. By using an Arduino + XBee radio module hooked up to a home alarm system, Kelvin was able to have his alarm system send an SMS to his phone when someone breaks into his home. It will also update his Twitter status to let others know he’s being robbed. Genius.
Yesterday, around 9:50am, I received a text message on my iPhone 3G. I opened it up and lo and behold, what do I see?
A fish, a soccer ball and a traffic light.
What the fuck could this be? After asking my friend how he sent images like that via SMS, he soon explained to me that these were Emoji, Japanese emoticons that are a huge overseas. Apple included support for these with the iPhone 2.2 update. The problem is, you can’t use them outside of Japan. Until now.
All you need is a buck. Head over to the App Store and purchase a Japanese RSS app called “Frostyplace.” Like I said, it’s a buck and once you buy it, open it up and click around for about three minutes. After that, exit out and repeat. After you’ve played with it for awhile, open up your keyboard preferences on the iPhone and you’ll find an Emoji option under Japanese options. Turn the Emoji on and you can now send these to anyone with an iPhone and they’ll be able to receive them. Quite good fun, considering you can send someone a pile of poop with eyes on it.
If you need more detailed instructions on how to do this, I highly recommend Justine’s blog. She seems to be the one who discovered this neat little hack.
If you’ve got an iPhone, you’re probably aware that AT&T has given you access to a bunch of free WiFi hotspots around the country. Problem is, you’ve got to go through a draconian login process to collect your free Internet. Ya know, the one where you have to SMS back and forth with AT&T like a couple of sophomores at a coatillion. Not any more. Fire up Easy Wi-Fi for AT&T from Devicescape, enter your AT&T number and login. That’s all it takes. It’ll cost you $1.99 but until Friday, it’s free. Click the link below to bring it up in iTunes.
An incredibly useful feature is coming to Gmail. Starting today (if all goes well), you’ll be able to send your friends and contacts text messages via the integrated Gmail chat. You’ll be able to save phone numbers to contacts and Google will give you the option of sending them a text should they go offline. It sounds very beta right now though, with Google using 406 area code numbers to push the texts out.
The first time you send a text message, it will appear on the person’s phone as coming from a number in the 406 area code. Google has made several thousands of these numbers available for Gmail users, and once a number is associated with your account, all of the text messages you send through Gmail will come from that number.
The 406 number works both ways, so your friend can reply to you via text message. Also, your friend can save that number in their phone as belonging to you, and they can even use it to initiate new chats with you.
Google never ceases to amaze.
While the DOTS gloves looked to be the ultimate texting gloves, there’s now a new pair of mittens in town. The Freehands Glove features removable thumb and index fingertips, perfect for wintertime activities. No twirling your meat with these babies but texting should work out A-OK .
Fleece goes for $20 with some other fabric going for $30 and leather costing $40. The fleece ones seem like a good buy.
Verizon is digging deep in to the pockets of its corporate users by charging an additional three cents per text message sent to its customers. This won’t affect you when you’re texting your friends, however it will affect standard-rate and premium programs of mobile terminated messages.
That includes text alerts, interactive voting notifications, SMS search responses and pretty much anything else that would’ve charged you anyway. Those Jamster commercials on late night television? Yup, those will cost them $0.03 every time they send you a message about Ne-Yo. Now, you’ll just have to add 3 cents on to your EZ Flirt bill, thanks to Verizon. Geez, can’t a guy get a lucky break?
I spoke with my peeps at T-Mobile today and was informed about the pricing plans for the G1. You’ll be able to get 400 text messages and unlimited Internet + data for $25 a month. For $35 a month, you get the same with unlimited texting. Not too shabby but considering that you need a voice plan for the phone, expect to spend $80 or more a month as a G1 owner. Worth it? We’ll see come October 22nd.
Come winter, I will not wear a standard set of gloves. I am a texting machine and I need my fingers ready to pound on that “S” key all day long. So I wear cut off gloves. It sucks but it will have to do. Women? They’re lucky. They can wear DOTS gloves. At $13 to $18 a pair, they’re not only affordable and warm; they’ll also let you text with ease.
Thanks to miniature touch-sensitive buttons on the fingertips, you’ll be able to actually use your iPhone without getting frostbite. Bodacious!
Technology helps prevent crime. That’s a no-brainer. London’s use of CCTV has turned the city into a near police state and GPS has led to more arrests for car theft. As of yesterday, New Yorkers will be able to send text messages, picture messages and video to 911 and 311. This will enable citizens to report crimes of all types, as well as provide evidence so the police ultimately have less work to do. By next year, images and video sent to 911 will be pushed to patrol cars and will be used as evidence in trial. All in all, the technology only took about 18 months to develop and cost $250,000.
While I find this to be a great improvement to public safety, it also makes me weary of my privacy. What if someone is drinking in public and they get snapped by an angry friend? Not good.
