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04 Jan 2011 23:17

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U.S.: If you’re arrested, can police search your phone without warrants?

  • NO … as long as you don’t live in California (sigh … great) source

09 Nov 2010 22:07

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U.S.: Protip to teenagers: Text a lot and you’ll get high, drunk and laid

  • cause Teenagers like to text each other a lot, and some of them send over 120 a day (five an hour). Us old people won’t understand the reasoning behind this.
  • effect Those teens are more likely to take drugs, drink alcohol and have sex. Translation: They get invited to all the good parties because they text so much. source

17 Jun 2010 20:23

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U.S.: Is the Supreme Court OK with employers searching workers’ texts?

  • YES but only in this one case about a police officer source

15 Jan 2010 08:01

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World: The Red Cross mobilizing donations for Haiti better than ever

  • $35
    million
    has been donated to the Red Cross since the earthquake struck Tuesday; that’s better than Katrina and the 2004 tsunami
  • $5
    million
    in donations have come from text messages from mobile phones – which is easily a record and a genius way to donate source

13 Jan 2010 23:33

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World: Awesome people text the Red Cross to help Haiti, hit milestone

  • $1+ million in donations from texts alone (whoa!) source

02 Nov 2009 10:16

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World: British texting-while-driving laws some of the world’s toughest

  • She came across as a lovely young girl, and I’m sure it wasn’t a nice feeling for the judge to send someone like this to prison — but someone is dead because of a text message.
  • Oxford, England police officer Bill Sykes • Describing Phillipa Curtis, who was sentenced to 21 months in prison for a car crash that led to the death of up-and-coming fashion designer Victoria McBryde. What caused the crash? Curtis was texting on her phone. While McBryde’s parents feel the sentence was too lenient, many others feel it wasn’t. The U.K. has some of the strictest texting-while-driving laws in the world. While Curtis was not sending a text message at the time of the crash, she was sending a number of them around the time the crash happened – enough to convict her on. Scary. And sad. • source

20 Oct 2009 10:23

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Sports, U.S.: Steve McNair, a mistress, and a series of desperate texts

  • Baby I might have a break down im so stressed. baby i might need to go to the hospital. baby whats wrong w[ith] me i can hardly breath[e].
  • Sahel Kazemi • In a text exchange between her and former Tennessee Titans quarterback Steve McNair the day before they were both found dead in a murder-suicide. Kazemi sounded increasingly desperate in the messages, while McNair was getting annoyed by the constant contact due to the fact that he was with his children. McNair, who was married with children, was seeing a second girl on top of Kazemi. • source
 

05 May 2009 10:13

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Tech, World: Why are text messages 160 characters or less? Blame this guy.

  • My friend said this was impossible for the mass market. I was more optimistic.
  • Friedhelm Hillebrand • The german man behind the technology used to create SMS, more commonly known by drunk teenagers at parties as texting. Hillebrand made the realization that 160 characters was, as he put it, “perfectly sufficient.” But early technology could only handle 128 characters. Fortunately, they kept working and got it up to 160. Did his technology make him rich? No, but everyone uses it, so isn’t that enough? • source