Efforts to ban texting while driving don’t work. Heartfelt pleas from heartbroken parents whose children have died while driving and texting while in traffic don’t work. So maybe putting up billboards with pictures of drivers who are caught driving while texting while in traffic will work. At least, that’s the hope of Brian Singer, the founder of the TWIT Spotting site.

We’ve all received them. Those spam SMS messages that tell you that “Your entry in our drawing WON you a FREE $1,000 Target Giftcard! Enter ‘312’ at www.target.com.tgrz.biz to claim it and we can ship it to you immediately!”, or something similar about a Walmart or Best Buy gift card. Now the scum behind that text message spam, Daniel Pessin and Jacob Engel, along with their shell company Rentbro, have been taken down by the Federal Communciations Commission (‘FCC’).

The Wickr self-destructing message app (pronounced “Wicker”) gives you complete messaging security. This is because you can set your messages to self-destruct after a certain time, assuring that your privacy is protected. Wickr works with both email and text messages, and the intention is that the self-destructing Wickr message app will also be able to be used with services like Twitter and Facebook, one day.

T-Mobile USA is bending over backwards to keep their dwindling customer-base by offering a new unlimited data plan. The new plan will roll out in September and is hoped to rival their competitors, who have started putting a cap on data use. T-Mobile’s new plan will run users between $70-90 per month, depending on which smart phone you choose, and will allow unlimited voice, text and Internet usage.

Isn’t it frustrating when you receive an SMS text message and it turns out to be SMS spam? Don’t you wish that you could report those spammers to your wireless carrier? Well, you can! Whether you want to report text spam to ATT, T-Mobile, Verizon, or Sprint – or any other North American carrier, it’s as simple as forwarding it right from your phone. Here’s how to do it.

Oh how we have longed for this day! After we made the switch to the iPhone, after being staunch Android fans for so long, the thing that we missed most about Android was apps like SMS Backup, which automatically forward your text messages to your Gmail account. This means that if you are at your computer, and not by your phone, you still get your text messages. It also means that you can maintain an archive of your text messages, if you like. This function has not existed in any app for the iPhone, and in fact we tried having it developed on our own, and ran into obstacles at every turn (mostly restrictions by Apple). But now, at last, we have our beloved SMS backup to Gmail function back, on our iPhone, and we are very happy campers.

VIPSafeToday.com is an outfit that claims to want to give you a loan – or even a payday loan – and they are letting people know by spamming their cell phones with a text message that reads “You qualify to get up to 1200 DOLLARS instantly at WWW.VIPSAFETODAY.COM – It takes only mins for approval. ‘NO’ to unsubscribe” This message is dastardly for several reasons – read on for the full information, and don’t text them “no” (or anything else) to ‘unsubscribe’!

With the new “Do you owe over $10,000 to the IRS?” SMS text message spam making the rounds (ours came from 857-205-2199) we thought it would be a good time to remind you that cell phone spam (including SMS spam) is illegal, and there is a way to report it.

A recently released study has discovered that teenagers who do an excessive amount of texting are more likely to also be involved in riskier behaviors, including drinking alcohol, experimenting (or worse) with other drugs, and being active sexually, even to the point of promiscuity. This excessive texting is being dubbed “hypertexting”.

A new study released by the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI) suggests that laws which are aimed at curbing texting while driving not only don’t serve to reduce texting-related accidents, but, counter-intuitively, if anything such laws seem to lead to an increase in, if not accidents, at least the filing of accident-related insurance claims.

There is a series of SMS text message spams going around right now, from TM-GODSGIFT, that has people wondering. The messages from TM GodsGift say that you have won money – usually in the Coca Cola lottery or the Exxon Mobile draw. It’s all spam – it’s all a scam. You can ignore it – or you can report it. But whatever you do, don’t respond to a message from TM GodsGift.

As Google threatens to pull completely out of China, following allegations that the hack attacks against Google, code named “Operation Aurora” and first disclosed by Google last month, originated at two Chinese universities with strong governmental ties, the Chinese government is trying their own brand of shaping the Internet – by encouraging its citizens to send “red text messages”, also being referred to as “red snippets” and even “red jokes” (although they are not jokes). The Chinese term actually translates as “Red Duan” – ‘duan’ relating to measurement, such as a piece or stretch of time – in other words, a red era. According to authorities in China, the red text message – or red snippet – is intended to facilitate “the spirit of Chinese culture for an Internet age” and to combat the invasion of American culture. In the meantime, Google contemplates pulling out of China altogether after their discoveries in the wake of the Operation Aurora hacks, unless China agrees to allowing uncensored search.

Police say that a hoax in the form of a text message warning women to stay away from Walmart because of a gang initiation requiring women to be gunned down in the Walmart parking lot is a hoax that has been around since at least 2005.

More than 2.5 trillion SMS text messages have been sent from cell phones worldwide this year. This means that text messaging brings in billions of dollars in revenue for the world’s four major cell phone carriers. In fact, it’s estimated that SMS text messaging revenues could even top $165 billion by 2011. (SMS stands for “Short Message Service”.) So, if the text messaging business is so lucrative, why have AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless doubled the pay-per-use-price for messages from 10 cents to 20 cents?

A British doctor working in the Congo has saved the life of a teen by amputating his arm following instructions that were texted to him by a colleague back in the UK.