According to a recent survey conducted by ToolTester, an online resource for web builders, hosts, and e-commerce tools, AI-generated text can be just as convincing as human-written text. The survey compared AI-generated text with human-written text and found that over half of the 1,920 American adults surveyed could not tell the difference. This number rose to 63.5% when the survey was repeated using the newer GPT-4 AI tool.

Those of you who read the Internet Patrol regularly know that it’s super-easy to paste one image into another in Preview, but did you know that you can also easily rotate or tilt that second image to any slanted angle that you want? And you can do the same for text! You can rotate it, tip it, slant it, even make it vertical! It’s all easy, once you know how!

If you have received a text message claiming to be from Netflix, and telling you that “We have a new policy in place, please visit and review today”, along with a link and, possibly, a random set of characters in parenthesis such as “(ybpldcjyop)”, it is definitely a scam, do NOT click on it! The text message may also appear to come from phone number 141-010-0001 or just 410100001, but even if it comes from another number, it is definitely a scam.

If you received a text message or email telling you that “Account might be blocked for your security!” DON’T click on any link or respond to it! The spam message comes from text-pp.com-servicesupport@lsg.org, which should be a tip-off, but in case you’re not sure, it’s a scam!

“iPhone text messages won’t stay deleted and keep coming back,” complains one user. “How can I permanently delete iMessage SMS messages?” asks another. It seems that no matter what you do to delete those text messages, they keep coming back! Here’s how to delete text messages and text message threads on your iPhone permanently, so that they don’t reappear.

Don’t you just hate it when you type a text smiley face such as :-) and your chat program insists on turning your text emoticon into a graphic emoji? Here’s how to turn off emoji in the Mac instant messenger program Messages (formerly known as iChat and iMessage), so that it will instead send and display text-based smiley and other faces.

Everybody knows that video is king on the Internet – or is it? If you’re an Internet publisher, which is better: text or video? A survey that was commissioned by the Internet Patrol, and done by the excellent technology research firm, Osterman Research, has found that, for some things, people prefer text (in fact, vastly prefer text) to having to watch a video to get the same information.

Wired’s Joseph Cox has a brilliant idea: what is the best, most readily available consumer device to use to make completely secure calls, and to use for secure text messages and secure chat? (Well, at least as secure and locked down as the average consumer can easily make them?) An iPod Touch! Brilliant! Here’s why.

Ford has just added the Life360 “don’t text me while I’m driving” Drive Mode app to the Ford SYNC applink system – the system that integrates your smartphone into your Ford vehicle’s own voice recognition, voice command, and communications system. Life 360 is touted as a boon for parents of teenagers, we’re not so sure.

Did you know that with the most recent versions of iOS you can easily block any number from being able to call or text your iPhone? This is a particularly nice feature to use with those pesky telemarketers.

Here is the full text of one of the newest Wells Fargo Phishing Spam, which started showing up this month (May, 2014). This one comes with an attached HTML file named “Wells Fargo Instruction Form.html”. Whatever you do, don’t download or open it!

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.

For those of you who are fed up with Siri’s lack of understanding you when ask to do a search, then the Google Voice Search app may be just what you need. When you ask Google Voice Search where the nearest taco shops around you are, unlike Siri, which will likely come back with a list of the nearest tackle shops, the Google Voice Search app will deliver your request with consistent precision.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) this week called for a complete, total ban on both talking on cell phones (even hands-free), and texting, by drivers. The recommendation, intended to reduce accidents resulting from “distracted driving” followed the Federal agency’s review of accidents resulting from a distracted driver – a problem so serious that the NTSB says that at any moment during any day, approximately 13.5 million drivers are using a cellphone. Last year alone, nearly 3100 fatal accidents were known to be the result of distracted drivers, and the number of accidents attributable to talking or texting drivers is undoubtedly far higher when you include non-fatal accidents, and consider that few drivers will admit that they were texting or on the phone behind the wheel.

The U.S. and U.K. both seem poised on the brink of allowing people to send text messages to emergency services, instead of dialing 911 (999 in the UK).