The Wirelessinfo Blog

AT&T is now offering a text message only iPhone plan for people with hearing disabilities. The plan requires you to prove you’re disabled but then allows you to get an unlimited data and text iPhone plan for $40. Phone calls can by made on the phone, but at $.40/minute.

[via IntoMobile]

A German firm has patented technology for sending scented text messages. ““People will be able to send the smell of the beach and sunshine to their friends when they’re on vacation,” Convisual spokesperson Sandra Wiewiorra told The Local” The company expects to have the chips on the market in one to two years.

With colder temperatures come colder cars, and there’s nothing like an SMS activated heater to keep you warm. The Webasto Heater is designed to pre-heat your vehicle before you get in. The heater can be activated by sending an SMS to your car, your voice,  or using the cars remote control.

[via Gizmodo]

If you need to visit the restroom along Highway 1 in Western Finland then you better hope you have your cell phone with you. Some rest stops on the highway are locked, with a number posted on the door you have to text in order to have the door open. The idea is if your phone number is on record you’ll be less likely to vandalize the bathroom.

It looks like AT&T is going to be raising text messaging rates for customers who don’t have a texting plan on their contract. Both picture messages as well as SMS messages will be going up 5 cents with a regular SMS costing you $.20 and a picture message coming in at $.30 starting March 30th.

Country in debt? Why not tax something that your citizens are bound to do anyway? Peter Favilla the Trade Secretary in the Phillipines has suggested adding a tax on SMS messages sent in the country in order to offset  the countries loss of a 12% oil product sales tax. Favilla said the tax would “shift Filipino focus to endeavors that are more productive.”

[via EngadgetMobile]

You’re driving by a car full of hot girls and wish you had their number so you could ask them out. While they might not have their cell number posted on their car, they do have their plate number. A new dating service “Motor Flirt” allows you to send a SMS using their plate number asking them to hang out. Sure they won’t have any idea who you are, and truth be told it’s a little creepy to try and pick people up with their license plates…but an interesting idea none the less.

[via IntoMobile]

The number of people expected to say “Happy New Year” via text is expected to be on the rise this year. Mobile carriers are gearing up for the influx of messages, but most expected users to encounter at least a slight delay in their arrival. In anticipation of the delay Palm has suggested users send an email or an IM rather than try and brave the masses with text messages.

Have you ever found yourself in London needing to find a bathroom? Neither have we, but if you do a new service SatLav is designed to help you find one. For .25 pounds users can send an SMS message and receive information about the nearest public restroom. Neat idea, but with a fee attached do you think anyone will use it?

[via EngadgetMobile]

According to a study done by Universal McCann, UK users are the biggest texters in the world. The survey polled over 10,000 cell phone users and found that British users send an average of 100 texts a month, Germans had 65 text a month and Americans came in with a measly 32 texts a month.

[via IntoMobile]

Need to send out a crapload of SMS messages to all your friends? Why waste your time typing them out on the keyboard on your mobile when you can instead send messages to everyone through your computer? ClearSMS is a web-based SMS service that allows users to send out bulk messages to large groups of people. The service bills itself as great for big businesses like schools, vets, and doctor’s offices to send out reminders as well as stores to send out sales notices. Sales notice text?..ick!

It seems like it might be obvious that texting while driving isn’t the best idea. Still, many people do it recently causing five deaths of teenagers who were sending messages while behind the wheel. Washington State has banned texting while driving, and now New York senator Carl Marcellino is looking to do the same in NY. Since talking while driving is already banned in NY it would seem that a no-texting law would pass as well. Do you text when you drive? What do you think about banning it?

[via IntoMobile]

Clear Channel plans to start using SMS messaging for users to make song requests. Users will be able to make song requests as well as get information about traffic and local news in their area. The company plans to roll out the program in New York first with the program hitting 100 radio stations by the end of 2008.

[Via EngadgetMobile]

The wet rustle of rain
can dampen today. Your text
buoys me above oil-rainbow puddles
like a paper boat, so that even
soaked to the skin
I am grinning.

That’s a pretty nice poem, but  I think that the second place should have really won for the unusual approach to spelling..

AT&T’s new $19.99-per-month Messaging Unlimited option allows for unlimited text messages, pictures, videos and instant messages to any US phone.

As the cell phone network in Blacksburg, Virginia wilted under the heavy demands placed on it by frantic Virginia Tech students and parents trying to contact each other, many cell phone users turned to texting to get their messages through. Thirty-three people were killed by a lone gunman during Monday’s morning shooting rampage on campus, according to news reports.

According to a Verizon Wireless spokesman quoted by the Roanoke Times, the cell phone network experienced four times its usual “busy time” usage Monday as news of the massacre spread.

[Via Roanoke Times]

Hungry students can now use their cell phones to text in take-out food orders at hundreds of delis and restaurants near dozens of college campuses nationwide.

Campusfood.com, based in New York, is now accepting cell phone SMS text messages from customers who want to order food from its large listings of food establishments near colleges and universities, according to the Badger Herald, a student-run newspaper at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

[Via The Badger Herald]

The Boy Genius and Engadget Mobile are running a rumor that Verizon may be offering a package that includes unlimited SMS messaging. The report claims that, as of April 15^th, Verizon will be offering a $20 extra for individual lines that will include unlimited SMS text messages, MMS picture messages and VCast web browsing. Family users will be able to subscribe to the new package for $100, and it will include 700 minutes of calling time. We’ve asked Verizon for a comment on this; we’ll let you know if they confirm or deny it.

[Via Engadget Mobile and Boy Genius]

No, you won’t be reading War and Peace on your cell phone, but Moka LLC of West Palm Beach, Florida is bringing the works of 76 popular authors to a handset near you.

Today the company launched Moka mBooks, a subscription service which sends “the key points and essential ideas” from popular self-improvement, philosophical and religious books as short messages to your cell phones or e-mail box.