OMG, the Text Message Turns 20

But amid pressure from rivals such as iMessage, Skype and WhatsApp, is the SMS already over the hill?
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Voices

How to Improve the Worst Mother’s Day Gifts Ever (Comic)

Here is the latest comic from our Joy of Tech friends at Geek Culture, Nitrozac and Snaggy. Joy of Tech appears three times a week in the Voices section of this site.

CityPockets Acquires DealBurner to Alert Users of Nearby Daily Deals

New York-based CityPockets is expanding into one of the biggest trends in daily deals by acquiring DealBurner, which sends a text message to users when a deal is located nearby.

New AT&T Customers to Face Tough Choice on Text Messages

The wireless carrier is doing away with its bundled plans, forcing new customers to either pay $20 a month for unlimited texting or a hefty 20 cents per message. Current customers, however, can keep their bundled plans.

Group Messaging for the Rest of Us

Katie tests a new service, called GroupMe, which enables group messaging on any phone that can text — regardless of who makes it or what operating system it runs.

Microsoft Looks to Mango to Make Windows Phone a Better Communicator

Among the more than 500 new features in the Mango release of Windows Phone are several aimed at making Microsoft smartphones into social butterflies.

OMG: Royal Wedding Leads to a Bouquet of Text Messages, FWIW

Not only were people flocking to Twitter and Facebook to gab about the marriage of that prince and the English woman, but they were also sending a lot of text messages. Mobilized has just one message, and it applies to anything happening at 2 a.m., and it is this: Do Not Disturb.

Gap Partners With Visa to Send Location-Based Offers to Your Phone

Here’s another variation on the idea that we will one day get offers sent to us on our phones when we are in the vicinity of a retail store. This time it’s from Visa. And, this time, it requires no application download and very little user engagement.

The Internet Is Back to Normal in Egypt; the Country, Not So Much

The four major Internet companies in Egypt have turned their connections back on, and its traffic is returning to normal. Though it’s clear that’s not yet true of Egypt itself.

Nielsen: Young People Across The Globe Love Their Cell Phones (But Use Them Differently)

According to a a new report, China is the biggest spot for the mobile Internet, with 73 percent of Chinese youths age 15 to 24 citing mobile Internet usage as among the things they used their cell phones for in the past month. That compares to less than half of American and British young people and less than a quarter of those in the rest of Europe. Meanwhile, young women in most countries were more likely than males to send text or picture messages, although the opposite was true in India, China and Brazil.

Indian Start-Up Turns Texts Into Dollars

WTF? Web Throws Cheeseheads for a Loop.

10 CAR PILE-UP! ROTFL!

Google Answers the iPhone