Nokia penalised for texting tips to Aussie users, regrets not adding unsubscribe option

Here's a bit of bad news for those who actually enjoy receiving Nokia's regular tips via SMS: Reuters reports that the Australian Communications and Media Authority has slapped the Finnish company a hefty A$55,000 ($58,000) fine, with the reason being that there was no way to unsubscribe from said messages. This kind of flaw sure is a surprise at this day and age, but Nokia's already taken action by simply axing this spammy service entirely in Australia, while at the same time "ramping it down elsewhere" just to be safe, according to Reuters. If Pope Benedict is still going about his texting business over there, we sure hope he won't be next on the Aussie naughty list.

[Image credit: Ester Inbar]

Nokia penalised for texting tips to Aussie users, regrets not adding unsubscribe option originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Jan 2012 07:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Did you fire off a bunch of texts this Christmas? Welcome to the museum

Finland might be the spiritual home of the SMS, but it also proves that this ancient form of communication is going the way of the rune stone. A mere 8.5 million texts were sent over the country's Sonera network on Christmas Eve, versus 10.9 million on that festive day in 2010. The same trend was spotted on other Finnish networks and also on the other side of the world: Christmas Day texts in Hong Kong were down nearly 14 percent on the year before, and Telstra in Australia experienced a nine percent year-on-year decline over the whole of 2011. Things are different in America, where texting has continued to grow, but that growth seems to be slowing down and some analysts expect "SMS erosion" to hit Verizon and AT&T by 2014. The obvious culprit is mobile internet: social networking apps, BBM, iMessage and a host of other 'free' options, but you won't find carriers complaining -- data contract ARPUs suit them just fine.

Did you fire off a bunch of texts this Christmas? Welcome to the museum originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Jan 2012 09:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google Voice for iOS joins the mass texting party

Google Voice
Well, it's about a month and a half behind its Android counterpart (and what feels like decades behind the web interface), but the iOS Google Voice app finally (finally!) has support for multi-recipient texting. Version 1.4.0.2372 adds few other nice tweaks, including one touch copy and paste on the dialpad and a larger text entry field with a character count but, obviously, the mass texting capabilities here steal the show. So hit up the App Store to update now and start spamming all your friends.

Google Voice for iOS joins the mass texting party originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Dec 2011 17:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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People more likely to lie when texting, according to UBC research

It's so much easier to be deceitful when you don't have to actually look into somebody's eyes, right? That's what a study conducted by the University of British Columbia figured out. Here's how it was done: 170 students were brought in to perform mock stock transactions using one of four methods -- face-to-face, text, video or audio. Brokers were promised higher monetary compensation for more stock sales, while buyers were told their reward would all depend on the value of the stock. The brokers were given inside information that the stock was rigged to lose half of its value, while buyers were only told after the transaction was over and were asked to report on whether or not the brokers were deceitful when selling this stock to them. The study analyzed which method produced the most lies and found that buyers who used texts were much more likely to report deception, while video chatting was the least. Skeptical about your significant other's text that says they're just at their friend's house or washing their hair? See if you can Skype them instead. Check out the full results of the study after the break.

Continue reading People more likely to lie when texting, according to UBC research

People more likely to lie when texting, according to UBC research originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Dec 2011 08:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Democratic Republic of Congo bans text messaging

After a controversial presidential election that saw Joseph Kabila retain the office amid fierce protests, the Democratic Republic of Congo has shut down the nation's text messaging services in order to restore public order. Civil liberties concerns aside, it's proving to be highly dangerous for the one point four million deaf residents who rely on text messaging. Normally they would receive safety signals when conflict broke out in their vicinity -- leading to people being caught unawares in crossfires who would otherwise have remained indoors. Human Rights organization ASADHO has said the crackdown could lead to further deaths, especially for people in remote areas and has joined numerous others in requesting the repeal of the ban.

Democratic Republic of Congo bans text messaging originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Dec 2011 18:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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