Ping is designed to look like the SMS app, and behaves much the same way. The messages you send arrive at the recipient's screen instantly—similar to IMs—but also pop up with a Push Notification if you're not actively using the phone.

It's basically free SMS for you to everyone who has an iPhone or iPod Touch (over Wi-Fi) as long as you can convince them to sign up for Ping. Even if you can't, the ones you do switch over might be enough for you to downgrade your SMS plan one notch to save some money.

In the end, this may either be a really useful SMS alternative for iPhones, or a service that's not different enough from SMS or IM that people will use it. It's too early to say. [Ping on iTunes via Gear Live]

Update: If you have questions, you can contact support@pingmessaging.com.

You see, only subscribers to i wireless, a local T-Mobile affiliate, can text message 911. And it only works within Black Hawk County since just one call center has received the upgrade.

But it gets even worse. Because a text message lacks location information, your 911 text is greeted by an automated text request for your zipcode. If your zip is within Black Hawk County, your message will find a recipient. If not, you'll receive a text message advising you to call 911.

I can imagine a scenario in which, crouched in an alley to avoid an angry batch of Apple fanboys following a negative iPhone review, I might want to silently summon a few SWAT teams. But until text messaging rolls out to every carrier in every location, it's pretty much useless. [USA Today Thanks Sharnaff!]

Several different teams have done research showing that texting while driving is at least as dangerous as drunk driving and significantly more dangerous than talking on the phone while driving. The most interesting conclusion found that someone texting while driving is about eight times more likely to cause an accident than someone not texting, while a driver with a blood alcohol percentage of 0.08%, the legal limit, is only four times more likely than a sober driver.

The bill would force each state's highway department to institute a ban on texting within two years, or lose 25% of their federal funding each year, which is enough to cripple a highway department. Some weren't thrilled, pointing out that nobody's figured a way to enforce this kind of law, but we'll have to see if the Senate passes the bill to find out if anyone has real objections. [NY Times]

Pogue's mainly concerned with the silly fees levied on consumers for certain actions despite said actions not costing carriers hardly any money at all (text messaging, we're looking at you). One that we didn't even realize is the sneaky tactic of keeping users on the line for extra time to hear inane instructions like "When you're done recording your message, you may hang up." If you're out of minutes, your carrier is actually going to charge you to listen to those! That's worthy of a good fist-shake, or better yet, some Congressional intervention. [New York Times]

[Image via Flickr]

Nick Andes, 29, and Doug Klinger, 30, were looking to beat the highest monthly text message total they could find—182,000 sent by Deepak Sharma in 2005—so they set up their phones to send multiple messages. On a test run in February, they found that they could send up to 7,000 texts on some days, which prompted their record-breaking attempt in March.

Throughout the month, their phones were so busy sending texts that Andes's wife, Julie, could rarely reach him because his phone was always tied up sending texts. Although some of the texts were simple—such as "Hello" or "LOL"—and a lot of them were repeats, at the end of March, Andes received an itemized bill of $26,000, which was so large that it came in a package that cost $27.55 just to ship to him.

Piling up such high bill for that many texts shouldn't have come as a surprise, except for the fact that Andes and Klinger both had unlimited text messaging plans. However, T-Mobile has apparently credited the phone bill and is now investigating the charges. Moreover, with Andes sending 140,000 texts and Klinger contributing 70,000 of his own, the two men were able to send about 217,000 texts, which is clearly over the 182,000 text message record they were able to find online. However, representatives at the Guiness World Records have yet to verify whether or not the two men have, in fact, beat the world record. [Yahoo]

These bishops apparently issued a blanket suggestion against all technology, including iPods, Facebook, television, text messaging, and Twitter. While I understand the impulse to ban the latter, the bishops stated that they hoped a ban on text messaging would "draw attention to the conflict in Congo, which it says is fueled by a struggle over mines that supply minerals used to make cellphones." That's sort of reasonable and at the same time also totally unreasonable, in that nobody is going to make that connection unless their phones are inscribed with "MADE WITH THE BLOOD OF CONGOLESE MINERS" on the front.

The Pope, apparently, is still out there YouTubing, which kind of takes the sting out of the bishops' words. Is anybody out there giving up any sort of technology for lent? And if not, may I suggest Twitter? [LA Times]

After sending off your little envelope of chlamydia 'n' hope to a lab, you can opt to receive your potentially traumatic results via SMS, phone or letter (though Twitter, with its convenient-for-notifying-exes "@" system, might have been a better choice).

Despite how trivializing this sounds, it could actually be an attractive option for some. Phone calls involve direct interaction with another person about an extremely embarrassing subject, and a physical letter can take quite a while—again, not exactly appropriate for the, uhh, urgent nature of the situation. Here, technology might actually make the whole process a little less intimidating for young folk (philanderers and strumpets, every last one of them!), but it's not a totally shame-free—the NHS has assured that there are still actual humans sending out the texts. [Register]

According to the Smoking Gun, the unnamed girl apparently ignored the teacher's requests to stop using her Samsung phone, but she kept on SMSing as she pleased. When the school security officer was called in, the girl claimed she didn't have a phone. The school finally called in the police, who searched the girl, and found the phone under her pants "in the buttocks area." The police confiscated her phone and charged her with disorderly conduct. These are your tax dollars at work, Wisconsin. [The Smoking Gun Original Photo Courtesy of m_m_mnemonic]

But! How good of a deal is it? Pretty good, as it turns out. Even assuming you're pretty hard on your gadgets, you should get your money's worth on this one. The traditional plan, with handset purchase, will cost you $300 after just ten months, so if you plan on keeping your Peek for any longer than that you may as well dive in.

Unless, of course, this is the beginning of a death spiral. This deal is just the latest in a line of heavy discounts and significant feature-adds from the company, whose niche device might not be gaining as much traction as it needs to survive. A lifetime subscription to Peek isn't much use if the company flatlines. [Peek]

For example, Sprint has confirmed that a 14-year old Florida girl sent / received around 35,463 text messages in a month on two separate occasions. That works out to 1,182 a day. As sad and depressingly impressive as that is, those numbers don't come anywhere near the Guinness record. Apparently, that "honor" is held by a man...a GROWN man by the name of Deepak Sharma. He managed to send 182,689 messages in a single month—about 6100 messages a day (or 4.2 messages a minute). Yeah, that is insane. Good thing we have unlimited text plans—even though it is most likely a ripoff. [Herald Tribune via Fark Image via Flickr]

Once you've set up an account with kwiry and linked your TiVo account you'll be able to text a short command to kwiry's short code # 59479 (k-w-i-r-y). By texting something like "TiVo The City" it will instruct your kwiry account to schedule the next available recording of The City on your broadband connected TiVo.

For those times when you forget to record something being able to quickly instruct your TiVo via text message seems like a pretty simple alternative to finding a computer or using a slow web-phone connection. So next time you're out eating last minute pho and you realize one of your guilty pleasure shows is on in 20-minutes and you never set up a season pass because you don't want people to know you watch stupid teen girl shows, don't panic kwiry and TiVo have your back.

kwiry Makes Your Life Even Simpler; Adds New Text Message Shortcuts and Facebook Connect Integration

Free Mobile and Online Service Adds more text messaging services: TiVo Scheduling, Yelp results, and more; Integrates with Facebook Connect to let users simply import their social graph.

San Francisco, Calif., January 14, 2009 — kwiry, the company that helps you text it before you forget it, today further enhanced its free service that turns text messages into helpful online reminders. kwiry’s latest additions to its recently launched Shortcuts platform include the ability to schedule a TV show recording on a TiVo® DVR. kwiry launched its Shortcuts service in August with Netflix and Amazon integrations.

As an example, if a co-worker raves about the latest episode of a TV show, simply text “TiVo” followed by the TV program title (e.g. “TiVo the office” to kwiry’s Text Messaging shortcode, 59479 (k-w-i-r-y). kwiry automatically schedules the next episode of the show to be recorded on your TiVo DVR. No need to rush home or remember to schedule it on your computer. The service complements other ways for TiVo subscribers to schedule their TiVo box while on the go including the TiVo Mobile web site. kwiry’s service extends TiVo scheduling to all cell phones with text messaging capabilities with no need for a browser or a data plan. With a one-time account link, all TiVo Series2™ and Series3™ DVR users can have the capability to instantly schedule a recording whenever and wherever they want.

“kwiry Shortcuts like Netflix have been very popular with new and existing users – we’ve had many requests for new Shortcuts and are excited about the new integrations with popular services like TiVo and Yelp,” said kwiry Co-founder and CEO Ron Feldman.

kwiry’s has recently added the following new Shortcuts to its free service:

TiVo (beta): Text “tivo the office” to schedule a recording of the next episode to your TiVo DVR.
Yelp: Text “yelp Grimaldis Pizza” and get contact info, reviews and more from Yelp sent to your e-mail inbox.
Contact Info: Text “contact johndoe@gmail.com” to email contact info and vCard attachment while on the go.
Status Updates: Text “status headed to the gym” and kwiry will update your Facebook and/or Twitter accounts.

kwiry has now also integrated with Facebook Connect, allowing people to sign-in to kwiry.com with their Facebook accounts, instantly adding their Facebook profile info to kwiry and allowing connections to their Facebook Friends.

“The integration with Facebook Connect simplifies the kwiry sign-up process and allows users to integrate the social aspects of Facebook into the kwiry website as well as the kwiry experience into Facebook,” Feldman continued.

Reina Hardesty's excuse for her a 440-page phone bill was, “I just like to talk.” Luckily, she had been signed onto a contract that allowed for unlimited texting—otherwise the bill would have been a whopping $2,811. Still, cruel wretches that they are, Reina's parents have now restricted her cellphone usage. TISNF!! [Daily Mail]

(Art credit: Rebecca Gunter)

The article goes into depth about how text messages are transmitted. In short, texts are unsurprisingly transmitted between towers over the main, wired network in the same way as cellular data, a portion of the journey that, considering the tiny amount of information in a 160-character text, costs very close to nothing.

Surely then, the carrier incurs costs to transmit the messages from towers to handsets. After all, this is the wireless part of the journey, and wireless costs lotsa $$$, right? No:

Text messages are not just tiny; they are also free riders, tucked into what’s called a control channel, space reserved for operation of the wireless network.

That’s why a message is so limited in length: it must not exceed the length of the message used for internal communication between tower and handset to set up a call. The channel uses space whether or not a text message is inserted.

You read that right: for carriers, sending a text message from an extant wireless tower to your handset is more or less free. If it's any consolation, the article also mentions that the Senate Antitrust Committee is kind of looking into the matter, so we may see relief (or even retribution) within the next 10-40 years. [NYT via BB Gadgets]

This Sunday, the Dallas White Rock Marathon will implement a pretty cool feature for participants and their friends/families. While most modern marathons track runners with (RFID?) chips attached to their shoes, this marathon in Dallas will take that data and send it out, texting or emailing split times and finishing results to anyone who registers with a particular runner.

Neat stuff, though just writing this post has given me a nasty cramp. [Do It Sports via dallasnews]

The surgeon, David Nott, texted his colleague back in the UK as he was far more knowledgeable about the procedures required for such a delicate operation. The colleague, Meirion Thomas, responded with ten steps he needed to follow in order to carry out the procedure properly. Then signed off with a simple "Easy! Good luck!"

Personally, I would have felt better having him on a regular cellphone call, but hey—the procedure went off without a hitch. Nott claimed it was as if he had a "guardian angel on my left shoulder showing me what to do." Indeed, a little cellphone-shaped angel. [CNN]

In fact, the only people who tend not to reply in messaging form were those above the age of 65. I guess people under that age haven't gotten stuck in the habit of listening to a voice on the other line. I personally hate answering voice mails – very few people know how to be concise and clear on the phone, especially when they're essentially talking to themselves. Why listen to your friend Jane hem and haw about a good time to meet up when you could've spent three seconds reading “Im in da city. U free 2 meet?” [Wireless and Mobile News]

Pachyderm rescue group Save the Elephants started the scheme up after five elephants who refused to stop raiding crops had to be shot by the Kenya Wildlife Service. The project, still in its infancy, is expensive to implement and not without its troubles. But it's already saved the life of one regular crop fiend, a bull named Kimari who's been intercepted 15 times since he was first connected. [Daily Mail via Switched]