Image: timcaynes/Flickr

Obviously, this is a terrible, terrible idea. The company defended itself by saying that the texts were free and that people could easily opt-out by responding with "stop." But they shouldn't even be going there in the first place.

Once they start doing it, the other carriers will, and then third parties. You think companies aren't willing to pay for text ads? I guarantee someone out there is trying to work up a deal where they pay in bulk for 10,000,000 texts so they can advertise their new movie. And yeah, it'll be legal because it won't cost the end-user anything and they'll be able to opt out of ads from that company, but then another company will do it. And another.

Spam is already the scourge of email. Don't ruin texting for us too, AT&T. Your customers won't stand for it. [NY Times]

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]

Yes, sending text messages to nobody in particular, allowing them to travel out in some random direction and end up in space, is the hot new thing. You know, because aliens will know exactly how to interpret "r u coming here aliens? Gtfo." The texts cost the standard rate to send, at least, but $15 for a certificate of confirmation for a text sent to nowhere is kind of crazy.

But hey, you've got to hand it to Virgin Mobile for figuring out a way to collect $15 from people for mailing out a piece of paper. I mean, that's pure profit right there. Good for you, Virgin Mobile. [Virgin Mobile via Pocket Lint]

Noriaki lowered the B&D's cost by building it's chassis out of cardboard (the entire thing can be put together yourself), and by running its braille lettering program off an open source platform. I'm not completely sure how this technology helps deaf people any more regular phones, but it's a cool concept for helping out the visually impaired. [B&D Messenger via Tuvie]

Consumerist lays out exactly how to do it (it's for AT&T, but it should still work): Cite the hike as your reason for canceling; don't pay your bill at the new rate; don't give in to a cheaper plan; be steady like a rock. (Update: Make sure you get the notification of the price change first.) BTW, anyone else think doing this pre-iPhone 3G launch (whose 3Gness won't work on T-Mo) is like the worst timing ever? [BGR, Consumerist]

While with the major carriers, for the most part, no one (not even the cops) can dredge up stuff from years ago since it's been long deleted, watch out if you're on an employer's carrier, like Skytel, which touts its messaging archival features. The other major catch is that even deleted messages can be recovered directly from your phone, just like deleted data from any other storage device, because of the way deletion works—it just marks the data as okay to be overwritten, so if it hasn't been replaced by new data, it's still recoverable. It's a bit easier to snag from SIM cards (which can hold up to 30 messages) than from the phone's internal memory 'cause there are dedicated gadgets for doing so.

Bottom line though, text messages are still probably the safest way to go about your business (dirty or otherwise) without worrying about getting snooped (much safer than IM or email, which are notoriously logged)—as long as you wipe them off your actual phone and make it past the two-day mark carrier-side. An anonymous prepaid phone works even better, obviously. [Slate]