messaging

How young is too young for a cellphone or smartphone?

More than 90 percent of Americans own a cellphone today, and a growing number of those cellphone users are children. But how young is too young for a cellphone?

Cellphone or smartphone for kids?

Dear Maggie, This is a two-part question. I'm considering getting a cellphone for my 11-year old daughter for Christmas. A lot of girls in her class already have phones. She's been begging me for one. But I'm not sure if this is too young. What do you think?

Also, at what age do you think it's appropriate for a child to switch … Read more

How to get text message reminders for your favorite TV shows

Missing the newest episode of your favorite TV show is the worst.

Sure, the latest episode of "Top Chef" is bound to rerun, but by the time it airs, the entire Interwebs has already torn it apart, revealing who was eliminated, which dishes looked delicious, and how hot (or not) Padma looked that day. (Let's be honest: she's never the latter.)

There's really nothing like catching the latest episode the first time it airs, and tweeting (or Facebook-posting) immediately after in excitement with the rest of America.

But with so many TV shows to keep … Read more

Gmail hits the mark, mostly

Gmail for iOS is the official e-mail client from Google for iOS, and it's mostly a solid offering with only a couple of issues. The initial release got off to a rocky start with notification errors, but a subsequent release seems to have ironed out the major problems.

Obviously, the Mail app that comes with your iPhone lets you connect to Gmail accounts, but with the official app from Google, you'll get a few more options that you may have come to rely on when using Gmail. Get started by creating a new Gmail account or logging in … Read more

The 404 948: Where we're in some deep dish (podcast)

Leaked from today's 404 Podcast episode:

Congress is proposing a school lunchroom bill that would allow as little as two tablespoons of tomato paste on a frozen pizza to be classified as a proper weekly serving of vegetables for students. Fries and tater tots also count as vegetables. The U.S. Department of Justice wants to make it a crime to lie on social networks like Match.com, Facebook, and OKCupid--if the fib in question violates other laws outside of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. This holiday season, the Salvation Army send its volunteers into the streets with a new way to accept donations using credit card-reading hardware provided by Sprint/Nextel and Square. The program will join Girl Scout troops and The U.S. Army in pushing the next generation of mobile payments. A digital experiment from the artists at Wemakecoolsh.it enables subway denizens on the L-Train to access Wi-Fi and communicate with one another secretly using their self-powered "NOTwork." The enclosed system will run the week of November 14th on L-Trains going in and out of the Brooklyn and Manhattan boroughs. AOL resurrects its Instant Messaging service AIM with new features that even the score with sites like Meebo and Adium, and Jabber that already let you log chat histories, sign into multiple social networking accounts, and view multimedia like video and Twitter messages directly in the message window. An attack on online copyright infringements is in in progress, spearheaded by an initiative called the Stop Online Privacy Act, or SOPA that aims to blacklist sites that allegedly violate existing copyright laws. As of last night, however, the opposition is gaining powerful allies across the Web, including big names like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Zynga. Bathroom break video 1: Star Wars Rogue Squadron - Cheers Bathroom break video 2: Turkish Ice Cream Follow Jeff, Wilson, Justin, and The 404 Twitter pages for a chance to win Battlefield 3, Batman: Arkham City, and Uncharted 3. Check out this post for how to enter.

Click through to stream or download today's 404 podcast episode!… Read more

iOS 5.0.1 triggers address book bug for certain users

Apple's iOS 5.0.1 seems to have created a glitch with the Contacts app for certain users, according to various sources and several posts on the Apple Support Forums.

Startup Foundry founder Paul Hontz reported late last week that after updating to 5.0.1, the iPhone was no longer able to associate address book contacts with other apps. Opening the Contacts app would display all the right names. But using the iMessage texting app or even making a phone call would fail to remember the name of a contact and just display the person's phone number.… Read more

How to restore a deleted voice mail on the iPhone

When the iPhone originally launched, it brought with it a new way of doing voice mail.

No longer did users have to dial a random number to listen to each voice mail played back, all the while interacting with a computer voice. Visual voice mail allows you to skip the voice mails you don't want to listen to, and get to the messages that are truly important. One small feature of visual voice mail is the ability to restore deleted voice mails. … Read more

IM+ for Android jumps to 5.0

IM+, the popular instant-messaging application for Android, jumps to version 5.0 today, bringing with it a revamped tablet-optimized interface, improved battery usage, and several other really nifty features.

Beyond its shiny new interface, the big addition to IM+ is its support for Android's native Share tool. Now you can select text from other apps or your browser and easily add it to an instant message through IM+. Sure, this seems like a basic feature, but that's precisely why it's a big deal that IM+ is finally getting it.

Additionally, IM+ now offers group chats for AIM, … Read more

Cat out of the bag? Apple testing Mac OS X 10.8

Apple is already testing a new version of its desktop operating system, reports claim.

Citing their respective Web logs, Apple rumor blogs MacRumors and 9to5Mac say that they have seen a steady increase in the number of visits to their site by computers running Mac OS X 10.8. The blogs said that the computers running the operating system started accessing their sites in August. The people using the operating system appear to be Apple employees, since the site requests originate from the company's headquarters and surrounding areas.

Although those findings are by no means a smoking gun that … Read more

RIM aiding India with wiretaps, report says

Research In Motion is providing the Indian government with some information on BlackBerry users, as long as the company deems it appropriate, The Wall Street Journal is reporting.

Citing anonymous sources, the Journal says that RIM has a "small" facility in Mumbai that was set up earlier this year to field surveillance requests from the Indian government. The Journal's sources say that the government must provide RIM with enough legal justification for the company to hand over an individual's "decoded messages," including BlackBerry Messenger chats.

But Indian government apparently wants more. For example, the … Read more