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Text messaging as means of political outreach is hardly a new idea, but 2008 Democratic presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich claims a new drive launched by his campaign on Monday stands out from all the rest.

The vegan congressman from Ohio is asking Americans opposed to the Iraq war to text the word "peace" to the number 73223. From there, he plans to forward on the responses to President Bush and the Pentagon.

It all amounts to what his campaign staff calls "the first time text messaging has been used to try and change American policy." (Wait, … Read more

A New York state senator has recently proposed a bill that would make it illegal to send a text message while driving in the state. The proposal from Senator Carl Marcellino was made in response to a fatal car accident involving four New York state teens. Police believe the driver, a recent high-school grad, was text messaging a friend before crashing into an oncoming trailer and killing all four in the vehicle.

A recent study shows that almost half of all teens send text messages while driving, making the odds considerably high for this kind of accident. The senator's … Read more

Nothing is more jarring to Crave than an interruption to our morning routine, a time reserved for such sanctified rituals as long, hot showers and the day's first cup of coffee. That's why we think this "smart" mirror is an invention of the devil.

In addition to helping you straighten your toupee, the "+336+ SMS Mirror" acts as a remote receiver that picks up text messages streamed from a mobile phone or PDA and displays them on the shiny surface, according to Ubergizmo. (It's also worthy of Crave's odd-name category.)

Obviously perfect … Read more

VelvetPuffin is a new download-based social network that's also a multi-IM client. When you try it you'll think it's half Meebo (a Web application) and half Trillian (a download), since when you log on to your VelvetPuffin account, it immediately runs up a Java/Flash application that's independent of the browser. That in itself is a cool idea.

Once the application is running, you can close the browser completely. You can also, from within the application, create a resident version of it on your hard disk, so you don't need to visit the Web page … Read more

eBuddy is a strange mix of a typical Web company. While the lowercase "e" in front of the name might suggest it's a survivor of the early 1990s dot-com boom, it actually started out in 2003 and resides not in the Silicon Valley, but Amsterdam. It's also one of the few companies I've seen that has put almost its entire press kit on Flickr. eBuddy specializes in Web-based IM, which might sound familiar if you've ever used Meebo or the Web version of your favorite chat client. eBuddy works with three of the major … Read more

If you've ever wondered who's driving like a bonehead up ahead, it could be a teen who's behind the wheel, steering with one hand and sending a text message with the other. According to a study from AAA and Seventeen magazine, cited by this USA Today article, almost half of teens surveyed admitted that they send text messages from the driver's seat. (The researchers interviewed about 1,000 teen drivers in the United States to compile the data.)

That dovetails with a study published Tuesday about teen cell phone habits, which commonly include texting from the … Read more

SAP has patched highly critical security flaws in EnjoySAP and SAP Web Application Server, as well as moderate vulnerabilities in its SAP Message Server, according to security advisories issued Friday by Mark Litchfield of Next Generation Security Software.

Security flaws in EnjoySAP were found due to ActiveX controls "kweditcontrol.kwedit.1" and "preparetopostHTML," which could allow a buffer overflow attack and remote access to users' systems, according to Litchfield, who discovered the flaws.

EnjoySAP is one of the more popular SAP GUIs, noted Litchfield in his advisory, which stated all platforms are affected.

SAP Web Application … Read more

We got word earlier today the team behind Meebo has feverishly been working since last Friday to get it working on Apple's iPhone. One of the handset's shortcomings is its lack of an instant messaging client. Meebo, which has been providing a Web-based IM client that mimics desktop chatting software, did not work come iPhone launch due to the mobile version of Safari using its double-tap navigation. Meebo requires double clicking to start up an IM conversation, and many of the buttons and window functionality were simply not working.

The result is what the Meebo team claims to … Read more

MySpace has announced the official beta release of its MySpaceIM instant messaging service which soft-launched informally a year ago. According to a release from MySpace, over 17 million of the social networking site's 180 million members worldwide have installed the downloadable client.

MySpace, which was acquired by News Corp. in 2005, used to operate a browser-based instant messaging service, which it has since phased out.

The MySpaceIM service competes with other ubiquitous and well-established instant messaging clients, like Yahoo Instant Messenger, Microsoft's Windows Live Messenger, and the formidable AOL Instant Messenger. But MySpaceIM hopes to set itself apart … Read more