sms

StartTalking lets you text with just your voice

Texting while driving is a serious safety problem, so much so that the activity is now banned in 30 states in the United States.

How dangerous is it? The U.S. Department of Transportation says that drivers who do anything with a handheld device increase the risk of getting in an injury crash by four times--a concept that can be easy to ignore if you've gotten away with this unscathed.

AdelaVoice is based in East Falmouth, Mass.--a state where, beginning tomorrow, texting while driving will become an offense with a penalty of up to a $500. The company … Read more

Zeus banking Trojan targets mobile phones too

The Zeus banking Trojan, which targets Windows-based computers, is now being used to target victims' mobile phones too, according to several researchers.

Fortinet said today that it had uncovered new mobile malware dubbed SymbOS/Zitmo, which stands for Zeus in the Mobile, that is most likely designed to intercept confirmation text messages that banks send to customers for online banking. This could allow criminals to thwart banks' two-factor SMS authentication and approve transactions without the victim knowing it.

Zeus typically compromises a computer, either by luring the victim to click on a malicious link in an e-mail or luring the … Read more

State Farm Android app texts while you drive, so you don't have to

In an effort to curb the temptation to text while behind the wheel, State Farm Insurance Company is updating its Pocket Agent application for Android with a widget that will do your texting for you, sort of. The On the Move widget is essentially an SMS auto-responder that will intercept incoming text messages and automatically reply with a canned response.

After loading the app, users are able to compose and save their automated responses. Although the widget is primarily designed for use while in a moving vehicle, multiple responses can be saved and used for different situations or moods. For … Read more

OpenFeint gets SMS invites, timed leaderboards

Cross-platform social-gaming network OpenFeint is bringing out on Wednesday a new version of its service with a new invite system and time-based leaderboards.

Gamers running titles with version 2.6 of OpenFeint will be able to share a title they're playing from within the app, just as Apple does via e-mail from within the App Store and as competitor Plus+ does via its internetwork messaging system. New to OpenFeint is a way to send recommended games out as an SMS to a friend. These are sent not from your phone or game device, but from OpenFeint itself, meaning that … Read more

iPhone quick trick: Tag your group texts

If you are texting groups of people often and have a difficult time finding the conversations, use this trick to tag your texts, making them easy to access later.

If your texting habits are anything like those of some of the people I know (my own aren't too crazy), you undoubtedly find yourself needing to text specific groups of people quite a bit. It may be co-workers who meet up on Monday nights for Bingo, your brothers and sisters (but not your parents, because they just don't need to know), or your closest pals. In any case, it … Read more

First SMS-sending Android Trojan reported

Security experts warned on Tuesday about what is believed to be the first Trojan targeting Android-based mobile devices that racks up charges by sending text messages to premium-rate numbers.

The Trojan-SMS malware, dubbed "Trojan-SMS.AndroidOS.FakePlayer.a," is being distributed via an unknown malicious Web site, said Denis Maslennikov, senior malware researcher at Kaspersky Lab.

Users are prompted to install a "media player application" that is a little bigger than 13 kilobytes, but which is hiding the Trojan inside, according to Kaspersky and mobile-phone security company Lookout, which analyzed the threat.

Like all Android apps, the … Read more

Android Atlas Weekly 3: Android iPhone 4 killer and Android viruses (podcast)

Motorola has big plans for its iPhone 4 killer, including a 2Ghz processor. Norton Security is out to defend against Android viruses, but do they exist? What's the deal with the Droid 2, the Droid X, and the HTC Aria? Join Justin Eckhouse along with guest hosts Bonnie Cha and Wilson Tang for a special Android Atlas Weekly from New York.

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EPISODE 3

Stories

Sprint Overstates Early EVO 4G Sales

Motorola Droid for Verizon gets a price drop

Droid 2, Droid X prepped for summer launches… Read more

Get Textfree Unlimited free for a limited time

Your monthly iPhone bill is high enough without tacking on another $5, $15, or $20 for a text-messaging plan. That's why free-SMS apps are so popular: They let you text to your heart's content without putting a single extra penny in AT&T's pocket.

One of the most popular free-SMS apps, Textfree Unlimited, costs $5.99. That's pretty cheap considering the money it can save you in the long run. Well, now it's cheaper still: For a limited time, you can get Textfree Unlimited absolutely free. (After clicking that link, just click Download Now … Read more

Twitter acquires SMS service Cloudhopper

Twitter announced Friday that it's made another small acquisition: Cloudhopper, a start-up that makes it easier to connect to mobile text-messaging (SMS) carrier services around the world. The two founders of Cloudhopper, which had already been partnering with Twitter, will join the company full time.

This is key for Twitter as the company attempts to make inroads in communities where cellular data access and smartphones like the iPhone and BlackBerry are less common. But Twitter's history with SMS has been spotty: High costs initially forced Twitter, which only just unveiled a concrete business model, to disable text-messaging functionality in a number of countries. … Read more