Feb 01

The British Love to Text

By Chase Buckner Interesting Phone Stuff No Comments »

20messaging_600span.jpegApparently, the majority of British people don’t have Internet packages on their new and refurbished cell phone plans because their connection speeds aren’t that great and their cost is high (which seems weird that it would be worse from here in the US as I thought we were always behind with things like this). BizReport wrote that 76% of all cell phone owners in England do not have wireless Internet plans.

What they do use, and use the heck out of at that, is text messaging. According to the U.K. based Mobile Data Association, 96.8 billion text messages were sent out in 2009, – which is 11 million text messages per hour or 265 million per day. That figure was up 23% from 2008 when the Brits sent 78.9 billion texts. The number of picture texts sent in 2009 was 601 million, and 4.5 million of those were sent on Christmas day.

With companies working to make texting safe in cars and with companies like Google allowing you to verbally dictate texts to your phone, these numbers will surely go nowhere but up.

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Jan 22

Mobile Phones Have Been Saving Lives in Haiti

By Chase Buckner Interesting Phone Stuff, Phones In The News No Comments »

haiti-uscg-rescue1-660x440I’ve been reading several articles over the past few days about how new and refurbished cell phones have been saving lives in the aftermath of the earthquake that hit Haiti last week.

Dan Woolley, an American filmmaker, was trapped for 65 hours in the ruble of the Port-au-Prince hotel with a severe gash in his leg and a head wound. While trapped, Woolley downloaded the American Heart Association and Jive Media’s Pocket First Aid & CPR app, which instructed him to use his shirt to make a tourniquet to stop the bleeding from his leg and to use his sock to stanch the bleeding coming from his head wound. The app also informed him that it would be dangerous to fall asleep if he felt himself going into shock, so he set the alarm on his phone to go off every 20 minutes to keep him awake.

The 4636 shortcode for Haiti relief has been saving lives on a daily basis as well. Anyone in Haiti in need of help can text their needs to 4636 and within ten minutes, action is taken. On Tuesday, a text was received from a school that had collapsed but when a rescue team responded to the message, they were unable to locate the building. A volunteer group in Boston, Ma quickly pinpointed the location of the origin of the text and relayed the information to a local rescue group in Haiti, who was then able to locate the fallen school. The coordinates in the message were accurate to five decimal places.

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Jan 15

Over $1 Million Raised for Haiti from Text Messages

By Chase Buckner Phones In The News No Comments »

logo_redcross0206The Red Cross’s latest update confirms that over 5 million dollars of relief donations for Haiti have been made, over $1 million coming from peoples new and refurbished cell phones. On Jan. 12th, the worst earthquake in 200 years struck Haiti, which measured a 7.0 in magnitude on the Richter Scale. Red Cross immediately donated $1 million and set up the simplest way to send donations, which is via text message from your phone.

If you would like to donate relief money for Haiti, text “Haiti” to 90999 to send $10 to Red Cross. You can also donate to Haiti through other organizations found here.

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