IN a recent New York Times article citing an Ipsos MediaCT survey on the use of SMS, 82% of American cell-phone users said they never used SMS. This isn't surprising considering how lame the iPhone's SMS features are! Mobile phone users, particularly in the Philippines, use more SMS than voice calling primarily because it is the cheapest form of communication available in the country.

Until SMS becomes cheaper in the US, I doubt if Americans will use it more. With unlimited data starting to be more affordable, VoIP will pick up and text messaging will left behind. I am sure that this will also happen if telcos in the other countries provide more affordable voice calling rates!

[Image from Flickr:roguelazer]

© dewitt

This is the message that Vlingo is saying referring to their new Blackberry application. Vlingo provides Blackberry users with voice to text transcription that translate to web searches, commands, etc. You can do voice dialing, SMS and e-mail by just talking, open applications, search calendar, address-book and even the internet.

Whilst this may not be revolutionary since other smartphones already have these features, the convenience it offers to the corporate Blackberry users is tremendous. Add a dorky bluetooth headset and you will look closer to the borg! hehehe.

You can download the beta and try it out. Unfortunately, I do not have a Blackberry to test it on.

It seems, from a recent survey, that people in the UK have really taken to wireless technology. A Linksys survey has recently found that:

• 60% of broadband customers have wireless at home
• 87% of wireless users connect their home PC and/or laptop to the network
• 28% have attached a printer
• 20% have attached a game console
• 6% have attached digital music players

The survey didn't mention the number of people in the survey but it did mention that:

• 96% had a PC or laptop at home
• 69% had a digital player
• 57% had a DVR/PVR
• 58% had a game console
• 15% had a digital photo

I think this survey says something else about accepted technology. Surely most people have become accustom to using a PC/laptop. Even my Grandma has one. But mobility, and the ability to make our peripherals accessible through wireless technology is still lagging quite behind the curve. This to me says something else about vendors and sales tactics. Honestly, how hard is it to sell an extra ethernet cable and simple print server when selling a printer? And it isn't going to break the bank.

Well, the new cell phone law in California has come that makes it illegal to talk while driving unless you use some form of hands free device.

So how is the law doing after 24 hours of existance?
Amazingly there were only three tickets issued in the first 24 hours!
So an amazing $60 was raised. I just wonder how many man-hours were involved to make $60. It was even reported that highway patrol was somewhat surprised that there where such few tickets issued. Makes me think they were really looking for those cell phones.

Two things bother me here. Either the police think we are complete idiots and won't purchase hands-free devices OR they are really looking for "crime" where there isn't any.

Take a look at your state laws - Information About State Laws Banning the Use of Hand-held Devices While Driving

Last Sunday (Saturday in the US), I viewed the Pacquiao-Diaz boxing bout on my Macbook Air, via Sling Player in Texas (I am in Manila, Philippines). Everyone knows that the Macbook Air's speaker is only mono so to get a better user experience, I decided to hook it up to my 5.1 speakers, which is connected to an Airport Express. However, the Sling Player does not support Apple's AirTunes, i.e., I cannot throw the audio remotely to the Airport Express. This is where RogueAmoeba's Airfoil comes in. What it does is extend Apple's AirTunes to any Mac (or Windows) application, thereby allowing audio from practically any source to be transmitted to the speakers connected to the Airport Express. What is even more interesting is the fact that RogueAmoeba has free, yes FREE, AirFoil Speaker software that runs on computers (Mac, Windows and Linux) making it visible to Airfoil in the same way as AirTunes.

Unfortunately, I was not able to get the Linux Airfoil Speakers to work. It runs on Mono - maybe that is the reason. :)

Anyway, this is a great way of having full surround sound without tethering any wires to your portable computer. I just wish that there is a Linux version, as in native Linux, of Airfoil.

With less than 2 weeks to the iPhone 3G and iPhone v.2.0 software release, Apple is slowly migrating their .Mac subscribers to the new MobileMe service. Whilst all .Mac services are still functional, e-mail addresses are now aliased to the me.com equivalent, e.g., jose.rizal@mac.com can also be reached at jose.rizal@me.com.

I personally tried this on my accounts and it worked - except for the e-mail only sub-account that I was using. However, it won't take long before this gets migrated as well.

How about you? Did Apple migrate your account already?