Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Looks like there just may be two new E series Nokia phones in the works if images on the ‘Net are to be trusted - the upcoming E72 and E75. Apparently, preventing leaks from those doing proto testing, or having promo videos leaked onto the web before they are supposed to be, is a problem companies are seeing more and more often. These images were initially found on the ever-popular YouTube site, before tech and gadget fans started to discover them.

It appears the E72 has the benefits of the E60 with a side sliding form factor. With text messaging, email and sms being all the rage, the full QWERTY keyboard both styles feature will probably also be considered a bonus by many.

Obviously, at this point there is no word on release date or price. Stay tuned for more updates as they come in.

Via [symbianfreak]

T-Mobile has just announced that as of August 29 the rates for text and picture messages will be going up. With a nice increase, the per message rate will now be the same as most other major carriers as it is going from 15 cents up to 20 cents.

These new message rate will apply only to those customers without a messaging plan, however it may also be a reason for those to escape any contract without paying an early termination fee. Of course that may require a little negotiating on your part and we expect the success level on that to vary depending on how convincing you are and also how nice or friendly feeling the service rep is.

With the way messaging rates seem to be increasing, it seems like it would be smart, even for the casual user, to subscribe to a messaging plan and ditch those per message rates.

Via [jkOnTheRun]

CallerID has become something that, while not always accurate we have come to take for granted. As nice as a service that Skype has been, it has been more than a little annoying to send or receive a SkypeOut call and see “+0000123456” on the CallerID display.

Now US based SkypeOut users will be able to configure their own number to display. Simply login to your Skype account and set the number by selecting Caller ID from the Account menu. You can set the number to reflect your personal cell number, which will send you an SMS message to confirm that you are not spoofing the ID display or if you already have a SkypeIn number that will be reflected by default.

Its nice that we here in the US will finally have an accurate CallerID display, something that European customers have apparently had for a while now. Its also a nice option to be able to have it reflect your cell phone, as my Skype account is already set to forward to my cell when I am not logged in.

Via [jkOnTheRun]

SimulScribe offers a great service, one that is a benefit to anyone who dislikes checking and responding to voicemail. They convert your voicemail message to text and then deliver it to you as either an email or text message, to which you can then respond to the “voicemail” by return message. This is a wonderful option to have, especially when you need to check and respond to messages but are in a setting where using and speaking on a phone would be considered rude. It also helps to save time, because you can simply read the important parts of the message and get the details you need without having to listen to whoever is leaving the message ramble on and on.

While all this sounds great, and there service works wonderful their name has been holding them back. The name SimulScribe was born from “Simultaneous Voicemail Transcription,” and while its a catchy name, it turns out that a name with missing letters is not always a good way to get customers to be able to find you easily. 

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Looks like Verizon Wireless customers have been going text frenzy over the past couple of years. Seven years after the network launched its basic text messaging services; Verizon Wireless customers have sent and received 10 billion messages in a single month in June 2007. Barely a year after, the number of text messages sent and received doubled up to 20 billion in February 2008.

“The volume of text messages being sent and received by Verizon Wireless customers is growing exponentially, Whether it’s sports scores, news updates, the latest weather forecast, or the ‘joke of the day’, text messages are a tremendous way for anyone to stay on top of what’s happening in the world,” said Mike Lanman, chief marketing officer of Verizon Wireless.

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Tired of the standard old baby names, trying to think of something unique to hopefully have your newborn standout a little. Well look no further than your phonetic SMS spellings, or mis-spellings as they really are. According to the Thaindian News in addition to a corruption of the English language we are also seeing an unusually high amount of mis-spellings in baby names.

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EU Commissioner Viviane Reding has given Europe’s mobile phone operators until July 1, 2008 to cut (in fact slash) their excessive roaming charges for SMS messages.

Studies show that a text sent from abroad can cost £0.49 ($0.95), while transferring 1MB of data can cost £4.11 ($8.00). So what does Ms Reding mean by ‘slash’? Well she has warned that anything more than about 2 pence (about 4 cents) above domestic texting charges would be unacceptable, which would be really good news indeed.

Not so good news on the data downloading market which is still seen as in its infancy, but she did urge for clearer warnings of the costs which would help in avoiding any shocking bills.

Via [BBC]

Coming just one year after the previous message rate increase, AT&T has announced another increase that will take effect as of March 30, 2008. Customers who are not on a message plan and just pay-per-message will see an increase of $.05 per message, which will bring the SMS price up to $.20 and the MMS price up to $.30. If you are currently on a messaging plan your pricing will not be affected. For those not on a plan it seems like it may be a good time to consider moving over.

Via [PhoneNews]

Verizon Wireless has announced that it will raise the price of text messages by 5 cents starting March 2nd. The hike will result in customers paying 20 cents per message. Sprint Nextel became the first U.S. carrier to charge 20 cents per message when it raised its rates in October of 2007. Text messaging currently accounts for about 45% of all wireless data revenue.

Read[CNN Money]

So the question must be - how large a percent are you of the estimated 2.3 trillion SMS messages that will be sent in 2008? Up 19.7% from 2007 this means that the revenues from mobile messaging will grow 15.7% in 2008 to $60.2 million.

That is a lot of ‘just leaving the bar, home soon’ messages!

Not surprisingly the Asia/Pacific region has the largest group of users, with 300 billion messages predicted for the US in 2008. Longer term it is expected that email and IM via the mobile phone will replace texts, but having been around in the UK when texting first started I am, not so sure - I think there will always be a place for the easy to use brief update message that doesn’t require anyone else to respond, or any additional connectivity over and above your cell phone network.

Via [Pocket Lint]