Smarter phones mean more security risks

Mobile messaging company Airwide Solutions says European mobile phone customers are now receiving 21.3% more unwanted text messages than they did last year - with France suffering a 61.3% increase. [Press release]

More SMS records forecast for New Year's Eve

Airwide Solutions, the company that worked with Vodafone to send the world's first text message, has forecast the number of SMS messages expected on 31st December 2007 and 1st January 2008. It expects the USA to send almost 730 million messages and the UK to send 280 million messages. However, China - which doesn't celebrate its New Year until February - will send more messages than both countries. An average day in China sees 1.6 billion texts sent. [Source: Cellular-News.com]

Happy Birthday SMS

SMS - the 'short message service' that's become better known as simply 'texting' - was 15 years old this week. The world's first text message was sent on 3rd December 1992 by Neil Papworth, an engineer at Airwide Solutions, to Richard Jarvis at Vodafone. The message read "Happy Christmas". [Sources: Airwide Solutions press release, 160characters.org]