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Creative Applications for SMS? 33

Posted by Cliff from the pushing-the-envelope dept.
Spinkle asks: "As the volume of global SMS traffic continues to grow at a staggering rate, new and more creative uses for text messaging are found. SMS text messaging is now achieving critical mass worldwide. Sites like Snifferdogalert and Velocity (which, incidentally, cater to drug dealers and speeding motorists, respectively) are an illustration of the increasing popularity of the SMS facility. A culture change is taking place in the way people choose to communicate. Will the visual message become more powerful and popular as voice? What other creative applications for instant messaging are there?"
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Creative Applications for SMS? More

Creative Applications for SMS?

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  • I'm sorry to see that such promising technology like SMS is being made the domain of druggies and drunk drivers. It's always sad to see good tech be commandeered by lowlifes.

    I guess I don't need to remind anyone here about what happened to Linux's reputation when it became associated with "hackers" (media term, not mine!) and software pirates. Of course, Micro$oft's smear campaigns don't help either.

    Anyway, let's try not to fuck this one up.

    :(
  • How about something to identify the sender so that one can use appropriate retaliation if SMSM spam is received?
  • ..which I could really do with since I'll be on a coach, somewhere in the middle of France on the way to Spain, whilst England are playing Brazil!

    Reminder: Next time you book a holiday check your calender, and don't forget about major sporting events.

  • Last Computer Chronicles I saw... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by heliocentric ( 74613 ) on Wednesday June 19, 2002 @03:12PM (#3731208) Homepage Journal
    Was talking about technology in Singapore and the proliferation of SMS use there. Check out CC's website [computerchronicles.org] (specifically episode 1939 [computerchronicles.org]) for more info. Some things I remember from the show include checking books out of the library (including libraries put in the mall, not just some dedicated structure near nothing popular with the kids), getting grades distributed and even ordering movie tickets in advance. With the whole SMS system for ticket purchase there was even talk of offering cut-rate pricing just before the show on remaining seating.

  • Old Phones plus Lego (Score:4, Interesting)

    by brejc8 ( 223089 ) on Wednesday June 19, 2002 @03:18PM (#3731261) Homepage Journal
    There are currently millions of old phones which people would not be seen dead with. I don't own a working phone just pay per use ones which my friends didn't want. The cool thing is they still get free messages.

    Anyway I did strip a philips phone and connected all buttons and I/O pins to a FPGA and microprocessor. [man.ac.uk]

    When the message comes in the ringer wire flips so you start driving the buttons to get the message. The message is the output to the LCD so i connect the lcd wires to the FPGA which latches the message.

    There are lots of webstes that allow you to send free SMS messages. A bit of pearl and lego and you have yourself remote controlable car [man.ac.uk].

    I can recognise when the message comes in but I still need to work on decoding the LCD screen by looking at the wires. For the time being the car drives on requests directly from the internet reather than from the phone.
    • It's only a matter of time before someone DDoSes the goddamned thing and sends it careening into an embankment.

      What's its SMS email address, again?

      - A.P.

  • For those in the US who don't have SMS... (Score:3, Informative)

    by j-turkey ( 187775 ) on Wednesday June 19, 2002 @04:00PM (#3731604) Homepage
    upoc.com [upoc.com] offers a free service that links together all of the propritary cellular text messaging in the US via a web interface. It also offers stuff like public groups.

    Its not necessarily an IM thing, but a text-messaging thing.


    -Turkey
    • Doesn't that defeat the purpose of SMS? THe idea of SMS is that you can send the message from anywhere anytime. If you have to sit by a computer to send the message, what's the point? Just send email.
      • There are a number of methods for using this...and SMS is included. You can send messages Upoc's Voice Message System, WAP/Wireless, e-mail, cell-phone email, SMS, etc...check this [upoc.com] out.

        But the point is -- in the US, most people's phones don't support SMS -- alot of companies use propritary messaging formats. These people have found a way to (sort of) integrate those (using whatever digital service that you may have)...and (maybe) make some money off of the ad revenue.


        -Turkey
  • The thing about drug dealers is unfortunate. It should be easy to program a "convergence" phone (Danger Labs, Handspring Treo, etc.) to send and receive encrypted SMS messages. Yes there is obvious abuse potential. However, it's probably easier to nail an SMS user (who after all is personally carrying a phone even if it's prepaid and not registered to him) than an IM or email user (internet cafes) or a one-way pager user (unlike a cell phone which talks to a network, there's no way to locate a receive-only pager).
  • One thing I like about SMS over voice is that it is easier to log and file important messages. Kinda like e-mail. Its also easier to communicate because there is less miscommunication especially when the line conditions are bad.

    Replies are just as instantaeneous anyway. And we can quickly revert back to voice if we need to convey other things that cannot be transfered via text.
  • I live in the Netherlands and the SMS stuff I've seen here include:
    SPAM (only once because the telecom branch isn't totally clueless)
    joke a day, speed traps, big brother (the game show) updates, F1 updates, trivia games,horoscopes, traffic info, news info, sports info, interactive voting/pooling with TV-shows among many many many others.

    It's so easy to subscribe to these things, yet most teens forget that recieving one of those SMSes also cost them money. Since most teens use the prepaid scheme, it does happen that when they need to up their quota it's gone the second they finished because of outstanding debts caused by the SMSes.

    I-mode was introduced here and it's target where not the gadget happy geeks but the teen SMS crowd.

    It wouldn't suprise me if in europe more SMS messages are sent than actual phonecalls with mobile phones.

  • SMS is great for disaster/emergency. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by j-turkey ( 187775 ) on Wednesday June 19, 2002 @04:40PM (#3731895) Homepage
    I live in one of the NYC boroughs and on September 11th my phone service was gone, and cell service was practically gone as well (it was actually the first to go, and later in the day, I had to dial 20-40 times to get a call through)... Cell service was pretty bad for weeks afterwards.

    SMS data packets are tiny, and can typically get through when there is little or no voice service. If it is available in your locale and with your provider, I'd suggest learning to use it (and making sure your loved ones know how to use it) -- in the event of a disaster, it may be the best form of communication with the people who are close to you.


    -Turkey
  • Nokia Communicators used to have a feature (don't know if they still do) where you could remotely update spreadsheets on multiple phones automatically via SMS

    I've seen friends update thier blogs by SMS as well

  • I set up an SMS gateway on my network and then redirected all the devices that used to message my text pager to SMS message my phone. It's nice to get one device off my belt, now if I just wasn't so cheap I'd get a Treo or Kyoceria Smart phone and make my handheld and phone one device.

    Does anyone else have the problem of too many devices and not enough belt room, me cell, my Visor, my pager, my leatherman, my mini mag... too much junk!
  • I wrote myself [irev.net] a little SMS -> LiveJournal gateway. The script idles behind an email address on my box and knows that any messages from my cellphone email address to its address should be punted through JLJ [freshmeat.net] which updates LiveJournal.

    Kinda lame, but its neat to update my LJ from the center of DisneyLand from the cellphone.

  • I use sendmail and .forward to forward email messages to my cellphone. It allows me to leave the office during the day and not miss important emails.

    I can filter which email messages are forwarded. It is the best feature of my cellphone.
  • I was hoping for some fun tips on Microsoft Systems Management Server [microsoft.com].
  • I think on this one that /. might be a little behind the times. SMS has been going for years now and is now a very mature service that has been used for quite a while for these sorts and lots of other applications.

    How can this be considered news, this is history.
  • There is an openACS [openacs.org] based award winning SMS setup [openacs.org]

    To quote the release.... "The application is a service for tourists visiting the historic city of Bath (in the UK). It guides users around the city and towards major attractions. At the same time they are involved in a 'Treasure Hunt' answering questions related to historic sites, requiring users to visit them. Prizes can be won and sponsorhsip opportunities exist for businesses located on the trail."

    If I recall correctly, the backend tying openACS to the SMS gateway has also been opensourced. Check it out.

  • I manage a lot of mission-critical servers and on the rare occasions they get into trouble my monitoring server sends an e-mail to my free e-mail account with my mobile phone service provider (orange) which then gets sent to me as an SMS. I also use a free SMS to E-Mail gateway to remote control my PCs at home, I could do it via WAP but SMS is much quicker and cheaper :-) My GF and I play chess, hangman, battleships etc via SMS when we are bored at work too :-).
    • Ever since SMS appeared on the scene, the much maligned - always harassed Sysadmins heaved a sigh of relief - You don't have to be physically present to check the operations of your server. I check a host of parameters like free memory,free swap/disk space,number of connections etc in a server and the server sends a packet of data to a central monitoring server which checks for the 'trip' condition from all the reporting servers. If there is a 'trip' indication, this central server dashes off a SMS to my mobile. Often you can avoid a disastrous shutdown by this method. Thanks to these technologies, we need no longer be tied to our servers by an umbilical cord.

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