China Mobile apologises for spam

Chinese authorities are investigating complaints that millions of cellphone users were spammed with unwanted text messages from advertisers, reports The Canadian Press.

The uproar over what China's media has dubbed "text-message-gate" has drawn apologies from a major advertiser and the country's biggest mobile phone carrier, China Mobile.

The commercial text messages were sent to more than 200 million mobile phone users through China Mobile and smaller rival China Unicom.

The Northumbria police force is one of the first in the UK to introduce a new text messaging service for deaf people and those with hearing and speech impairments to help record non-emergency incidents, reports Journal Live.

It means deaf people will no longer have to rely on someone else to report non-emergencies for them and can now text a mobile number which will connect with the police control room.

The caller receives a return text within seconds to say their text has been passed to the police, who will reply to their inquiry within 24 hours, with a reminder if it is an emergency to dial 999.

Mobile messaging is growing in just about every corner of the globe and will push revenue to $212 billion by 2013, according to a new numbers forecast from ABI Research, says Information Week.

The consultancy defined five categories under mobile messaging: SMS, MMS, voice mail, instant messaging, and e-mail/unified messaging.

It also predicted the next growth spurt will be strongly influenced by new input and access capabilities, as well as integration between mobile and fixed networks.