Anyone that has worked for, with, or anywhere near "the man" should dislike the word ping. It's too easy to immediately associate the word with a bothersome, middle aged project manager saying, "Let me look into that and I'll ping you." Why can't you just say email? Why?

We begrudgingly admit that in the case of this new iPhone app, the name is rather fitting. The application allows free registered users to message each other via push notifications over the data connection, rather than SMS. This is rad for a number of reasons. Most obviously, users of Ping can potentially avoid paying AT&T's reprehensibly priced SMS plans. It also allows the opportunity to communicate with people who have no SMS plan at all, such as complete freaks or friends overseas.

One thing Blackberry has always had over iPhones, and that converts deeply miss, is Blackberry Messenger. It's real time, it's free, it's easy; it's texting on steroids. Ping isn't quite there yet, but it's a step in the right direction.

A long requested feature of Google Voice was a simple one: forward inbound text messages to email. Google Voice users get voicemails auto-transcribed and emailed to them, but text messages were not. Users can read and respond to them online in addition to their phones in the normal way, but email forwarding wasn’t an option.

Tonight that changed. Google Voice users now have the ability to forward inbound text messages to email. And even better, you can reply from email as well.

There are third party services that have offered this, but they require users to give these services your Google Voice credentials, which is never a good idea. It’s great that Google launched this feature directly.

Since they seem to be taking requests, here’s my next one: launch an API. I can’t wait to see what developers come up with, and I’d love to use those non-Google services in a secure way without giving them my Google Voice credentials.

Berlin, May 4 -- Phone plugins makes it easy to send a text message or dial a number from a Macintosh computer through a connected bluetooth-enabled mobile phone. Version 2.3 supports more than 200 cell phones from LGE, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson. "Phone plugins uses its own bluetooth wizard for a painless connection of Mac and cell phone." states Jan Fuellemann, PR spokesperson at nova media. "It just takes one click from the contextual menu or services menu to dial a number or to send a text message. There is no need to have to launch a dedicated program." To use Phone plugins, it is sufficient to select a number in any document or application and to choose either "Dial number" or "Send text message". If the selected phone number is known to Address Book, Phone plugins will display the appropriate name and picture while calling.

The explosion of low-cost, prepaid wireless plans are raking in the customers during this recession, and Boost Mobile, a division of Sprint that boasts an estimated 4 million users, is no different. But subscribers to Boost’s $50 unlimited plan, which was rolled out last January, have been experiencing delays in text message delivery, reports the AP, implying that the company may be experiencing some growing pains. The plan allows users unlimited calls, texts, MMS, and Web browsing without a contract, but according to the AP’s reports, numerous customers have been receiving text messages a few hours after they were sent, often arriving in the early hours of the morning.