NotePage SMS, Paging and Messaging Blogs

PayPal, the world's largest supplier of online payment services, is preparing to offer a service for consumers to make purchases or money transfers using simple text messaging via mobile telephones, the company said Wednesday.

The service, known as PayPal Mobile, will be launched in the next couple of weeks in the United States, Canada and Britain, a spokeswoman said. Other markets worldwide will follow.

Police and prosecutors claim a cellphone placed a New York City bar bouncer near the body of a 24-year-old college student who was bound, raped, killed and dumped in a remote area.

Members of the New York City Police Department said early on that a cellphone call placed Darryl Littlejohn near the undeveloped land where Imette St. Guillen's body was found – before police had located it.

Mobile phone subscribers in Belarus received an anonymous text message alleging that plotters were preparing bloodshed after Sunday's election and warning them to keep away.

"On the evening of the 19th on Oktyabrskaya Square, provocateurs are preparing bloodshed. Look after your life and health," the message read.

The message followed a warning by President Alexander Lukashenko that he would not tolerate unrest after Sunday's presidential vote, which opponents say has been rigged.

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Movie ticket provider Fandango is set to expand its service further into the mobile space Thursday by adding Cingular, the nation's largest wireless carrier, to its roster of cellular partners.

Developed in conjunction with Crisp Wireless, users of Fandango can access it at mobile.fandango.com, from Google's toolbar or by text message and instantly receive showtimes and ticket availability for nearby theaters and other movie information. Cingular customers can also dial *V to access showtimes and ticketing using voice commands as part of Cingular's Voice Info Service.

Internet services company Softbank said Friday it is acquiring British mobile phone company Vodafone's struggling Japan unit for 1.75 trillion yen, or $15 billion, a move that will greatly boost Softbank's foray into the cell phone business.

Research In Motion Ltd., which recently settled a patent-infringement lawsuit that threatened to shutdown its popular BlackBerry email service, on Tuesday called for a "more balanced" U.S patent system.

In an open letter on its Web site, the Canadian company thanked customers and partners for their loyalty during the long-running suit, in which RIM supporters expressed concern about "a patent system in obvious need of reform."

In the letter, Mike Lazaridis, president and co-chief executive of RIM; and Jim Balsillie, chairman and co-chief executive of the company, questioned why "the patent system should allow such a bizarre set of circumstances to threaten millions of American customers in the first place."

We have recently added numerous TAP numbers to the online database. Be sure to check for the most recent numbers.

Cingular Wireless, the No. 1 U.S. mobile service, is aiming to extend the increasing popularity of online communities to cellphones with Rabble, a service aimed at connecting like-minded young people, the companies said on Thursday.

Cingular Wireless and T-Mobile USA temporarily stopped selling Motorola Inc.'s popular Razr phones this week because of a defect in some of them that causes calls to disconnect.

Motorola said Friday the glitch affects only a limited number of phones and it does not expect any impact on financial results.

"Motorola continues to ship new Razr handsets in volume to customer distribution centres and retail availability is expected to be normal across all markets by next week," spokeswoman Jennifer Weyrauch said.

Cingular Wireless and T-Mobile suspended Razr sales over the previous two days as a precaution so its customers didn't get stuck with defective phones.

With its $65 billion agreement to buy BellSouth Corp., AT&T Inc. faces one of the biggest challenges in its history: integrating two stodgy telephone companies with the nation's largest wireless company and making good on $18 billion in promised cost savings.

Although the deal had been widely expected, the timing was a surprise to Wall Street, coming just three months after SBC Communications completed its purchase of AT&T Corp. to form the "new" AT&T Inc.

U.S. telecom giant Verizon Communications has made an informal approach to Vodafone Group Plc about buying the latter's 45 percent stake in Verizon Wireless for about $40 billion, British newspaper the Business reported on Sunday.

"We have made our interest in acquiring Vodafone's stake in Verizon Wireless clear," a Verizon source told the paper. "The ball is now in Vodafone's court."

Targeting both telephone data brokers and telecoms, a House panel today approved legislation that bans the sale, lease or rental of confidential telephone records.

The bill also strengthens the ability of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to pursue the thriving online black-market sale of phone data.

Text messaging remains the most popular service for mobile phone users in the Asia Pacific despite offers for fancier applications such as email and gaming, an industry research group said.

Russian mobile telephone users will no longer have to pay for their incoming calls under a change to the telecommunications law signed by President Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin said.

Have you ever hit "Send" on a text message on your mobile phone before addressing it? Ever wondered where all those lost SMS text messages go? If so, you might want to speak with Stan Bubrouski, whose cell phone has been channeling wayward text messages from across the country for years.

Bubrouski, a computer science major at Northeastern University in Boston, is the proud owner of 'Null@vtext.com,' an account on the popular Verizon text messaging service that allows Internet users to send e-mail and IM messages directly to his cell phone as SMS text messages.

"I've been paying for it ever since," Bubrouski told eWEEK.

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Sony Ericsson announced it was linking up with Google to
incorporate the company's Web search and blog features into its mobile phones.

The congressional hearings probing data brokers that sell personal phone records have concluded, but the lawmakers' investigation continues.

As part of its latest update on the probe, House Energy and Commerce Committee investigators identified 22 more Web sites selling unauthorized personal phone data, including cell phone roaming records, the date and time of the calls, and their origin and destination.

The panel sent letters to the legal representatives of the sites demanding that the companies provide information about how the sites are obtaining the data.