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It's funny. Laugh. Communications

Morse Coders Beat SMSers 483

Posted by CowboyNeal from the wheel-reinvented dept.
dgnicholson writes "Jay Leno did a text off between two text messengers and two Morse coders. The Morse coders handily beat the young whippersnappers with time to spare. It might be a fun phone app to make a Morse code messenger, if you kept your headset in and had an external sender, could be interesting. Perhaps a Morse code Skype device."
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Morse Coders Beat SMSers More

Morse Coders Beat SMSers

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  • no surprise... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by professorhojo ( 686761 ) * on Friday June 03, 2005 @02:15AM (#12711898)
    Anyone using morse code on an even occasional basis should have guessed that it would cream the text messagers! There are three simple reasons: (1) A single character of Morse can be keyed in less time than a single character can be entered on the cell phone with the "TAP" method. (2) With the bug, there is no delay created by moving the finger from button to button. (3) Most importantly, however, the text message is time-shifted, whereas morse transmission is real-time. When the sender is done, the recipient is done also.
    • Not to mention that the Morse coders were professionals and the SMSers were teens.

      • Re:no surprise... (Score:3, Interesting)

        by dougmc ( 70836 )

        ... and the SMSers were teens.

        To be fair, the sending teen (the receiving teen needed no special skills beyond being able to read) had some sort of record at SMS sending speed or something. I seem to recall doing the math and finding that he sent at 30 wpm -- which is pretty impressive, considering! (Of course, the world record for morse code sending and receiving by humans is around 75 wpm.)

        Though he also had the crappy cell phone keyboard (which was probably the point), and the sending ham had

      • Re:no surprise... (Score:2, Informative)

        by Kippesoep ( 712796 )
        I get the distinct impression that teens might as well be considered professional SMSers. The volume of messages they put out is staggering. They're the right choice for the job.

      • Re:no surprise... (Score:3, Informative)

        by n9hmg ( 548792 )
        Actually, the morse guys were amateurs as well. Neither of them has ever had a job in which use of morse code was part of the job.
        The earlier contest, on which this one was based, was held in Australia, and was much more lopsided. The SMSer was a high school girl who did NOT have the world record, and the morse code guys were 90-year-old retired telegraphers. It's been a very long time since anybody got paid to send morse code.
        Chip and Ken are amateur radio operators, K7JA and K6CTW. The tonight show
    • Plus, on any phone I've used, even with a qwerty keyboard, there's going to be a lag of at least 100ms between keypresses, even if you were to type them at the speed of light (In the absence of oxygen, to prevent fires, of course). Besides, wasn't this posted (in non-late-night-talkshow form) a few weeks ago? Is this a reminder (aka dupe)?

    • Re:no surprise... (Score:5, Informative)

      by nacturation ( 646836 ) <nacturation&gmail,com> on Friday June 03, 2005 @02:37AM (#12711981) Journal
      Granted, but let's see them repeat the experiment with a device that has a full keyboard on it. I've known people who can type on QWERTY at 120 WPM sustained, let's see any morse guy keep up. Or get one of those closed caption keyers to compete as well -- they apparently go up to 250 WPM. [robson.org]

      • Re:no surprise... (Score:5, Funny)

        by wallitron ( 308146 ) on Friday June 03, 2005 @02:55AM (#12712060) Homepage
        Granted, but let's see them repeat the experiment with a device that has a full keyboard on it.

        Or what about get the guy holding the SMS device (phone) to type in a specially crafted 10 digit number allowing a two way audio connection between two devices.

        Every person on the planet has a wife, sister or mother than can talk faster than 250+ WPM.

        • Re:no surprise... (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Dachannien ( 617929 )
          Who needs a phone? With the experiment they used, all they had to do was shout the message across the room. That technology is hundreds of millions of years old, and predates the human race.

          But anyway, the experiment was designed to entertain and maybe (hopefully!) to educate. Every teenage whippersnapper is out there sending text messages to their friends, but just like they are ignorant of things like who the third U.S. president was or when World War II happened, they are also ignorant about the hist

          • Re:no surprise... (Score:4, Funny)

            by Scrameustache ( 459504 ) on Friday June 03, 2005 @07:36AM (#12712911) Homepage Journal
            Who needs a phone? With the experiment they used, all they had to do was shout the message across the room. That technology is hundreds of millions of years old, and predates the human race.

            To be fair, the compression algorithm for this transmission method only allow for two messages:
            "Oh my! I am being bitten!"
            or
            "Boy, am I horny!"

            Off, course, considering they are teens, they pretty much only use the cell phones for variations of message #2, so your point is still valid : )
      • Well hell then lets just compare Morse code to a telephone conversation. The point is that you could easily make a Morse code text messenger that would show BOTH parties readable text but if it was entered with Morse code then it would be much faster than standard SMS. I think the grandparent is correct in their assesment in timing, the problem is that most people will never bother to learn Morse code, just like they dont' bother to learn Dvorak.

      • Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.

        I tried posting Post Humously. I found my post lacked flavour.

    • Most importantly, however, the text message is time-shifted, whereas morse transmission is real-time. When the sender is done, the recipient is done also.

      And that's exactly why the comparison is flawed. You should compare morse to speech, since they've got similar uses: direct person-to-person communication. Texting is delayed one-way communication used for wholly different purposes (though I admid I also occasionally have a conversation over SMS ;-)).

      Why were we serious, again? :-P

    • Spooky. That's exactly what one of the Morse code guys said about 80% of the way down this page [eham.net]. You must know as much about Morse as him!

      (of course, if you actually are WA7VTD, please ignore my sarcasm...

    • I take it that they didn't add on the time it takes the recipient of the morse code to go:

      WTF is this?

      The twat is sending morse code on a F*cking mobile.

      FFS! I'm going to have to look this crap up on Google.

      Got a converter. Lets see dot dot dash dot dash. Damnit missed the place.

      (Phones Morse sender) FFS Bill can't you just send an SMS like normal people?

  • Nokia app lets you key SMSes in Morse Code (Score:5, Informative)

    by mocm ( 141920 ) * on Friday June 03, 2005 @02:18AM (#12711910)
    Someone [typepad.com] already wrote an application for Nokia phones that lets you write your SMS by using Morse code.
    • Now what I want is an applet for my 6310i that will beep my messages out in Morse, so I don't need to read the screen.
  • For those with Nokia Series 60 phones, here's an app that will let you type in SMS using morse code: http://laivakoira.typepad.com/blog/2005/05/morse_t exter.html [typepad.com]

  • We tried using morse code (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    An employee suggested to me that we use this encoding scheme for a few offices here as an evaluation. I was skeptical at first but he explained the benefits of using morse code instead of a more complicated RF protocol. So I decided to let him train 5 offices to see how the employees got on. Besides, our IT manager had been using it in his wireless and it seemed to work fine, why not try it on the client superhets?

    Once he'd got the radios up and running with CW we let the users try it out. It all seemed fi
  • just say dot for dot

    and dash for dash
    • In "spoken" morse, dots are pronounced as DIT (DI- if it's not the final sound in a word), and dashes as DAH.

      This (almost) mimics the way morse would actually sound.
  • You can do it today, there is an SMS API supported by some phones. Just write a J2ME app to do it.

    Maybe I will... Some day... When I learn morse code... Or maybe I'll just have another beer instead. :-)

    • Well, there allready is a program for it, as other commenters have pointed out.

      You don't really need to learn morse code to write such an application. You just need to have the conversion table handy when you make the application.

      Your real challenges would be
      1: Setting up the development environment and learningn the API. Should not be difficult, but takes some time.

      2: Working out the timing for interpreting key presses as dots and dashes and seperating words. This is the real challenge.

      • Well, there allready is a program for it, as other commenters have pointed out.

        When I replied, no such comments had appeared.

        You don't really need to learn morse code to write such an application. You just need to have the conversion table handy when you make the application

        No, but I would have to know it to be able to use it. :-) At work I write code that I don't really use myself, so if you're willing to pay me, I'll do it. :-)

        Your real challenges would be 1: Setting up the development

  • Well, yeah. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by msmercenary ( 837876 ) on Friday June 03, 2005 @02:21AM (#12711923)
    Morse code was created for the purpose of sending text over REALLY low bandwidth. Cell phones were created to talk to people [slashdot.org]. The idea of entering text with a numeric keypad was a wart they hung on the side of the phone when they realized that a full keyboard wouldn't work.

    Personally, I just don't understand the appeal of text messaging. Maybe that marks me as an old fogey (27), but I just don't need my tendonitis to get any worse, TYVM.

    • Re:Well, yeah. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by JanneM ( 7445 )
      I'm an older fogey (36), and I usually only use messaging. The reason? I'm often using the phone in noisy, bustling environments (city streets, office landscape, robotics lab), and I'm an old fogey - which means my hearing is not what it used to be. Talking on a phone is frankly often fairly difficult, and you disturb other people no matter how low-key you try to be.

      With text messaging I can get or send info no matter how noisy the environment is (try understanding spoken directions while standing on a str

      • I agree (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Ogemaniac ( 841129 )
        I live in Japan, and probably send twenty text messages for each call that I make. Though I must admit, the Japanese software seems better than what I remember in the states. The word-completion is usally really clever if I am typing in Japanese. Also, typing in Japanese is intrinsically easier because in general, each kana corresponds to two English letters. I wish people would use this service more in the states, for all of the reasons people have been mentioning. Despite the enormous number of cell

    • Re:Well, yeah. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Alioth ( 221270 ) <no@spam> on Friday June 03, 2005 @03:42AM (#12712197) Journal
      Texting avoids the "HELLO, I'M ON THE TRAIN!" syndrome. It is quiet (silent, apart from the beep when a message comes in) and doesn't disturb people around you. You're hardly an old fogey, I'm 6 years older than you but almost exclusively use text messaging - I really don't like using phones, and my mobile has a full QWERTY keyboard so I'd rather text.

    • Re:Well, yeah. (Score:3, Informative)

      by LionKimbro ( 200000 )
      Using SMS is a courtesy. Your listener need only glance at his or her phone to read your message.

    • Re:Well, yeah. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by rsidd ( 6328 )
      You keep saying this and people keep answering, but you don't note the answers: I guess that's what makes you an old fogey, not your age.

      I'm 31, and only started using a cell phone at 29. SMS is incredibly useful because: (a) you don't disturb others in a public place, (b) you don't need to strain to hear the other person in a noisy place, (c) if your recipient is busy -- which, in some professions, is very often -- he/she can still see your message and respond later, (d) it costs almost nothing.

      You see

      • Re:Well, yeah. (Score:2, Informative)

        by MikeDX ( 560598 ) *
        SMS is incredibly useful because: (a) you don't disturb others in a public place

        I beg to differ on this one, if anybody has ever been in a public place and the person sitting fourteen rows away receives an SMS, with an incredibly loud alert tone it is way more annoying than the crazy frog or even the person chatting as with sms they usually get one after another and another continually with the beep beep beeps of the incoming alert "CQ" morse tone (how fitting) on those horrid nokia phones by default - o

        • Re:Well, yeah. (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Wdomburg ( 141264 ) on Friday June 03, 2005 @06:56AM (#12712732)
          I'd consider it less annoying than incredibly loud ring tone (as often as not crappy music) followed by HI JOSIE! OMG DID YOU HOOK UP WITH THAT GUY ROB AT THE HORSE'S ASS PUB LAST NIGHT? OMG HE HAD THE CUTEST BUTT! BLAH BLAH BLAH!.

          [Yes, Mr. Lameness Filter. I *know* that all caps is like YELLING. That's the friggin' point in this case. s/Lameness/Lame/)
  • Yes, those cunning editors have done it again.

    Here's [slashdot.org] the original submission.

    As to the Skype idea, I have no clue how the blogger came up with the idea that Morse with Skype would be any use whatsoever. The point of Skype is to provide a VoIP application that anyone can use.

    • Re:D-d-d-dupe! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Sycraft-fu ( 314770 )
      And Morse Code is particularly stupid next to speech when it comes to speed. I mean why in the world would you want to use Morse Code if you have a medium reliable neough to use speech. I mean look at how much longer it takes to transmit the code as opposed to when he reads the message, and he's reading it at a normal speed. A person could read it much faster and you'd still udnerstand what was said.

      Morse code isn't useful for it's speed, it's useful for it's transmission capabilities. You need only a very
      • Yeah, but's it's still cool to impress my grand father.

        Take that, best generation!
      • You need only a very simple transmitter, and since it can be done in a binary fashion (just tones and silence, they were using a more advanced dual-tone key which allows for faster transmission) it can be transmitted successfully even with extremely poor signal-noise ratios.

        The "simple transmitter" is normally just sending a carrier wave at a fixed frequency. So you don't send "tones" as such. You just switch the transmitter on or off. Since the resulting bandwith is very narrow, the receiver can have a v
        • Umm, ok, so I didn't know the term for it. My comment stands, it's an advanced dual tone key. Advanced in that it is a progression from the orignal, dual tone in that it signals two frequencies. The reason, of course, is that with binary morse code you are limited by the ability to tell the differnce between signal and no signal. You ahve to judge if a signal is long enough to be a dash or short enough to be a dot. The faster the signal, the harder this gets. With two tones, the problem is eliminated.
          • I'm not sure what you are referring to. The video (in TFA) did not use "two-tone" signalling, but straight single-tone morse code keyed with an ordinary bug. I have certainly heard morse code faster that in the Leno show, but I have not heard any two-tone morse signalling being used anywhere.

            What you seem to propose (?) is some kind of frequency modulation. This is more complex than the simple CW mode that morse code uses and seems to defeat the purpose of using morse code as you correctly described in yo
          • You are confused. It has nothing to do with tones or frequencies.

            Morse Code keyers, whether straight keys, bugs, or the latest microprocessor-controlled widget, do nothing more than open or close a switch. Switch closed = transmitter on. Switch open = transmitter off. The transmitter can be anything from a battery (telegraph), to a signal lamp, to an RF oscillator (radiotelegraph), anything that can be turned on/off and detected at a distance.

      • I type much faster than I speak
  • To quote the immortal Rocky the Flying Squirrel:

    "Again?"

  • Nice, but... (Score:3, Funny)

    by rokzy ( 687636 ) on Friday June 03, 2005 @02:32AM (#12711968)
    ..once you start adding punctuation, formatting and emoticons, how do they fare?
  • "dot dash dot, dot, dot dash dash dot, dot, dot dash, dash" [demon.co.uk] from a month ago? [slashdot.org]

    slashDOT thinks morse code is ascii art and won't post it, so I had to spell dot and dash out...so on slashDOT morse code is slower...

    • I've always found it amusing that the 'international' morse code alphabet (linked to in the parent) lacks äöåéíáóú.

      I can understand that yes it wouldn't encapsulate all languages... but hey guys, it could at least try and encapsulate the Latin, Romantic and Germanic languages a tad better.

      And something like would be very useful in Morse, as you could truncate the length of a question simply by indicating in advance that a statement was a question.

      This is all irrel

      • I've always found it amusing that the 'international' morse code alphabet (linked to in the parent) lacks äöåéíáóú.

        It'd make perfect sense if you'd acknowledge that English is the international language.
  • This is stupid and shouldn't even be on the front. How is this interesting, important or relevant in any way? I guess it's late anyways.
  • -- --- .-. ... .<br>
    -.-. --- -.. . <br>
    ... ..- -.-. -.- ... <br>
    This theory is backed up by the fact that when I went to submit the above Morse code to this thread, slashdot gave me the following ouput:

    Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
    Reason: Please use fewer 'junk' characters.

  • Not a true test. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Domini ( 103836 ) on Friday June 03, 2005 @02:49AM (#12712038) Journal
    Firstly, the morse code they used was the final optimised product. It basically uses huffman-like compression for english only. Thus texting other languages using morse would not be so efficient.

    Secondly they used TAP method which is outdated and inefficient. Predictive text input is much faster. Also, the US is not the big SMS country. It hardly has GSM! More people still use outdated devices like pagers.

    Thirdly they also tested the transport medium. An SMS may be relayed faster via different networks (sometimes immediate) and can be re-read if something was missed (unless ticker-tape is used). This is not fair, as for very long distance morse messages one can have intermediaries as well which would lengthen the process considerably.

    Fourthly, most people cannot send morsecode while receiving it, thus also making asynchronous conversation slower. (And you cannot receive morse from multiple sources sil

    I've recently been to Japan and had the rare privelege seeing a teenage school-girl on a Train sitting and texting on two phones at the same time! Beat that!
    • "It hardly has GSM!"

      I'd hardly call 60 million GSM users "hardly having GSM". Not to mention that CDMA2000 also has SMS support.
      • Having the capability and really using it is different. It's not reliable and prevalent since people don't use it. People don't use it because it's not prevalent and reliale.

        Here we never had any other system than GSM, and EVERYONE texts. Every major cellphone company has several prime SMS packages. Some people don't even use their phones for voice!

        I've been to the States... Blackberry devices and pagers are more prevalent than SMSers.

        Sure that may change, but until they don't at least have kids whom ar
    • Umm ok, I drive my car while sending text messages to my friend's on AIM. I memorized the lettering on my cell phone's number pad, and it has predictive text. So to say hi I just hit 44. Or to say lol I'm busy driving I hit 565#*416#2879. I do this every so often when someone sends me a message on AIM and I'm out driving and it gets forwarded to my phone. I don't take my eyes off the road to answer the message, and I only read the messages when I'm stopped.
      • Yeah right, that doesn't distract you from driving at all. Idiot. I hope you stop this practice before you smear some poor pedestrian over your windscreen. People like you make me sick.

      • Re:Not a true test. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by hb253 ( 764272 ) on Friday June 03, 2005 @08:11AM (#12713141)
        Your stupidity level is tremendoues but not surprising. Drop the damn cell phone (including the useless hands-free options) when you're driving, keep both hands on the steering wheel, and concentrate on driving. I have been involved in so many near misses caused by some idiot playing with his/her cell phone while driving.
    • Also, the US is not the big SMS country. It hardly has GSM!

      So what? GSM is just one of a few phone standards, and analog-only cell phones are rare these days. The other digital networks (CDMA, TDMA, iDEN) all support SMS nationwide.

      It's true that SMS isn't yet as popular in the United States as it is overseas, but that has more to do with pricing and tradition than technology.
      • Exactly, pricing is directly related to efficiency in which SMSes are handled. It's tradition because earlier networks (analogue) did not support SMSes well, and thus not many people used it, thus it's not really a viable popular form of communication, and thus prices are steep.

        • If you think SMS prices have any relationship to the cost of providing the service, I have a nice little bridge in Brooklyn that you might be interested in.
    • It would be interesting to compare morse vs a japanese teenager. How does morse code work with kanji (ie Unicode characters)? Does it at all?

      And if they, as you say, compared morse to multitap instead of T9 (predictive input) then the comparison is worse than useless. I would imagine that T9 and morse would be about equal. The bonus with T9 being that you don't have to work as a professional for 30+ years to get your speed up.

      But it would be kind of neat to have a morse code "reader" in a phone which used
      • It would be interesting to compare morse vs a japanese teenager.

        When I was a teenager, I had a buddy who was an Extra Class Ham; while i was struggling as a Technician class with only 5WPM, back then the Extra class required something like 40WPM, and IIRC this guy could send and receive at something like 50WPM. If you think about it, that's almost as fast as you can think about what you want to say, not that that would be an limitation for some Japanese teenage girl messaging her friends.
    • "they used TAP method which is outdated and inefficient. Predictive text input is much faster."

      Well, first off, I didn't see that requirement anywhere. The SMS guy was introduced as the "fastest text messenger" in the country -- they didn't say what input method he used.

      But, whatever. Having used both "predictive" text input on a cellphone, and CW transciever, I can tell you which one will win most of the time. The guys who are good at CW are almost zen-like in their ability to "speak" in Morse -- the
      • Predictive text input is much better than that...

        Imagine a fluent predictive text inputter...

        An inacurate and biased example just to make my point is that a predictive text inputter can (on the Motorola) to write 'zoological' press 1665* (It will autocomplete the entire word on 'zool')

        Also problems like 'me' and 'of' being both the 6-3 combo is solved by just adding a # at the end of one of the two to cycle through all the possibilities.

        Cellphones are practically faster than keyboards!
    • Freak out much? Maybe you didn't notice, but this was just a little stunt on Jay Leno's late night show. Believe me, they weren't trying to prove that we should all switch over to morse code for day to day communication (:

    • Let me give you the story on this post... (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03, 2005 @07:27AM (#12712872)
      "morse code [...] uses huffman-like compression for english only"

      This is called "making it up as you go along"

      "Predictive text input is much faster."

      Actually predictive text input is no faster. See? I can make stuff up too!

      "Also, the US is not the big SMS country."

      Uh...which matters because...uh... our champion SMS users are not as good as "their" champion SMS users? What? Huh?

      "It hardly has GSM!"

      Yes, because SMS over CDMA is so much slower. Because it doesn't use the dixie-helmann-thingy compression that ...uh... the morse code thingy uses.

      "More people still use outdated devices like pagers."

      Yes, which really hurts SMS texting rates!

      "Thirdly they also tested the transport medium."

      And this is important because our networks are slower than the Japanese networks because uh... the dixie-helman-mayonnaise compression that is umbiqitious...uh...pagers used... ummm... and why, we hardly have GSM!

      "and can be re-read if something was missed"

      Yes, because I might've missed something in that SMS message that said "CU L8R, LOL!!!!!"

      "This is not fair, as for very long distance morse messages one can have intermediaries as well which would lengthen the process considerably."

      Well, it might have been fairer but they didn't use the Dixie-Helman...thingy that morse code has for uh...non-English languages.

      "thus also making asynchronous conversation slower"

      Oh hell, just call the other person on the phone, and if they're not there, leave a message. My way is fastest of all.

      "I've recently been to Japan and had the rare privelege seeing a teenage school-girl on a Train sitting and texting on two phones at the same time! Beat that!"

      I was recently watching my daughter use AIM talking to 5 people at a time on AIM.

      I win.

      Oh. She was using that Dixie-Hellman-Mayonaisse thingy you keep whining about.

  • You can encode, decode and listen to morse here [scphillips.com]

    Oh, and try setting the speed at 40 wpm before you start thinking it's easy!
  • Spread your message world wide! Minimal transmission fee! No pesky filters to worry about!

    (why do these things always sound less funny once you press preview?)

  • Posted here [slashdot.org] long ago; but the link in this article is more comprehensive.

  • Perhaps a Morse code Skype device. (Score:4, Funny)

    by xpeeblix ( 701114 ) on Friday June 03, 2005 @03:19AM (#12712127)
    OMFG, Slashdot's "Lameness filter" just prevented me from posting a comment on this story in morse code. I cry censorship, someone call the ACLU!

    Try it, if you don't believe me.
  • So here we have two people with extensive training and practise on their chosen method versus those without. Gee, big supprise they won.

    You have to understand that those who still do morse code with any regularity are serious enthusiasts and/or ex professionals who did it for a living back when it was popular. Now you take people with this kind of training and put them against a couple of teen amatures, gee, I wonder why they'd be faster.

    What does that have to do with anything?

    One also has to consider th
    • It shows just because something is old doesn't automatically mean it's useless.
      • I doubt that morse would be significantly faster than T9 (predictive input for mobile phones). And T9 would require a lot less training.

        Perhaps a training program for T9/multitap is in order for mobile phones? Just like the old typist programs for computers.
    • The kids doing the SMS had some sort SMS record.
    • I dunno what the huge fuss is about, I guess my phone is special but I got this iTap thingy [or whatever] which will suggest autocompletes for partial words. So often I only have to enter half a word and make a couple of suggestion changes.

      I can enter whole sentence replies [which is all about what you're gonna send] in 20 seconds or so [not 160 chars like in the story... we're talking ~25-30 chars] which isn't that bad.

      Tom
  • Phone providers could trivially provide a Morse mode for those who know, and an SMS mode for those who don't. Typing in Huffman encoded-ish string would seem sensible.

    Reminds me of people who played counterstrike and bound their mouse keys to back and forward, and had keyboard keys for their firing. Default is fine for most, custom great for the übergamers. I never found out whether it was better, as I spent too much time respawning.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • -.. ..- .--. .

    dat dit dit
    dit dit dat
    dit dat dat dat
    dit
  • This news is pretty damn old and was reported in Indian Newspapers like a month ago. Well, it came in UK Times too. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-2- 1571664,00.html [timesonline.co.uk]
    SMS's really suck. They are too damn annoying in public places where cellphones ring at random. This is probably the most annoying technology ever!!!
  • this is old news [makezine.com]... we already have cell phone aps [typepad.com] out there...



    unrelated: /. editors... please at least TRY and keep up [boingboing.net]

  • T9 (Score:2)

    by dabadab ( 126782 )
    I wonder if the SMS senders have used T9. It really speeds up typing, especially in non-agglutinating languages (e.g. English).
  • All of the posts here on slashdot seem to agree that the International Code (Morse Code is used on messaging systems where relays click out the beginning and end of each dot and dash. Oscillators which produce tones enabled the code we know today) is only useful if you use it a lot, that it would only be useful for advanced users. Well, simply put, the case being made is that for advanced users CW might be faster and worth learning.

    Not to mention, if morse code pick up as an input method for SMS that woul
  • So how about giving mobile phones a Morse input mode, hacking at the 1 and 0 keys rather than playing around with the whole 3D keyboard? (2d layout, with each button having several letters)

  • Speed isn't always the primary concern... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Gruneun ( 261463 ) on Friday June 03, 2005 @07:34AM (#12712905)
    Why I prefer SMS over Morse code:
    I don't have to remember any encoding rules.

    Why I prefer phone calls over SMS:
    I don't have to remember how to spell.

    Why I prefer silence over phone calls:
    I don't have to remember to be polite or feign interest.

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