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Texting by American adults has increased significantly over the past year, but still does not approach the level of text messages exchanged by young people, according to a new report from Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Nearly three quarters (72%) of adult cell phone users send and receive text messages now, up from 65 percent in September 2009. The majority (87%) of teen cell users text. Teens text 50 messages a day on average, five times more than the typical 10 text messages sent and received by adults per day.

The majority of African Americans and English-speaking Hispanics own cell phones compared to 80 percent of whites. Twelve percent of African American and 14 percent of English-speaking Hispanics make and receive more than 30 calls a day on their mobile phones. Four percent of whites report placing and receiving that many calls. African American and Hispanic texters typical send and receive 10 texts a day; whites who text typically send and receive 5 texts a day.

“Texting among adults has reached the mainstream and the charge is being lead by African-Americans, Hispanics and young adults,” said Amanda Lenhart, Senior Research Specialist at the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project and author the report.

“Of course, none of these adult groups hold a candle to teens when it comes to texting, who swamp adults in messages sent per day by a factor of 5.”

For all of their enthusiasm for texting and talking on their cells, Americans have mixed feelings about the role of the mobile phone in their lives. Most cell users report that their cell phone makes them feel safer (91%), and that they appreciate the way it allows them to arrange plans with family and friends (88% agree.)  But mobile phone users also report that they get irritated when a call or text interrupts them (42%) and that they find it rude when others check their phones repeatedly during meetings or conversations (86%).

Other highlights of the report include:

*65% of American adults with cell phones sleep with their phone on or right next to their bed.

*57% of adult

Update 2: It looks like Dell has lost the bidding war for 3PAR after all. The company issued a release saying it has ended discussions and will recieve a $72 million break-up fee from 3PAR. This comes after 3PAR accepted an increased bid from HP of $2.4 billion.

Update: Following the below news, HP and Dell got into a bidding war for 3PAR, but according to TechCrunch, 3PAR has accepted the latest offfer from Dell  for $27 per share in cash, or approximately $1.8 billion.

Original Article: Dell announced that it is acquiring virtualized storage solutions provider 3PAR for $1.15 billion. Dell says the acquisition will enable its customers to take advantage of the "virtual era" and cut data management costs by as much as 50%.

"We have aligned our storage offerings over the last several years to provide our customers choice and value," said Brad Anderson, Dell SVP, Enterprise Product Group. "3PAR brings the same values of performance, agility and ease-of-use to higher end, virtualized storage deployments as EqualLogic does for the entry-level and mid-range, rounding out our industry-leading solutions portfolio."

"3PAR has consistently provided customers with the ability to do more with less," said 3PAR President and CEO David Scott. "With Dell we combine a powerful, virtualized storage platform with an outstanding distribution network to deliver this value to an even broader set of customers."

The transaction has been approved by both boards of directors. Some analysts are saying Dell overpaid for 3Par, and the Street calls the acquisition a "shrewd move".

After closing, Dell plans to maintain and invest in additional engineering and sales resources for 3PAR. The company has no plans to move the current operations.

Samsung has unveiled its Galaxy Tab tablet device, and Kobo announced that it is supplying the e-reader technology for it.

"After much speculation, the new Samsung GALAXY Tab has just been announced by Samsung’s CEO in Berlin, and Kobo is THE eReading application powering the 'Readers Hub' on the new Android tablet," says Kobo. "This partnership is an industry first for Kobo and Samsung, offering the first eReading experience on an Android Tablet to readers worldwide."

"This is a HUGE WIN for Kobo!" the company proclaims. "Samsung is a global leader - a world class organization that touches billions of consumers worldwide.  The GALAXY Tab is an amazing device and will be a real contender in the marketplace as consumers everywhere adopt tablets. To have been selected as THE eReading application that powers the 'Readers Hub' on this device is simply incredible."

The announcement comes at a time when not only is the competition heating up in the tablet space, but it's also heating up in the e-reading space, led by Amazon's Kindle, which offers apps on other platforms as well as its own. This is going to be another space (in addition to the connected-TV space) to keep a close eye on over the next year or so.

Kobo's store has over 2.2 million popular titles, including new releases and 1.8 million free books. The company also says its adding thousands more each week. Apple announced yesterday that it has 35 million books in iTunes.

AP Updates Attribution Guidelines, Links Not Mentioned

The Associated Press has revealed some new guidelines for its reporters with regards to credit and attribution. The guidelines come in the form of a letter from AP Senior Managing Editor Mike Oreskes.

The guidelines apply to AP reports in print, broadcast, and online news, and stress the importance of giving proper attribution to other publications that break stories.

"We should provide attribution whether the other organization is a newspaper, website, broadcaster or blog; whether or not it's U.S. based; and whether or not it's an AP member or subscriber," writes Oreskes. "This policy applies to all reports in all media, from short pieces, such as NewsNows and initial broadcast reports, to longer pieces aimed at print publication."

Oreskes says attribution doesn't have to be at the beginning of a story, and that sometimes it can be two or three paragraphs down.

"If some information comes from another organization and some is ours, we should credit ourselves for what's ours and the other organization for what's theirs," he writes, adding that if material from another source turns out to be wrong, that will be cited in corrections later.

While stressing the importance of attribution, he does also make a note of telling reporters not to use other sources so much that it appears they're "free riding" on another organization's work, and stresses matching or further development of the story.

What is not mentioned once in the guidelines is the word "link". There is no mention of linking whatsoever. It is unclear whether linking is included it in the proper attribution described or whether they deem simple credit to be sufficient. While obviously you can't link in print or broadcast (one reason why online content is more valuable to readers), linking has become commonly looked upon as necessary to attribution in online news, so those who deserve credit for breaking a story can in turn get traffic to that story.

The letter does say that it will cont

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