Why text messages are limited to 160 characters | Technology | Los Angeles Times »
Posted By tdrapeau 7 months ago in Science & TechnologyAlone in a room in his home in Bonn, Germany, Friedhelm Hillebrand sat at his typewriter, tapping out random sentences and questions on a sheet of paper.
As he went along, Hillebrand counted the number of letters, numbers, punctuation marks and spaces on the page. Each blurb ran on for a line or two and nearly always clocked in under 160 characters.
That became Hillebrand's magic number -- and set the standard for one of today's most popular forms of digital communication: text messaging.
Read Full Story at latimesblogs.latimes.com »
476 Views Share Story 2 Comments Report
Submitted By:
tdrapeau
Tom Drapeau is the Director of Propeller social news. He enjoys all manner of geekery and internet foolishness. He has seen every episode of Battlestar ...
RSS Join the Discussion
+ Add CommentComments So Far: 2 (view all)
-
100%
berkeley7 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It ยป
note the detail, that i've seen elsewhere: the words travel in the background. the message cost to the carrier is not simply very small, it's ZERO.
Reply-
PsychoHosebeastComment removed: Spammer, Abusive
-
More News
Engadget
Intel SSD firmware 02HD brings back Trim support, sans bugs
LinkedIn profiles reveal Windows Mobile 7 clues, folks with really great people skills
Nokia promises to take "Symbian user interface to a new level" in 2010, Maemo 6 in 2H
Target's remote control gift card puts normal ones to shame
ASUS Eee PC Seashell 2 spotted with removable battery, pretty in pink styling
Add a Comment
Sign In With Your Propeller Account
Please keep your comments relevant to this story.
To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.