In an effort to speed up a product release after the shooting tragedy at Virginia Tech, MobileSphere has announced an emergency SMS notification service earlier than planned.

MobileSphere is not the only company finding profit in the wake of the Virginia Tech tragedy. The other SMS messaging companies interviewed for a recent article on SMS alerting systems report high levels of interest in their products from colleges and universities, and are doing all they can to accommodate schools that want to get up and running as soon as possible.

The MobileSphere’s Emergency Broadcasting Text Message Solution is built on the technology that the company already uses in its Joopz product, which is a consumer text messaging service.

Nine months after those first voluntary recalls of Sony-made notebook battery packs, Acer will recall some 27,000 notebooks that also contained those same lithium-ion batteries.

Acer, which is based in Taiwan but has a North American office, announced the recall April 25 in conjunction with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

The 27,000 notebooks recalled by Acer were all sold in the United States between May 2004 and November 2006, according to the CPSC.

The rising popularity of text messaging on mobile phones poses a threat to writing standards among Irish schoolchildren, an education commission says.

The frequency of errors in grammar and punctuation has become a serious concern, the State Examination Commission said in a report after reviewing last year’s exam performance by 15-year-olds.

Research In Motion will host the sixth annual Wireless Enterprise Symposium from May 8-10, 2007 in Orlando, Florida. The symposium will deliver the latest and most relevant information to help IT professionals and business executives define and implement wireless strategies.

Wireless Enterprise Symposium 2007 co-sponsors include Avaya, IBM, SAP, Symbian, TeleNav, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Alcatel-Lucent, BoxTone, Brightstar, Marvell, TeleAtlas ThinPrint and Yahoo!. Over 100 exhibitors will also be on hand in the Solutions Showcase and insights will be shared by leading experts from Forrester Research, IDC, Ipsos Reid, J. Gold Associates and Yankee Group.

Resco, provider of advanced developer controls and tools for mobile devices, announced availability of Resco OutlookWeekCalendar .NET, the Day/Week scheduling control optimized for .NET Compact Framework 2.0 and integrated with the Microsoft Visual Studio 2005.

Palm and Claro Nicaragua announced the availability of the Treo 680 smartphone. The Treo 680 GSM/GPRS/EDGE quad-band world phone, running on the Palm OS, boasts Palm’s hallmark ease of use. Packed with features beyond its stellar phone capability–such as email, Web browsing, messaging, multimedia, calendar, contacts and more–the Treo 680 will keep any user productive.

Boxwave has released their ElectraSpan Extended Battery for the BlackBerry 8700g, 8707v, and the Pearl, the Audiovox PPC-6700, and the HTC P3300. In addition, they have released Standard Batteries for the BlackBerry 8800, Fujitsu Pocket LOOX 710, and Fujitsu Pocket LOOX N500, along with Desktop Cradles for the Dopod 595, HTC S310, and the Motorola Q, with a Holster Clip for the BlackBerry 8800 and an Active Case for the Pearl.

Dell began offering a 1.8-inch, 32GB solid state drive option on its ultraportable Latitude D420 and its semi-rugged D620 ATG model. With no moving parts, these NAND flash memory drives offer better stability, generate less noise and heat, and also allow for quicker boot-up time and better data transfer.

Verizon Wireless and Research In Motion have introduced the first Global CDMA/GSM BlackBerry. The BlackBerry 8830 World Edition smartphone will be available on May 14 through Verizon Wireless’ business sales channels and in Verizon Wireless Communications Stores on May 28.

In addition, Verizon Wireless announced the May 14 availability of its new Global BlackBerry service, an “always-on, always connected” wireless email solution that provides quick, easy access to email, contacts, calendar, organizer and the Web while on-the-go. With the BlackBerry 8830 World Edition smartphone and Global BlackBerry service from Verizon Wireless, customers get wireless email and the convenience of one local number for domestic and international use in Australia, Europe, parts of Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and North America.

A new report by a public safety group throws into question the ability of police and firefighters to locate people through their cell phones when they dial 911 in an emergency.

The study is believed to be the first independent evaluation of wireless location technology and sends a clear message: Do not assume rescuers will know where you are if you call 911 from a cell phone.

The report was commissioned by the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials International, a group that has long been concerned about the limitations of the technology and the public’s unrealistic expectations of what it can deliver.