Some 66% of online Americans use social networking sites today, up from just 20% in 2007 according to Experian Simmons.  So if you are one of them then we have some good news for you. You can now post to Facebook and Twitter through Voice Assist.

All you need to do is log into your account and go to the “Services” tab.  Click on the Link button and follow the instructions to link Voice Assist to your account.  Then call into Voice Assist and say “Post to Facebook” or Post to Twitter” and record your post.

It’s that simple.  So give it a try today.

There are now 30 States that ban texting while driving, 11 of these laws were enacted in 2010.  It's pretty obvious that if you're looking down at your phone rather than at the road that you're more likely to get into trouble.  Yet people still continue to do it.  Next time you have the urge, use your voice to dicate your message through Voice Assist, rather than using the keyboard on your phone.

To get the latest information about the laws in your State, check out the Governors Highway Safety Association.  TheThe site includes a comprehensive overview State-by-State.

Bob Dylan reported yesterday that he's been approached by a couple of satellite navigation companies to be "the voice" of their system.  Seems like someone that sings a lot about traveling would know his way around!  

Using personality voices in sat-nav systems is part of a growing trend.  According to an article in the British Telegraph the most popular voices by vendor are: 

• Navtones.com, which offers a range of voices, lists its top five downloads in Britain as Mr T, Miss Cattrall, and the American actors Dennis Hopper, Gary Busey and Burt Reynolds.
• TomTom, the leading satnav manufacturer, said its most popular voices were John Cleese, Mr T, Dennis Hopper, Burt Reynolds and a Victor Meldrew impersonation.
• Halfords' most popular downloaded voices – which are all done by impersonators – are Matt Lucas, Victor Meldrew, Julian Clary, Ozzy Osbourne and Sean Connery. Impersonations of the Queen, the comedian Peter Kay and the American actor David Hasselhoff are all to be made available soon.

"Catchphrases and distinctive mannerisms of the personality voice pepper their instructions to drivers. Kim Cattrall deploys the sexual innuendos of her screen character Samantha; while John Cleese speaks in the same fussy style as his character Basil Fawlty, in the television series Fawlty Towers. " 

A recent study at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, looked at the effects of texting on 11 -14 year olds.

"The kids who used their phones a lot were faster on some of the tests, but were less accurate. We suspect that using mobile phones a lot, particularly tools like predictive texts for SMS, is training them to be fast but inaccurate. Their brains are still developing so if there are effects then potentially it could have effects down the line, especially given that the exposure is now almost universal. The use of mobile phones is changing the way children learn and pushing them to become more impulsive in the way they behave."

So if these kids moved to voice texting rather than using predictive texting would this make them less impulsive?  They certainly would be more articulate. 

As reported in the Daily Tech, the top free email service online is Yahoo Mail with 106.1 million visitors last month. That's more than twice the monthly visitors of it's nearest competitors, Hotmail (47.1 million visitors in July) and Gmail (36.9 million visitors in July).  Gmail however is growing rapidly and recently beat AOL for the number 3 spot.

If you're a user of one of these popular email services, it's very simple to add your account information to Voice Assist and get instant access to your email by phone.  Just enter your user name and password and you're done.  We provide automatic set-up for over 130 email providers to date and growing daily.  If we don't currently have your providers email server information then you can manually set it up. 

If you haven't already experienced Voice Assist's email by phone then it works by converting the email text to voice so you can listen to it.  This is particularly useful when you're in a hands-busy environment, like the car.  For example, you can listen to your email while in traffic and use the time more productively.  Listen to what it sounds like in our new Voice Assist email by phone video.