Gone are the days where a husband and wife would go off to work and maybe talk once a day on the phone or when they arrive at home for dinner. Text messaging has change the very nature of relationships. A survey by mobile marketing app CheckPoints shows that 58% of people texted their significant other at least three times a day, while 25% texted 10 or more times a day. Talk about constant contact. Check out the infographic of CheckPoints' survey results below.

Nearly 17% of CheckPoints' users had said, "I love you" for the first time via text message. About 20% have broken up with a significant other over SMS and 40% have deleted a text that they did not want their significant other to see. 42% had checked their partner's phone for inappropriate messages, perhaps from an ex-boyfriend.

Many people, especially those past 30 years old or so, might find these numbers to be outrageous. How do you break up with somebody via text message? What kind of heartless bastard are you, anyway? Nearly one in six people have said "I love you" for the first time via text? How can such a connected and emotional thing be tied to anything as impersonal as a text message?

We can argue the demerits all day for days on end. This is not a new conversation. The fact of the matter is that social mores change on a year-by-year basis as technology gives people new ways to communicate. What we might think absurd or impersonal today might be completely commonplace and accepted 10 years from now. Are the one in five people that have broken up via text the fringe case or the future?

Take a look at your own behavior and think about how it has changed since the first time you held a cellphone. Do you correspond mostly via text these days? Twitter, Facebook, email? Or do you punch in the seemingly random digits that is a person's phone number and make a call? Does that call lead to an in person meeting or a series of text messages? How have you changed your communications methods in the last five to 10 years? Let us know in the comments.

Top image courtesy of Shutterstock

Over the weekend, Microsoft used its @BuildWindows8 account to send a message to the account owner, saying "@StevenSinofsky please see guidelines on parody and impersonation. Your account is not following them them and has been reported."

Unlike Facebook, Twitter allows users to post under pseudonyms, which has led to high-profile spoof accounts for tech celebrities, including now fewer than half a dozen for Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. But rarely has a prankster gone as deep-down the corporate food chain to parody an executive that few outside of diehard Windows geeks would know by name.

And while many of the accounts are harmless, Microsoft had reason for concern: the person or persons behind the hoax were using the fake Sinofsky Twitter account to answer questions from customers and journalists. The bio on the account did have a clear-cut disclaimer (""I'm all about Windows 8 right now. And having a laugh. Oh, I'm not 'the' Steven Sinofsky by the way. He's got a little project to focus on for now") but that wasn;t enough to tip some people off to the satire.

Neither Twitter or Microsoft have responded to a request for comment, but we'll update the post if they do.

A new study suggests that people are more likely to give into the urge to check email and their Twitter account than they are to smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol. While the study headed by Wilhelm Hofmann of Chicago University's Booth Business School was limited in size, covering just 205 people between the ages of 18 and 85, it seems to confirm what many of us have suspected for years.

The study was primarily focused on willpower as opposed to addiction, and the moments when people were forced to resist urges to partake in an activity or deal with conflicting urges, such as the urge to sleep and the urge to stay out socializing. Sleep and sex generally trumped other urges, but checking media and work were generally put ahead of socializing and shopping urges.

"Modern life is a welter of assorted desires marked by frequent conflict and resistance, the latter with uneven success," Hofmann said.

The study found that resistance to all urges declined as the day wore on, and that people seem to do a better job of resisting the urge to smoke or drink than many may have thought, given the addictive nature of both.

"With cigarettes and alcohol there are more costs - long-term as well as monetary - and the opportunity may not always be the right one," Hofmann said. "So, even though giving in to media desires is certainly less consequential, the frequent use may still 'steal' a lot of people's time."

Photo courtesy of ShutterStock.

My son discovered Flickr today from Paul Mayne on Vimeo.

Convergence. Remember that word from the dot com era? Well, it's back and this time it actually has substance. Convergence in the 90s meant combining old media with new media, a.k.a. the Internet. The 2000 merger of AOL and Time Warner was a failed $200 billion attempt at convergence. But fast forward to 2012 and convergence is happening for real this time, thanks to Internet-connected devices in the house and a rapidly growing app ecosystem. Entertainment now flows freely through home networks, to multiple devices such as PCs, laptops, tablets, smartphones and television sets.

According to one research firm, 2012 will be when convergence really hits its stride. A new report by IMS Research states that 2012 will be when the consumer electronics industry "finally realizes the promise of multi-screen content consumption."

It's not just Web connected hardware which is proliferating. Software is also finally fulfilling the long-held promise of convergence. We saw a great example earlier today, with version 3.0 of the video aggregator app Showyou being released. ReadWriteWeb's Jon Mitchell described it as "the remote control for web video."

The beauty of Showyou is that you can watch videos on a variety of devices: PC, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Kindle Fire, Apple TV. While I was eating my lunch today, I sat down in the living room and opened both my iPad and TV. I surfed to a music video on Showyou that I like and pressed the Apple "airplay" button on the iPad to transfer the video to my TV (via Apple TV).

I'm not entirely convinced that 2012 will be the year when this multi-screen promise is realized. During my lunchtime, I fiddled around a bit with Airplay before I got it working. Also home networks are not particularly user friendly for non-technical people. 2012 may well be a tipping point, when convergence within the home begins to take off. But we're not at the point of great user experiences yet.

In its report, IMS Research noted that an apps ecosystem for devices like the TV will be a key enabler of convergence in home entertainment. It also pointed to the growing amount of digital content available to consumers and "the changing habits of consumers regarding accessing, consuming and sharing digital content."

IMS Research predicts that the market for IP-enabled CE devices will grow from 2.2 billion devices shipped in 2011 to 3.5 billion in 2016. Note that this is just for home entertainment and portable consumer electronic devices. We reported last week that mobile industry group GSMA is predicting growth from 9 billion to 24 billion Internet-connected devices worldwide. The GSMA's figures include things like connected cars and IP-enabled washing machines.

Have you begun to consume entertainment in your home across multiple screens? If so, let us know in the comments what your current favorite household apps are.

If you're a glutton for punishment, you can download the musical as an iPhone ringtone.

Digitals from Chris Crutchfield on Vimeo.

A new study from 11mark surveyed 1,000 Americans about their smartphone usage, and found that a whopping 75% of American smartphone owners have used their phones in the bathroom. More women have used their phones in the bathroom than men (76% vs. 74%), but men are actually more attached to their mobile devices than women. Thirty percent of men surveyed said they won't go to the bathroom without their phone versus 25% of women.

Believe it or not, Gen-Ys were more likely to use their phones in the bathroom than Gen-Xs, Boomers or the elusively dubbed "Silent Generation" (people born before 1946). But even some people ages 66-years and up used their phones from the bathroom.

OK, so maybe mobile phones really are the new cigarette. Does this look familiar?

But maybe we should be less concerned about mobile habits than hygiene habits. After all, phones carry germs. And while 92% of respondents said they washed their hands after using the restroom, only 14% admitted to washing their phones.

Comic via Blogwell.

DDRBoxman downloaded the Android 4.0 ICS source tree from the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) and created a custom ROM for his Galaxy Nexus. He then sends command to the Nexus with TUIOForAndroid. TUIO is, "an open framework that defines a common protocol and API for tangible multitouch surfaces" according to TUIO.org. The PC is then configured with the touch interface through the open source Kinect API and voila! We have a tangible user interface on the wall.

The Kinect API is fascinating. Some of the greatest innovations of using motion-based input methods are being cooked up at the MIT Media Lab where they use Kinects and its API as a cheap implementation of motion computing. That includes 3D interfaces, motion tracking and an array of other innovations.

Now, think of the potential with mixing Kinect with Android. One of the untapped potentials of Android is that it is not just a mobile platform. Android could run on set-top televisions boxes or control all of the electronics in your household. The concept of the "smart home" takes a step forward in the marriage between the two open source projects. It is all the more delicious that the sources come from two companies that have historically been at each other's throats: Google and Microsoft.

Google announced a framework at I/O last year that can bring Android to all of your appliances or devices. Called Android@Home it was the first notion that Google has projected that Android could be have far more uses and be more ubiquitous than most people originally believed. Now, add the Kinect API to Android@Home and you could walk into your kitchen, wave to turn on the lights, program your microwave from across the room with just a few waves of you hand. Then, go into your living room where you have an Android smartphone hooked to a projector running the Netflix app and stand in the middle of the room, swiping the air until you find your viewing material for the evening.

This all sounds like some crazy science fiction movie a la Minority Report. It is not. The fact of the matter is that right now, this technology exists. The hack by DDRBoxman is just the beginning. Within the decade, we will see this type of functionality in homes across the world.

The golden age of mobile photography is upon us. Smartphones are now more capable at producing high-quality photos than digital cameras were just five years ago. Editing photos has been an evolving process but a lot of great services have been released to mobile users in the last year such as filters from Instagram or full-featured suites from Aviary and Skitch. Today, Aviary is making a dramatic update to its platform to gives users a set of powerful tools to edit photos on the go.

Version 2 of Aviary mobile releases a bunch of new feature and performance updates. Here is a breakdown of what is new:

One-touch auto-enhance: The ability to easily touch up a photo without going through a complicated editing process. Use one of Aviary's pre-set optimization settings and enhance a photo with a tap.

Improved effects: 10 more effects with new border designs.

Unique dials: This is really a user interface function. A dial instead of a slider for brightness and color palettes.

Stickers: Bowties, cigars, funny glasses.

New design: What would an update be to a mobile app if it did not completely throw out its old design and start anew. Sometimes this works for the better, many times it does not.

Minimal branding: This is perhaps the best rollout for this version of Aviary and hopefully it is not limited to just the mobile versions of the apps. Anyone that has used an Aviary extension before knows that the little blue lower-case A company logo pops up on just about everything you want to edit or take a screen shot of. This is now hidden and can be accessed by swiping to the last page of the app for details.

Aviary is up to date with all the mobile platforms. It can instituted by developers writing apps for Android 2.2 (API level 8) or higher or iOS 4+. It will also work on all browsers and tablets that support HTML5, JavaScript or Flash.

Aviary also wants to help developers make money through the mobile SDK. Users of apps that have Aviary embedded can purchase premium effects as well as original and branded stickers. Aviary will split the revenue with the app maker.

Note, at the time of publication, the Aviary app was still awaiting Apple App Store approval. It can be found through partner apps such as Pic Stitch.

Does Aviary outshine Skitch or other photo editors on iOS and Android? The SDK is a clever bit of implementation for developers to add photo editing capabilities to apps. Let us know what you think of the newest version in the comments.

For each "a" answer, award 0 points
For each "b" answer, award 1 point
For each "c" answer, award 2 points

Bonus round: Add half a point for every service that your companion uses that you don't.

• Klout
• Twitter
• Github
• Instagram
• Pinterest

Now add up your points.

If you got less than 10, your guy or gal doesn't have any geek cred. Accept your fate or move on.

Between 11 - 20, you still rule in the tech department. If your companion is male, be careful about that fragile male ego, and try to be gentle when explaining tech topics. If your companion is female, try not to overdo the tech lingo when answering questions.

Over 25, you got a real gem here and try to overlook the personal grooming deficiencies. Your companion could be the next Mark Zuckerberg.

Our opening icon is from http://absurdlynerdly.wordpress.com.

Facebook must have foreseen this problem because today it announced yet another way to listen to music through your account. The catch here is that you're actually listening with your friends rather than voyeuristically peering into their playlists and, unbeknownst to them, clicking on their songs.

This new Facebook music feature works through the private chat sidebar, not the news feed. Log on and you'll be able to see what your friend are listening to, which is indicated by a music note. Any chat friends who are listening to music will automatically display a "Listen With" button. Click it and you'll start listening, too.

The catch here is that you'll only actually listen with people if others randomly click on the song. Then a group chat will pop up. From there, one of your friends can start playing DJ, selecting the songs that the whole group listens to.

With Spotify integration in the news ticker, you see a music note; if you hover over it and click, you can listen to the same song or artist that your friend is listening to, but you're not actually listening with them.

The Facebook "Listen With" feature begins rolling out today.

Six months ago, the Mercedes-Benz engineering team began developing a Facebook app. The new product offers a way for drivers to access Facebook friends who are close, or nearby restaurants that their friends have "liked" on Facebook. The feature will be available in the 2012 SL-Class Mercedes this spring as part of the mbrace2 telematics system, which includes cloud-based apps, traffic and navigation assistance, speech recognition and Internet browsing. mbrace also features a smartphone app, which allows drivers to send information to their vehicle before actually stepping into it.

Kodak announced Facebook integration into two new cameras, along with two new Facebook apps especially for creating photo albums from profile photos.

Mercedes-Benz is not the only brand to announce Facebook integration at CES 2012.

In another step toward the future of social TV on Facebook, DirectTV is slated to unveil a Facebook social TV app, which allows users to share what they're watching and add commentary.

Only 28.7% were influenced by social media, which makes sense given the fact that you are what you're more likely to be what you "like" on Facebook, not "what your friends like."

When it comes to what types of media influence purchases of apparel/clothing and grocery, social media still comes in dead last not only for Gen Y's, but for Gen X's and Boomers, too.

New research from Ericsson echoes the fact that while teens today are definitely digital natives, they still prefer face-to-face communication over digital means like texting and Facebook.

A new study out from Ericsson surveyed 2000 U.S. teenagers ages 13-17 to understand more about how they socialize through technology.

Texting and Facebook in particular have changed the way that teenagers date, particularly in the "courting" process which concludes with an actual date. The initial first interaction still takes place offline. In fact, when asked the question what type of communication would they miss most if it were taken away, teens responded with "face-to-face."

According to the study, texting is teens' second tool of choice when they can't meet up in-person because it's easy to do while multitasking. A study from Nielsen showed that teen girls text 1.5 times as much as teen boys.

Facebook came in a sad fourth place after texting and talking on the phone.

Teens see voice calls as better suited for adults. Google+ wasn't mentioned in this report, but teens do say they'd abandon Facebook for it.

Another less-explored means of communication is video chat, which is mostly by 13- to 15-year-olds, who tend to have more restrictions than 16- to 19-year-olds. When teens video chat, they are often times doing something at the same time, including chores or homework.

When it comes to Facebook, teens see it more as an additional means of communication, and they tend to have far less friends on it than adults. Teens tend to only befriend people they already know, and have an average of 265 friends.

A recent study from Pew showed that 62% of teens on social media sites set their profile to private. Only 19% make their profile partially private, and a mere 17% left their profiles completely public.

Unlike adults, teenagers use Facebook as another means for expressing their emotions by posting song lyrics and movie quotes. There is no reason for this type of information to be public. For teens, Facebook is an extension of their real-life relationships. Adults use Facebook to take the place of forms of communication, using it more for exchanging information and less for friendships they have in real life.

Teenagers are also more likely to have regular mobile phones that smartphones. The 13-year-old age group is more interested in owning a smartphone than the 17-year-olds.

Image via Mediabistro.

Back in 2010 we put together our first list of the 30 best and worst Web tech tattoos. Here's our latest compilation, including an augmented reality tattoo, HTML tags, Javascript and C++, Debian, Wordpress, Google, Microsoft, RFID, QR codes, even Bill Gates' face. If you have work that's better, or worse, show it off in the comments.

Unix commands/C++/Javascript

Google

Microsoft

Next page: RFID, Augmented Reality, QR codes and Tux sitting on Windows eating an Apple!

RFID

Augmented Reality

Android

HTML

Networks

Tux

Debian

QR Code/Shotcode

WordPress

Sources: Machine gun Tux: wrightzen; Jobs, left: Cult of Mac; Jobs, right: SODAPOP; RIP toe, Geeky Tattoos; Jobs, arm: Cult of Mac; Stay hungry, wrists: Speak Truth, Breath Love; Stay hungry, arm: Gristle Tattoo; Apple/Jobs icon: gadgetpolice.com; "There is no reason": wease.com; "One more thing": Cult of Mac; Unix commands: Geeky Tattoos; Google It: jessversus; Powered by Google: Geeky Tattoos; Windows XP: traviscostrrr; Windows: bremiclem; Bill Gates: Big Tattoo Planet; RFID: The Loom; Augmented reality: iheartchaos.com; Android: eagyn; Android skateboard: the brand show; HTML body: iamdonte; : interbent; : interbent; CCIE: knuckletattoos.com; Tux: Sabrina Ricci; Debian arm: MicheleM_; Debian back: NiNiaX; QR code: Geeky Tattoos; ShotCode: Ad Lab; Wordpress: Hugo Baeta