A bit late on reporting on this...

* Wireless carrier Alltel, it of the mind-numbingly goofy, but remarkably elaborate, Chad ads, announced late last month that it would begin offering Voice2TXT service through SpinVox, which means...

"Its Voice Message Conversion System, which converts messages in English, French, Spanish and German, eliminates the need to search for a pen to write down the details of a message or navigate through a voicemail service.... (Thank God! I hate to look ofr a pen when I want to write something in German)"

Oh, AND THIS...

"It'll appeal to a broad customer base ... people who are in meetings quite regularly and can't take a phone call — it's very useful in those settings," said Wade McGill, Alltel's senior vice president of product management."

Ummm 'kay... now eff us if we're wrong, but we would think this could also be used to translate voice into text messages one could send, no?  Kinda like this?

The service starts at $4.99; users will still be able to listen to the voice messages.

* At least one tech blog thinks Helio, the upstart wireless carrier we told you about a long time ago, may cease operations.

Of course, given that these guys are involved with Helio, this is not surprising: look how well Wireless Philadelphia is going, eh?

* Speaking of WTF?-FI Philly, if this boomerangs, it may render it all moot: you don't need a hot plate if you got a microwave, bitches!