All Blog Posts from Couric & Co.

It's not exactly Silicon Valley, but Waterloo, Iowa, is a technology trailblazer - 911 operators there are the first in the nation able to receive and respond to emergency text messages.

Now, those of us less proficient might cringe at having to text quickly during an emergency.

It may seem as strange as some of those abbreviations our teenagers use but it is the preferred means of communication for anyone born after 1980 and could be a life saver for someone who is deaf or unable to talk following an accident.

There have already been cases of kidnap victims across the country who quietly texted friends for help, having them call the police.

Texting 911 could save time and maybe lives.

Cities nationwide are watching Waterloo closely.

Eventually, 911 systems might be able to receive photos and videos from cell phones, so first responders are better prepared to answer that SOS ASAP.

That's a page from my notebook.

As any parent of a teenager can tell you, text messaging is all the rage. in fact, in 2007, Americans OMGed and LOLed more often than they made phone calls. Our fingers are not only doing the walking, they are doing the talking.

And a new study by AT&T found those fingers are also doing the flirting and the romancing. Sixty-eight percent of the people surveyed said they have sent love notes. The most popular message was "thinking of you." Twenty-eight percent say they send them two or three times a day.

It's the thought that counts, and certainly it's better to say "I love you" with a text message than to not say it at all. Perhaps those days of saving all your love letters in a hope chest are as outdated as the rotary phone.

Let's just hope that if the romance goes south, the breakup comes face-to-face. IMHO, which means in my humble opinion, broken heart is bad enough without the Blackberry thumb.