We are not the future. The future is South Korea, where shiny and new for 2006, your cell phone will indict you. That’s right, while U.S. courts still hit snags over sending or posting full legal documents electronically, South Korean prosecutors will be delivering indictments via text message.
Three-quarters of the population there has mobile phones — and they’re always a couple years ahead of us in terms of the most important aspect of handset technology: stuff that turns your phone into something other than a phone.
Via tech blog Boing Boing, we see a Reuters report that notification of indictments, fines and penalties will be available via short text message, direct to your mobile. The upsides are twofold: six-figure savings for prosecutors, and the hope that the jerk whose cell phone rings in the movie theater might’ve just received a fine the size of a house.
— Brian McDonough
