Two new studies have shown that pedestrians using mobile phones are significantly more likely to get smacked by a car than anybody else. A simulation indicated that older people are especially likely to be distracted, even more so if they’re unsteady on their feet to begin with (so maybe think about getting Grandma a nice large-print novel for Christmas instead of a Droid).

Interestingly, listening to music was found to have no effect on pedestrian safety, which I’d like to personally refute. I can say without a doubt that while listening to certain music (Spank Rock, I’m looking at you), I am noticeably more cocky and likely to get hit by a car while strutting across a busy street. But then, I’m not a scientist; thus, I trust the results of these studies and will continue to blare loud, filthy rap music while disregarding all pedestrian laws and guidelines. [LabSpaces]

The Danger / Microsoft team is continuing to work around the clock on the data restoration process. We apologise that this is taking so long, but we want to make sure we are doing everything possible to maintain the integrity of your data.

We continue to make steady progress, and we hope to be able to begin restoring personal contacts for affected users this week, with the remainder of the content (photographs, notes, to-do-lists, marketplace data, and high scores) shortly thereafter.

This data restoration effort is only necessary for customers who lost data from their Sidekick devices. We appreciate your ongoing patience.

So, in a nutshell, if your data has not been recovered soooooo sooooorry. [Microsoft]

The statement goes on to say they will “work around the clock to restore data to all affected users, including calendar, notes, tasks, photographs and high scores, as quickly as possible”.

The data loss was apparently caused by a system failure that created data loss in the core database and the back-up. I’m not sure if that means sabotage or not.

Meanwhile, we now hear that a number of pissed off users have filed lawsuits. Maybe this isn’t the end to this after all. [T-Mobile]

Dear T-Mobile Sidekick customers,
On behalf of Microsoft, I want to apologise for the recent problems with the Sidekick service and give you an update on the steps we have taken to resolve these problems.

We are pleased to report that we have recovered most, if not all, customer data for those Sidekick customers whose data was affected by the recent outage. We plan to begin restoring users’ personal data as soon as possible, starting with personal contacts, after we have validated the data and our restoration plan. We will then continue to work around the clock to restore data to all affected users, including calendar, notes, tasks, photographs and high scores, as quickly as possible.

We now believe that data loss affected a minority of Sidekick users. If your Sidekick account was among those affected, please continue to log into these forums for the latest updates about when data restoration will begin, and any steps you may need to take. We will work with T-Mobile to post the next update on data restoration timing no later than Saturday.

We have determined that the outage was caused by a system failure that created data loss in the core database and the back-up. We rebuilt the system component by component, recovering data along the way. This careful process has taken a significant amount of time, but was necessary to preserve the integrity of the data.

We will continue working closely with T-Mobile to restore user data as quickly as possible. We are eager to deliver the level of reliable service that our incredibly loyal customers have become accustomed to, and we are taking immediate steps to help ensure this does not happen again. Specifically, we have made changes to improve the overall stability of the Sidekick Service and initiated a more resilient backup process to ensure that the integrity of our database backups is maintained.

Once again, we apologise for this situation and the inconvenience that it has created. Please know that we are working all-out to resolve this situation and restore the reliability of the service.

Sincerely,
Roz Ho
Corporate Vice President
Premium Mobile Experiences, Microsoft Corporation

An anonymous tipster with seemingly extensive knowledge about the Danger/Pink team has this to say to Apple Insider as to what caused the massive data outage:

…someone with access to the servers at the datacenter must have inserted a time bomb to wipe out not just all of the data, but also all of the backup tapes, and finally, I suspect, reformatting the server hard drives so that the service itself could not be restarted with a simple reboot (and to erase any traces of the time bomb itself)… If this was an ordinary sort of failure, the service would have come back within a day, so once again, all signs point to sabotage.

After all the reports we’ve been hearing about the troubled state of the Danger/Pink team, it’s certainly plausible that there are more than a few disgruntled employees who could cause such a catastrophic failure. Whether or not anyone would is another question, but this whole thing is so waaaay out of the ordinary, I’m willing to believe it. [Apple Insider via Fast Company]

Channelweb’s tipster sounds similar to the tipster last week that talked to MobileCrunch about management ineptitude and lousy business choices. To summarise, Roz Ho, Microsoft’s “head of mobile experiences”, seems to be making so many bad choices that naming the project after Pink, the angry singer, seems like one of her best choices.

According to Channelweb, the Premium Mobile Experiences (PMX) team has caused, either by layoffs or by pissing them off, a large chunk of the Danger team to leave Microsoft. Danger is the team that actually built the Sidekick, and Roz Ho was siphoning off their resources into the Pink camp in order to make sure the latter could survive. By doing so, it seems like she’s killed off both groups, which might be why Microsoft keeps denying that they’re going to make phone hardware.

The bottom line is that massive data outages might be just the kind of early warning users need to abandon the Sidekick and get on another device before it’s out of your hands. [CRN]

An exasperated tipster who just spent some quality time across the phone from an equally exasperated T-Mobile rep told us what he was offered:

• I’m released from the contract if I want (Yeesh, of course I better be. I can’t believe I had to ask).
• I can get a G1 for $US129 (not sure if that’s the normal contract renewal pricing or not; doesn’t sound like a great deal to me).
• They also suggested Blackberries etc, but I didn’t get the pricing (since those are design disasters compared to SK or iPhone).

So to break it down, your options are to accept about $US20 off a G1, which you, an avid Sidekick user, probably didn’t want anyway, move onto a BlackBerry, or to leave. Sidekick users are a dedicated bunch—there’s a good chance they came to T-Mobile just to use a particular handset—so I wouldn’t be surprised if people take them up on the offer.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see some kind of official announcement from T-Mobile regarding how they plan on dealing with their no doubt angry mass of Sidekick subscribers, but it’ll be interesting to see how this shakes out: Remember, even though these people all bought their phones and service from T-Mo, the actual data loss is Danger’s (read: Microsoft’s) fault. It’s already clear that T-Mobile’ is going to bear the brunt of the angry mob, but aside from getting very sternly talked to by nervous carriers, is Microsoft going to get out of this scot-free? —Thanks, guy!

This time, the rumours come via AppleInsider, and they get personal: Roz Ho, Microsoft’s head of mobile experiences was “clearly incompetent” in her handling of the project, and “was not humble enough” to listen to her ex-Danger employees, who could’ve told her what she was doing wrong.

My favourite bit? The origins of the “Pink” moniker

she was listening to a song by Pink (the singer) when she decided she was just the person to go one-up the Sidekick.

The sourcing is odd and the story occasionally contradicts the report it claims to corroborate — how could it be a tool to goad the Windows Mobile 7 team into action it was kept secret from them?—and while it’s far from unbelievable that Pink, the project, could’ve been mishandled, or that Pink, the phones, could be kinda crappy, the conclusion that the project is dead just doesn’t match what we know we know. [AppleInsider]

The source is anonymous, but sounds like someone who either worked for the project or somehow has a lot of insider knowledge of it. They say a good chunk of the Danger/Sidekick team that Microsoft purchased for their phone knowledge actually has been let go or left on their own, leaving “no braintrust that understands how to build a project”.

What’s even more interesting is that the tipster says the staffers on the team hate the phone, and feel like they’re just being used to goad the Windows Mobile 7 team into stepping it up. Other details like the fact that the project might be two years behind schedule, that the smaller device’s touchscreen is unusable and that their internal staffers are struggling to fix UI design work originally made by “an outside party” is troubling. [MobileCrunch]