First, a study just published in the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics concludes that “nearly half of US high school students aged ≥16 years report TWD during the past 30 days, and these students are more likely to engage in additional risky MV behaviors.”

What risky behaviors, you ask? Well, the study, based on data from the CDC, found that these teens who texted while driving were more likely to not wear their seatbelts and were also more likely to drink and drive (or at least ride in the car with someone who has been drinking).

The CDC study asked a sample of around 8.500 high school students whether they had texted while driving in the past month. Just shy of 45% copped to it. Those teens were then found to participate in other high-risk driving activities at a higher rate.

“Multitasking is fine if you’re sitting in your dorm room or at home in your bedroom, but multitasking in the car is a terrible idea,” said CDC director Tom Frieden. “It’s amazing how quickly things can go wrong in the car.”

Here’s another alarming find for you parents out there: according to another study, texting while driving is now killing more teens that drunk driving.

The study comes from the Cohen Children’s Medical Center in New York. They say that over 3,000 teens now die every year as the result of texting while driving. That number just beats the number killed in drunk driving accidents – 2,700.

Of course, texting is a more common practice than drinking while driving. But still, it’s a shocking figure.

“The reality is kids aren’t drinking seven days per week – they are carrying their phones and texting seven days per week, so you intuitively know this a more common occurrence,” said Dr. Andrew Adesman, Chief of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics at Cohen Children’s Medical Center.

Although these studies focused on teens, it’s not just the younger crowd who is guilty of texting while driving. A recent AT&T study found that 49% of adults admitted to the practice, compared to just 43% of teens. And it’s not for lack of knowledge. 98% admitted that they knew it was wrong, but did it anyway. 39 states currently ban texting while driving and another 6 ban it for novice drivers.

BGR cites a “trusted source” who says that sales of the HTC First have been so terrible that AT&T has decided to discontinue the device and return all unsold inventory to HTC.

The source doesn’t have exact figures on the sales, but apparently less than $15,000 units were sold since AT&T slashed the price to $0.99 (with a 2-year contract) last week.

From BGR:

For some perspective, BGR has been informed that sales of the HTC First have been even worse than HTC Chacha sales were back in 2011, when AT&T launched the ill-fated phone as the Status…We’re told that AT&T sales representatives do not like Facebook Home or the First at all, and they are making little if any effort to sell the handset to customers. Right now iPhones and Samsung’s Galaxy S4 are the biggest sellers at AT&T by a substantial margin, our source said.

Ouch.

Facebook and HTC announced the HTC First’s exclusive AT&T launch during their April 4th Facebook Home event.

The HTC First has been referred to as the “Facebook Phone,” because it came pre-installed with Facebook Home. Of course, Home is also available on a handful of other Android devices and has been available for download since April 12th. Home in general has been underperforming – although it just crossed a million installs, it has a terrible 2-star rating in the Google Play Store. The failure of the HTC first, if this report is accurate, simply underscores the fact that the Facebook Home experiment is well on its way to official bomb status.

We’ve reached out to Facebook for comment and will update this article accordingly.

UPDATE: Facebook is not commenting on the report. We have also contacted AT&T for comment.

UPDATE 2: AT&T had this to say:

“As mentioned previously, we do pricing promotions all the time and have made no decisions on future plans.”

Aio Wireless will offer customers a variety of plans ranging in price from $40 to $70 per month, as well as a $15 per month tablet plan. The basic plan is available only for feature phones (i.e., not smartphones) and gets you unlimited talk, texting, and data. Of course, this is AT&T, so “unlimited” doesn’t actually mean unlimited when it comes to data. Under this plan your data connection is throttled after 250MB of use. The intermediate plan, dubbed Aio Smart (as in, smartphone) is much the same as the basic plan, except now your data connection gets throttled after 2GB of use. For $70 the Aio Pro plan will get you a whopping 7 GB of data usage per month before you get throttled. The $15 per month tablet plan gets you a paltry 250MB of data before you get throttled.

As with other no-contract providers, you are free to either bring your own phone to Aio Wireless, or purchase one of the models they have available. Their smartphone selection is decent but fairly iPhone heavy (they have at least two models of every iPhone since the iPhone 4), and light on high-powered Android devices. Of course, since there’s no monthly contract, you pay full price for any phone you buy through Aio.

There’s no information yet on which markets Aio will be reaching and when. Much will depend on how popular the service proves in Tampa, Orlando, and Houston. Given the recent popularity of no-contract mobile providers, though, it seems likely that Aio will be sticking around for awhile

T-Mobile announced today that the Galaxy S4 will be available on its network starting April 24. The phone will cost $150 upfront, and the rest will be paid off in monthly installments of $20 over the next two years. The $20 installments will be added onto your monthly bill, and will be removed once the phone is paid off.

“Samsung has a proven track record of delivering the ‘Next Big Thing’ in smartphone innovation,” said John Legere, president and CEO, T-Mobile USA. “By combining our bold, Un-carrier moves — no restrictions, no limits and an unbeatable value — with Samsung’s leading-edge technology, you’re going to get the most from your Samsung Galaxy S 4 at T-Mobile —hands down.”

The main advantage of going with T-Mobile over other carriers is its unlimited 4G data plan. For $70 a month, subscribers will get unlimited talk, text and 4G data. T-Mobile’s Galaxy S4 will have an LTE chip in it so it will be able to jump onto T-Mobile’s LTE network once the carrier brings it to more markets.

Unfortunately, unlike every other carrier, T-Mobile will not be offering pre-orders on the Galaxy S4. If you want one, you’re going to have to order it online as soon as it becomes available on April 24. If you prefer to buy your phones at physical retail locations, the S4 won’t be available until May 1.

Engadget received an internal memo from an anonymous source that lists the S4 release date across three major carriers – AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile. As expected, the Galaxy S4 will be hitting AT&T first on April 26. T-Mobile subscribers won’t have to wait much longer as the device will launch for them on May 1. Those with Verizon will unfortunately have to wait a month as its launch is scheduled for May 30.

The memo says the above launch dates are tentative at the moment so things can change. The whole thing could be fake as well, but it certainly fits with previous comments from T-Mobile’s CEO when he said that the S4 would be coming to the network on May 1.

If these tentative launch dates stay the same, we should start seeing the Galaxy S4 going up for pre-order on T-Mobile and Verizon shortly. The leaked memo doesn’t mention any other carriers though so those waiting for word on Sprint’s pre-order and launch plans will probably have to wait a little longer.

On a final note, those interested in the S4 should probably get their pre-order in as soon as they open for your respective carrier. The memo says that inventory will be “highly constrained” at launch. We can hope that a repeat of last year’s Galaxy S III launch won’t be repeated, but Samsung may very well run out of stuck as soon as it launches.

Today, AT&T has announced intentions to build its own advanced fiber optic infrastructure “capable of delivering speeds up to 1 gigabit per second” in Austin, Texas.

No other details – like the when and how much – have been divulged. We’re guessing that AT&T will be unwilling to offer anything like Google Fiber’s free internet (with construction fee, of course). But as far as the pricing goes, it remains to be seen.

No surprise here, but AT&T makes a point to say that they don’t expect the project to “materially alter their anticipated 2013 capital expenditures.”

Also, AT&T expects to be given the same terms as Google in the city of Austin:

AT&T’s expanded fiber plans in Austin anticipate it will be granted the same terms and conditions as Google on issues such as geographic scope of offerings, rights of way, permitting, state licenses and any investment incentives.

Of course, all of this comes on the heels of Google’s announcement that they will be expanding their Google Fiber initiative to Austin in mid-2014. Google says the price will be similar to what it is in Kansas City, and that they will be giving the service free to public institutions like schools, libraries, and hospitals.

No matter what, this is great for the residents of Austin, who now have multiple companies looking to give them crazy fast internet. Some cities have all the luck.

The main feature of Home is the Cover Feed. It brings up all the latest photos from your News Feed to the homescreen of your phone. Users navigate through the photos by swiping left and right. Users can also double tap images to like them, and can comment from the homescreen as well.

Notifications get a substantial update in Home as well. All notifications will show up on the home screen as separate entries. Tapping the notification will bring up the Facebook app for further interaction. If you want to get rid of it, you can just toss it off the screen. Holding one of the notifications will lump them all together if you so wish to disregard all of them at once.

Apps will not be affected by Home as they can be easily accessed by holding the image of your face and swiping.

The final feature of Home is called Chatheads. As its name implies, it collects SMS and Facebook Messenger in one place. The interesting part is that each message shows up at the top right as a small circle containing the profile picture of your friends. These will pop up regardless of whatever app you’re in.

Facebook Home will be available on Android phones that have both the Facebook and Facebook Messenger installed. If you meet these prerequisites, the Facebook app will contain a link to the Google Play store to download Facebook Home.

Facebook Home will be updated every month, just like the Facebook mobile app. It will also come to tablets in the coming months.

Facebook Home will be initially available on the HTC One X, HTC One X+, HTC One, Samsung Galaxy S III, Samsung Galaxy Note II and the Samsung Galaxy S4 starting April 12. It’s also coming to the HTC First, a phone built with Facebook Home specifically in mind.

Both AT&T and Sprint announced today that the HTC One will be hitting their respective stores on April 19. The latest smartphone will retail for $199 at both carriers with a two-year contract. Interested buyers will be able to place a pre-order for the device on April 4 at AT&T, and on April 5 at Sprint.

If you’re in between contracts, you may find yourself stuck between choosing the HTC One on AT&T or Sprint. If you care about 4G LTE coverage, AT&T definitely has the larger network. AT&T will also be the exclusive home of the 64GB HTC One for $299. To sweeten the deal, AT&T will throw in a free HTC Media Link HD wireless HDMI adapter with any HTC One purchase as well.

If you want more info on the unique features of the HTC One, AT&T threw together this short video detailing the new device:

The HTC One presents a sizable threat to Samsung in a few key areas, but consumer interest will be the deciding factor in the latest war of the smartphones. HTC will have to pull out all the stops in its advertising if it wants to go head-to-head with the Galaxy S 4. Samsung has the deep pockets to just bombard all communication channels with its advertising so HTC will have to get creative if it hopes to undermine the competition.

Amazon and AT&T announced today that the Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ 4G LTE will be available at AT&T stores starting April 5. The tablet, which recently received a price drop, will still cost $399 at AT&T. The price will be reduced to $249 if you sign a two-year contract.

“We’re excited to work with AT&T to offer the 4G LTE version of Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ to AT&T customers across the country,” said Mike McKenna , Vice President, Amazon Kindle. “Customers tell us they love our large-screen Kindle Fire HD for browsing the web, writing emails, watching movies, reading magazines, and more – and with AT&T’s 4G LTE technology, everything is faster and more convenient.”

If you already subscribe to AT&T’s network, you can add the Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ 4G LTE for $10 a month on a mobile share plan. It can also be added to individual or family plans.

“Being the first carrier to connect Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD to our 4G LTE network provides the best mobile internet experience,” said Chris Penrose , senior vice president of emerging devices, AT&T. “Combining our 4G LTE with Kindle Fire HD’s rich features at an incredible price point yields a great value and experience for our customers.”

For now, AT&T is the only carrier to have the Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ 4G LTE. There’s no word yet on if it will come to other carriers, but it’s really only a matter of time until other carriers, like Verizon, get a hold of Amazon’s flagship tablet.

AT&T announced today that Galaxy S 4 preorders will start on April 16. If you go for a two-year contract, the price will come in at $250. There’s no mention of the off contract price, but expect it to be expensive.

There’s no word on when the phone will actually launch, but you can probably expect to see it in May. That’s at least what T-Mobile thinks as the company’s CEO said the device would be launching on its network on May 1. If true, we could see a late April launch on AT&T.

There has been nothing but radio silence from the other carriers in regards to their Galaxy S 4 plans. You can probably expect to see a Verizon launch not soon after the AT&T launch though. The price should remain pretty consistent across all carriers as well.

If you’re dead set on getting the Galaxy S 4 with AT&T, you can set up shop at the carrier’s landing page. You can also give ‘em your email address so you know exactly when preorders open for the new device.

[h/t: Engadget]