Text your friends!

Finally: a way to tweet about how hot and crowded the L train platform is...while on the L train platform! An MTA official confirmed rumors to the New York Observer that starting Tuesday, AT&T and T-Mobile customers will be getting service underground. (Everyone on a different plan? Try borrowing your neighbors' phone.)

Because those 10 minutes you spent not on your cell phone every day were really getting irksome, weren't they?

The official told us that effective Tuesday, the following subway platforms (or "mezzanines" corrects our source, who is iffy when we ask about calling people in connecting corridors) will have cell service:

1. The CE line at 23rd Street and 8th Avenue
2. The ACE line at 14th Street and 8th Avenue
3. The L line at 14th street and 8th Avenue
4. The 123 line at 14th street and 7th Avenue
5. The FM line at 14 street at 6th Avenue
6. The L line at 14th street and 6th Avenue

The trains themselves will still not get reception, so if you are stuck underground for three hours, there will still be no way to call your boss and let them know that's why you're late for work.

In addition, the MTA official told us that although only AT&T and T-Mobile are currently on board with this plan, they are looking for other service providers to join the program. These six mezzanines are part of a pilot program on the MTA's part, which is hoping to eventually make all stations cell phone capable. 2016, which had been floated as the tentative date for this availability, could not be confirmed by the MTA official, even though that's a pretty long time from now.

In other news, here are the planned service changes for the weekend, ostensibly screwing up your plans so eventually you'll be able to text your friends about why you're two hours late for brunch.

Seriously, we could not make this stuff up if we tried.

According to The Guardian, £4 million have been invested in the UK Clinical Research Collaboration, which is creating a smartphone app that will allow users, "to put urine or saliva on to a computer chip about the size of a USB chip, plug it into their phone or computer and receive a diagnosis within minutes."

MORE > App Tells You When Your Spouse Is Cheating

The techno-savvy approached is aimed at young brits, who apparently are too embarrased to visit the doctor face to face and have been experiencing rising rates of STDs (or STIs if you prefer.)

"Your mobile phone can be your mobile doctor. It diagnoses whether you've got one of a range of STIs, such as chlamydia or gonorrhea and tells you where to go next to get treatment," Dr Tariq Sadiq, a senior lecturer and consultant physician in sexual health and HIV at St George's, University of London, who is leading the project, told The Guardian.

If it's really that simple, why wait till after the deed is done? Wouldn't it make more sense for prospective partners to swap fluids before hand, get a reading on their cell phones, and then decide whether or not to "finish the download"?

MORE > Cheating Lover? There's an App for That.

bpopper [at] observer.com

@benpopper

She throws it over to Trace Gallagher, who has watched this video and at least a dozen times and confirms that it "really is weird."

The film was shot outside the Chinese Theater in Hollywood before a screening of the Charlie Chaplin film, The Circus.

Blurry footage shows a woman holding something to her ear and possibly talking at the same time.

Blogger Jason Kottke, who is responsible for the Charlie Chaplin Time Travel Cell Phone meme's recent popularity, speculates that it may in fact be a external vacuum tube hearing aid.

Hmmm, better get to the bottom of this, Fox. "So we checked, was it a transistor radio?" asks Gallagher. "Nope, not invented for twenty years. Was it a walkie talkie, nope, not invented for ten years."

Megyn Kelly tries to be helpful. "Maybe she was singing into a radio." Hmmm, sorry Megyn, we just established it couldn't be a radio. Perhaps you time traveled to that question from 30 seconds ago and missed that portion of this stunning investigation.

bpopper [@observer] com

@benpopper