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Now here's a parent's nightmare:

13-year-old Reina Hardesty sent 14,528 text messages in the month of December, which averages out to be 470 messages a day, or an average of one every two minutes.

The New York Post reported her father's shock at receiving the phone bill.

"First I laughed. I thought 'That's insane, that's impossible'," Greg Hardesty told the Post. "I thought maybe AT&T had made some mistake on the bill."

Her texting soared last month because "it was winter break and I was bored," Reina told her parents.

According to a Nielsen study of cellphone usage, the average number of monthly texts for a 13- to 17-year-old teen is 1,742, or 60 per day, which still seems like a lot to me.

Reina's online AT&T statement ran 440 pages. The phone bill could have reached almost $3,000, but fortunately for Reina's parents, her phone plan allows for unlimited texting for $30 a month.

Her parents now say she is forbidden from texting after dinner every night.

According to a report in Wired, PC maker Dell is close to launching a cellphone.

When we first started this blog 3 years ago, I wondered what Dell's plans were in the space and it appears they are finally getting in the business.

The report cites several analysts as saying that the smartphone, which has been rumored for more than a year, is closer to becoming a reality than previously thought.

"The exact timing of Dell's launch is not clear but our sources indicate it is closer to reality than before," says Shaw Wu, an analyst with Kaufman Bros. in a research note. "We believe it is likely inevitable that Dell enter the cellphone space given the cannibalization of PCs by smartphones and highly functional mobile devices."

In 2007, Dell brought on Ron Garriques, a former Motorola executive who was the driving force behind the handset maker's popular Razr phone. The report also said that Dell would probably choose Windows Mobile as the phone's operating system.

If Dell does decide to jump into the smartphone market, it will find the space crowded, not only with traditional handset makers, but also with new offerings from Apple, Research In Motion and Palm, which recently launched the Palm Pre.

Stay tuned...

There are certain games that do well across different platforms, be it PC, mobile, Wii, back of the headrest on an airplane, etc. Think Tetris, Bejeweled, Pac-Man. Regardless of the format or console, they are fun.

Then there are other games that are great on specific platforms but don't play as well when you move to new platforms. For instance, Street Fighter is a phenomenal arcade / console game but I find it mediocre on your standard cellphone.

I had the pleasure of trying out a new iPhone game today called FLIP. Developed by eBattalion, think of FLIP as a Collapse!-style game with a twist made possible only with the iPhone.

The game has three modes: Standard, Puzzle and Speed. Standard mode is very similar to the Collapse! game style where gems fall and you need to Match 3, 4, 5, or 6 similar gems to remove them from the game board. To move pieces you simply tilt the iPhone gently or you can touch the screen to drop the gems in place. If you don't like the way your board is building, simply rotate your iPhone 90 degrees and "boom" the whole game board shifts.

In puzzle mode you play through a series of puzzles, called think-puzzles, which have you matching gems to shadows of similar color. A gem must land on top of a like-colored shadow for a valid match. As you progress through the game the puzzles become more complex. This is my personal favorite mode as it requires a little more thought process than the standard mode.

In speed mode you play through a series of fast-paced puzzles, called speed-puzzles, which have you matching gems of similar color vertically, horizontally or a combination of the two. The minimum number of gems you must match is displayed on the game-screen and varies from puzzle to puzzle. As you progress through the game the puzzles become increasingly difficult. I didn't spend a lot of time in this mode as I ran out of time but the few levels I did play were entertaining.

To get the best sense of what I'm talking about, you should check out the video they put together here.

Additional Features include:

- Local and global high scores for all three game modes
- Super fast start-up, virtually no load times
- Suspend a game in progress and return at anytime

FLIP is a fun game and the developers have done a great job taking advantage of the platform. My only criticism is that it takes awhile to get used to the controls in standard play and can be difficult to get the gems to stay in the columns you want them to. I found myself getting a little frustrated but I'm sure with more practice I will improve.

The game is available for $2.99 in the App Store and per the description, the developer states it's an introductory price. No clue on what the regular price will be. Check it out and if you download it, let us know what you think.