Digital Daily never disappoints in the headline department and OMFG, this week was no exception. John pulled some juicy nuggets out of CTIA’s semiannual wireless survey, including the staggering figure of 4.1 billion— the number of text messages Americans exchange each day. Google Voice was among the top stories again, thanks to a group of House members who asked the Federal Communications Commission to investigate the service. Digital Daily rounded out he week with comments from Qualcomm (QCOM) CEO Paul Jacobs and the cacophony that is the net neutrality debate. With a dazzling turn of phrase, Jacobs supported the idea of “traffic shaping”, or giving network managers the keys to their net-neutrality handcuffs.

Three time zones away at MediaMemo, Peter didn’t seem sure whether it was a sadder week for music sales or for music in general. Music sales are still in a slump. What may be worse, however, is that the slump was only slowed by Michael Jackson and The Beatles, neither of whom seems like a pillar for viable growth. Amid music’s slump, there may be a ray of hope in videoland. MediaMemo reported that Network TV-buster YouTube seems to be learning how to play nice with the other kids, offering certain content producers a way to channel some revenue back into their own coffers. The momentary bright spot for media quickly evaporated when it came time to talk about print. Peter followed the story of Condé Nast’s multiple magazine closings. It’s always a sad day when there are fewer beautifully composed pictures of cookies in the world.

Rounding out the week, Walt released his anticipated review of Windows 7, and proclaimed it good enough to help you get rid of that lingering Vista hangover. With installation times averaging about 45 minutes and lots of neat new features, Windows 7 may just be good enough to make you feel like having a party. Mossberg’s Mailbox was peppered with several Windows 7 RSVPs. Walt issued his usual sage advice about switching to Windows 7, as well as a quickie about personal finance software. The Mossberg Solution covered a set of new point-and-shoot cameras, each with a striking party piece. Katie reviewed the Samsung Dualview TL225, which features a second screen on the front of the camera for convenient self portraits, and the Nikon Coolpix S1000pj, which features an actual projector right inside the camera. Both cameras earned praise for ingenuity, with the caveat that those new features come with an extra price tag.

Check back early and often. There’s always room for AllThingsD.

In fact, according to a new $6 million dollar study by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, texting while driving increases your chances of crashing by 23 times (see table below; click to enlarge).

Apparently, drivers take their eyes off the road for an average of 4.6 seconds when composing text messages–enough time at typical highway speeds to wreak all manner of havoc.

“Texting should be banned in moving vehicles for all drivers,” the study concludes, adding that it “has the potential to create a true crash epidemic if texting-type tasks continue to grow in popularity and the generation of frequent text message senders reach driving age in large numbers.”

We need a $6 million study to tell us this? Why hasn’t texting while driving been banned already?

According to a new survey from Vlingo, a company that develops speech-recognition technology for mobile phones, 26 percent of its nationwide sample of 4,816 mobile phone users said they sent texts while driving. This despite laws against Driving While Texting in some seven states and some nasty DWT-related accidents. The states with the highest percentage of DWT drivers: Tennessee (42 percent), New Jersey (35 percent), Alabama (34), Idaho (33) and Oklahoma (31.7).

Ironically, 83 percent of the people surveyed said they feel texting while driving should be illegal.

“In just one year, the public conversation about the issue of DWT has escalated, particularly in the wake of some high-profile accidents,” Dave Grannan, chief executive of Vlingo, said in a statement. “Texting is such an integral component of our daily lives, and the cautionary tales about DWT danger have not stemmed the tide. We predicted last year that this problem would get worse, and it has since more people are texting. The good news is that many state legislatures are starting to take up this issue, and today more advanced technologies exist that can increase safety on the roads.”

My God, if one in four drivers admit to driving while texting, how many more were too ashamed to?

The bottom line is texting is at least four times more expensive than transmitting data from Hubble, and is likely to be substantially more than that.

– University of Leicester space scientist Nigel Bannister

If wireless providers applied the per-byte pricing scheme they use for SMS texting to other data transmitted over their cellular networks, it would cost nearly $6,000 to download a single 4MB song. Yet the price of text messaging has doubled industrywide in the last three years.

Why?

A good question. And one that’s finally being asked by Congress. On Tuesday, Sen. Herb Kohl (D., Wis.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee, sent letters to Verizon Wireless (VZ), Sprint-Nextel (S), AT&T (T), and T-Mobile (DT) asking them to justify their outrageous text messaging prices. “What is particularly alarming about this industrywide rate increase is that it does not appear to be justified by rising costs in delivering text messages,” Kohl wrote. “Text-messaging files are very small, as the size of text messages are generally limited to 160 characters per message, and therefore cost carriers very little to transmit.”

Kohl noted as well that the companies appear to have changed text-messaging rates at nearly the same time, with identical prices. A troubling coincidence, given that together they serve more than 90 percent of U.S. cellphone users. Said Kohl, “This conduct is hardly consistent with the vigorous price competition we hope to see in a competitive marketplace.”

Makes for great profit margins though …