Email marketing firm VerticalResponse has a new tool available that makes it easier to read links in emails on phones. The VerticalResponse Button Builder allows users to design more mobile-friendly emails, making links easier to use on smartphone touch screens. Users can select the shape and font of the email, as well as a color scheme. The software then generates link buttons in the form of GIFs and emails the user.

Massachusetts mass transit organization MassDOT has issued a warning to E-ZPass customers about an email scam targeting its customers. The phishing email claims to come from the agency's E-ZPass Customer Service Center and has the subject line, "Payment for driving on toll road." MassDOT stresses urges consumers not to open or respond to the message.

V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai, the inventor of email and current faculty lecturer at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, admits that email has turned everyone into secretaries, as the average person spends 38 percent of their workday managing email. To address this issue, Ayyadurai predicts that future email systems will integrate artificial intelligence that will automatically sort the email inbox, by filing and archiving and even reacting to incoming email.

Email marketing takes up 85 percent of marketers' efforts, according to a new report from Sitecore. The research, which included responses from 330 digital marketers, found that 73 percent of marketers plan to invest more in digital in the next 12 months. The study also revealed that in the next year, 44 percent of marketers plan to use a predictive analytics tool and only 18 percent of marketers use one today.

Canadian-based email services firm Envoke.com has released new features that make it easier for email marketers to comply with Canada's new anti-spam legislation. The new Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL), which went into effect last week, requires that marketers gain a consumer's "Express Consent" rather than simply relying on implied consent. Envoke.com's new tools offer an automated approach to asking for this permission among new subscribers, as well as a feature to help get this permission from existing customers.

A scam email is going around to reporters claiming that the iPhone 6 is now out. The spam message appears to come from Apple and includes the copy, "the wait is over." The email includes links to a malware site that asks recipients to enter their personal details, which will likely be used for malicious purposes.

Telecom New Zealand has plans to retire its SMTP email server in September. The company plans to discontinue the server because it is an old technology and has issues adapting to new security updates that Telecom plans to bring to its email service. Users that have their emails on the SMTP server will need to manually change their outgoing mail settings before the server is shut down. This issue only affects about 15 percent of customers.

A new email startup called Inbox has ended its beta period and launched to the public today. The company, which was founded by former Dropbox employees and MIT grads, allows developers to build apps that access consumer inboxes, in a very similar way to Google's new Gmail API. However, the tool extends beyond Gmail addresses and also works with Yahoo, Microsoft Exchange and other email clients.

Ohio's Attorney General Mike DeWine has added new rules for registered sex offenders. Convicted offenders in Ohio must not only share their physical address when registering in the state's database, now they have to share their email address, phone number, social media screen name and video game names.

Media companies are finding that email newsletters are a great tool for helping readers digest content in the ocean of internet content. At least according to The New York Times' tech columnist David Carr. In an opinion piece for The Times, Carr argues that the email newsletter is not dead, pointing out that The Atlantic, Newsweek, Bloomberg and Fast Company all have popular newsletters aimed at building readership. Carr also points out that email newsletter tool lMailChimp sends more than 400 million emails a day.