Two-Sided Touch Screen

"Researchers at Microsoft and Mitsubishi are developing a new pseudo-transparent touch screen system that lets people type text, click hyperlinks, and navigate maps from both the front and back of a portable device.

A semitransparent image of the fingers touching the back of the device is superimposed on the front so that users can see what they're touching."

Mobile phone throwing turns artistic in Finland

It's that time of year again, when contestants gathered Saturday, to compete in Finland's famous Mobile Phone Throwing World Championships.

But this year brought something a little different when a teen circus performer won the freestyle gold medal at the gamesjuggling, rather than throwing his mobile phone. Reuters reports.

"Taco Cohen of the Netherlands (picture left), who was celebrating his 19th birthday, used acrobatics and juggling in his performance, which was judged on aesthetics and artistic impression.

Finnish domination in the distance event continued when Tommi Huotari took gold with a throw of 89.62 meters (294 feet), a few meters short of the world record.

Event organizer Christine Lund said the contest reflected people's love-hate relationship with the mobile phone.

"This contest speaks to people the world over as mobile phones are a blessing and a curse...phones have become a part of the modern man, and sometimes many of us would like to remove that part."

Originally a local event in this small town close to the Russian border, the contest drew contestants from Canada, Austria and the United States."

Links to previous championship:

-- Finn takes gold at 7th mobile phone throwing contest

-- Mobile Phone Throwing World Championships - Again

-- 5th International Mobile Phone Throwing World Championships

What Your Cell Phone Knows About You

A very interesting article from TIME on how a handful of forensic experts are developing new methods to access the inner secrets in cell phones.

"... A small group of international forensic code breakers is working to go beyond the obvious and familiar — the call logs and address books — and tap deeper into our phones, into a hidden gold mine of personal information. Their work is prompting kudos from crime busters while raising concern among civil libertarians.

Twenty years ago it would have taken a police agency months of shoe leather and paper hunting to assemble the kind of information that is available on a cell phone's internal memory and which can be extracted by a deep probe.

Says Chris Calabrese of the American Civil Liberties Union technology and liberty program: "They contain a great amount of information that essentially is a subjective picture of our habits, our friends, our interests and activities, and now some even have location tracking."

... Europe's single, standardized GSM network, as opposed to the multi networks — GSM, CDMA and iDEN found in the U.S. — gave European forensics investigators an edge as they began to develop ways of accessing a phone's internal memory.

Two of the leading cell phone forensics experts are British — West Yorkshire Detective Constables Steve Hirst and Steve Miller. Like their American colleagues — "tinkerers" as Mislan calls them — the two spend their evenings buying up old cell phones on eBay, deconstructing and decoding them, and then sharing their research online with colleagues around the world."

Read full article

25% of mobile phones sold in 2011 will be low-cost

More than a dozen handset vendors will be shipping sub-$50 models by 2008, reports
Blogs ZDNet.

"... ABI Research expects that by 2011, almost one out of every four handsets shipped globally will be an ultra low cost handset. The research shows that India will be the biggest market in the next five years, growing from a little over 9 mln handsets in 2006 to more than 116 mln handsets in 2011."

AT&T Cracks On Commercial iPhone Unlocking Groups

It was bound to happen: AT&T is going after the commercial groups trying to profit from the iPhone unlocking. AT&T is sending warning shots or directly threatening legal action..

[via Gizmodo]

Study finds no link between car accidents and yapping whilst driving

New York Times Blog reports on a new study, contradicting conventional wisdom about cell phones and driving.

"Two Berkeley graduate students found in research published last week that while Americans are clearly gabbing gobs more, they are not more accident prone.

... The researchers wonder if the public at large might be taking care to compensate for their talking say, for instance, by moving into the slow lane. Or, they theorized, the phone calls might be keeping otherwise tired drivers alert and awake.

There are nuances the research doesn’t account for. For instance, they note that certain demographics of users, like teens, might be worth isolating for further study since they may not just be talking on the phone, but also sending text messages (and, while the study doesn’t mention it, experiencing hormonal swings).

This research could contribute to an ongoing debate among policy makers and legislators trying to decide whether to outlaw the practice of DCWD — Digitally Communicating While Driving.

[Wired Blogs: Gadget Lab via EngadgetMobile]

Disney Mobile Art

The Walt Disney Company is now offering their image bank on mobile phones, sharing sketches and images that were never publicly released. [TrendHunter]

In their own (somewhat long winded) words:

Many a Disney fan is carrying a phone graced with rarely seen photos of Walt Disney, or beautiful pastel renderings of the castles from each of the Disney Parks. For the true fan, the Vault Disney section of the Disney Mobile site is a gold mine. The vintage treasures you find can make a Disney Mobile phone more than just a safe and handy way to keep the family in touch - it’s also a Disney art gallery that can be held in the palm of the hand, with exhibits that change whenever the owner feels like trying a new theme.”

N.J. teen opens up the phone to overseas users

George Hotz of Glen Rock, N.J., spent his last summer before college figuring out how to "unlock" the iPhone, freeing it from being restricted to a single carrier, AT&T Inc.

"The procedure, which the 17-year-old laid out on his blog Thursday, raises the possibility of a cottage industry springing up to buy iPhones, unlocking them and then selling them to people who don't want AT&T service or can't get it, particularly overseas.

Hotz demonstrated an iPhone running on T-Mobile's network, the only major U.S. carrier apart from AT&T that is compatible with the iPhone's cellular technology.

Hotz spent about 500 hours on the project since the iPhone went on sale. On Thursday, he put the unlocked iPhone up for sale on EBay, where the high bid was above US$3,000 on Friday afternoon. "

Wooden Phone

Spotted on SlashGear, a wooden cell phone.

New Phones Deliver Speedier HSDPA Downloads

South Korea's three big cell phone makers are speeding the path to higher speed data downloads over wireless network.

"...The phones are appearing as Korea's carriers begin switching on the latest upgrades and increasing transmission speed. The same thing is happening elsewhere in the world.

With the upgrades to 7.2M bps the HSDPA technology isn't done yet. Future upgrades are envisaged to boost speeds to 14.4M bps and work is continuing on a new generation that will push speeds even higher. There's also a companion technology called HSUPA (high-speed uplink packet access) that can boost upload speeds from phones to the network. These networks generally offer around 2M bps at present."

[via PC World]

Hearst adds two new mobile sites

Hearst Magazines
Digital Media Group has launched new mobile sites that correspond with its Harpers Bazaar and Marie Claire titles. DMNews reports.

"Marie Claire and Bazaar mobile site users will have the ability to access fashion, beauty and life advice via their mobile phones. Hearst already has agreements with most US mobile carriers, including AT&T/Cingular, Sprint and Verizon.

... The new sites, created internally by Hearst, join seven other Hearst mobile sites, including Cosmopolitan, Esquire and Seventeen. All nine sites offer interactive features such as search functions, “talk-to-us” links and downloads."

Police: Crime Tip Texting System Working Well

We read about these projects, but it's good to hear actual feedback. Boston police say their new plan to use text messaging to make streets safer is now paying off in a big way, reports The Boston Channel.

"Officials told the Boston Herald that police have received 230 crime tip text messages since June. That's compared to only about 10 telephone tips per month.

-- Police said they received a text message just minutes after the stabbing death of Adam Rich, 26, at the Six House bar in South Boston back in June. The suspect in that case is now awaiting trial.

-- Police are also crediting a texted tip with helping them get to the bottom of the case in the shooting death of Laquarrie Jefferson, 8, whose mother initially said her son was killed in a home invasion. A text message to police, however, soon revealed that the real shooter in the accident was the child's 8-year-old cousin.

-- The texting program has also helped police crack down on a number of drug rings. To text police, callers only have to text the word "tip" and then C-R-I-M-E, which is 2-7-4-6-3."

Orange has not yet signed iPhone deal for France

In an interview published in Paris Match, Louis-Pierre Wenes, executive Director of Orange, the mobile affiliate of France Télécom, said that Orange had not yet signed an agreement with Apple to distribute the iPhone in France.

Earlier this week, the FT had reported that "Apple has chosen T-Mobile, O2, and Orange as its European launch partners for the iPhone after wrangling a revenue-sharing agreement".

[via Reuters, (in French)]

Role of Telecom Firms in Wiretaps Is Confirmed

The Bush administration has confirmed for the first time that American telecommunications companies played a crucial role in the National Security Agency’s domestic eavesdropping program after asserting for more than a year that any role played by them was a “state secret.” The New York Times reports.

"The acknowledgment was in an unusual interview that Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, gave last week to The El Paso Times in which he disclosed details on classified intelligence issues that the administration has long insisted would harm national security if discussed publicly."

India passes US to become Nokia's No. 2 market for mobile phones

India overtook the U.S. in the second quarter to become Nokia's second-largest market, reflecting the rapid growth of mobile phone use in the country. China remained Nokia's biggest market worldwide.

"The country added 7.3 million cellphone subscribers in June, taking the total to 185.1 million, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.

China remains the world's biggest mobile phone market with around 500 million subscribers."

[via Infoworld]

AT&T kills the 300-page iPhone bill

Following embarrassing stories of epic documentation, AT&T will start sending iPhone customers thinner bills by default starting with their next billing cycle, the wireless carrier has told subscribers by text message. [via Infoworld]

Phones, Guns and Photocopies

A poster for a store which sells phones, guns and makes photocopies. How weird is that?

A Flickr post spotted on Tom Hume

Markets: Rumour SMS creates panic

Thursday an SMS went out to thousands of market players across India. It said that the left had withdrawn support from the government and the news will hit the headlines in 45 minutes.

It immediately sent the Sensex into a nosedive and in just seven minutes the index lost about 160 points slipping deep into the red. Buying came in immediately and within another four minutes the Sensex regained about 170 points.

[via NDTV Profit]

Novelist sues Sohu.com over SMS copyright

A novelist who wrote 190 romantic short messages is now suing Sohu.com for violating his copyright. Shanghai No. 2 Intermediate People's Court heard the case yesterday. [via Zhejiang Online]

"The novelist, Zhejiang Province native Fu Zhanbei, is demanding three million yuan (US$395,283) compensation and a public apology on the Website. Fu accused the Website of continuing to use his short messages after their contract ended and making profits from them."

IPhone Tantalizes, Frustrates Forensics Experts

Technophiles may love the iPhone, but you criminals? Watch out. The iPhone may reveal more about your misdeeds than you realize. Wired reports via we-make-money-not-art.com/del.icio.us.

"...Will its data favor the defense or the prosecution? "There is more information in there than your average cell phone," explains Derrick Donnelly, chief technology officer of Blackbag Technologies. "The ease of use lends itself to more use … and more use creates more artifacts."

But not every forensics expert is convinced. It's not easy for a forensics team to guarantee that the data extracted from an iPhone has not been tampered with. The result is that juries may find reasonable doubt in how that data was extracted.

The digital-forensics industry is dominated by PC experts, mirroring the larger percentage of PC users in the marketplace. Mac forensic analysis is considered a highly specialized service."

Read full article.

Text messaging service for California beach goers

Heal the Bay, a California based environmental group dedicated to making California's ocean and waterways safe and healthy, today announced a text messaging based version of Beach Report Card.

"In order to get instant water quality grade information for any one of the more than 400 monitored California beaches, beachgoers can simply send a text message with the beach's name to the number 23907. A text message response with the beach's most recent weekly grade will be returned immediately."

[via ByMyNews]

Samsung Mobile Sculpture made of 200 phones

Samsung Electronics displayed a sculpture made of 200 mobile phones which were about to be discarded in an event at a Ukrainian shopping mall last Wednesday.

Spotted on Digital Chosunilbo.

Quick Loans by Text Messaging

Dutch consumers have a new way to take out loans: by SMS. Springwise reports.

"Finnish Ferratum just launched its short-loan service in the Netherlands.

Customers can borrow EUR 100 ($136) , 200 ($271) or 300 ($407) for a term of 15 days, by texting Ferratum their name, date of birth, bank account and address. If they've pre-registered, the money is in their bank account within 10 minutes.

First-time customers have to wait 24 hours and speedy loans come at a cost: Ferratum charges a hefty 25% processing fee."

Personal Dietician by cell phone

A Personal Dietitian is the latest symbol of understated success.

Leading clinics in London are now providing personalized cell phone diet and fitness services direct to their clients using a system called Wirefile V-Clinic.

A system called V-Clinic provides personal advice and 24/7 assistance to their clients using the web and cell phones.

With Wirefile V-Clinic, the dietitian or personal trainer sends a cell phone diet application direct to your cell phone. The dietitian sets up a personalized meal and fitness plan online that is sent to your phone every day. The dietitian also sets up personalized daily minimum and maximum nutrient limits or daily activity targets for you that are also sent to your cell phone. [Press release]

Other cell phone diet options:

-- Mobile technology Joins The Battle Against The Bulge

-- Use your mobile to lose weight with "Beauty Walker"

-- 3 launch Atkins calorie counter for mobile phones

-- Atkins to count carbs on cell phones

-- 'Well-Being' Fad Hits Cell Phone Market, Too

-- Cameraphones to help you stick to your diet

-- Mobile phone to facilitate consumers' wholesome food choices

-- Japanese Use Cell Phone QR Bar Code Readers to Check Food Safety

-- Camera phones let you know if brocoli is fresh

-- Nokia camera phones for grocery shopping

Mobiles account for third of all UK calls

According to a report from UK phone regulator Ofcom, calls made from mobiles now account for more than a third of all time spent on the phone.

The report also said that 9% of UK households rely solely on a mobile, compared to 7% that only have a traditional landline phone.

Ofcom spokesman Peter Phillips said: “There are more households which are now mobile-only in terms of their phone. The first quarter of 2007 is the first time that has happened”.

[via SMSTextNews]

Taliban tapping into British cell phones

According to UPI, British soldiers in Afghanistan have been barred from using cell phones because the Taliban have been tapping into them and making prank calls to their families.

This follows news last week that Denmark's military intelligence agency is investigating whether Iraqi insurgents have used mobile phone records to track down and threaten relatives of Danish soldiers deployed in Iraq.

"Intelligence officials fear that the Taliban may be picking up more than the information needed to frighten wives and parents, The Sun, a British newspaper, reported.

In one case, the wife of an air force officer got a middle-of-the-night call that said her husband had been killed, The Sun reported. When she called the Royal Air Force, she learned that was not true.

“You’ll never see your husband alive -- we have just killed him,” she had been told.

Soldiers must now call home only from secure military lines and are limited to 30 minutes on the phone each week.

Intelligence agents said that much of the tapping is being done in Pakistan and said that the Taliban may be getting."

EU calls for satellite-to-mobile communications to go Europe-wide

The European Union wants companies providing satellite-to-mobile phone communications to be able to get one EU-wide license, cutting out the cost of applying for authorization from each of the bloc's 27 nations. [via the IHT]

"... Mobile satellite services can beam wireless Internet, television and emergency communications to mobile phones that can't connect to existing network masts."

Bangladesh violence subsides after curfew imposed

The military-backed government imposed an temporary curfew in six major cities Wednesday, reports the AP, clearing the streets and temporarily shutting down cell phones in a bid to quell three days of unrest by students demanding an end to emergency rule.

"The curfew order came after students took their protests from university campuses to the streets of the capital, burning cars and buses and battling with security forces. Students also clashed with police in three other cities.

Cell phones stopped working about an hour before the curfew went into effect. An official at the country's largest mobile operator, GrameenPhone, said the government ordered all cell phone service temporarily shut down. The official asked not to be identified for fear of upsetting authorities."

Links to other occurences, when countries blocked mobile phone signals, usually to prevent dissidents from demonstrating against their government.

UPDATE: Bangladesh violence subsides after curfew imposed

Nokia battery recall could cost Matsushita $1.2 billion

According to Forbes, Japanese electronics manufacturer Matsushita Electric Industrial could be on the hook for up to $1.2 billion, with the recall of the Nokia batteries produced by their company.

Mobile phones used to call owls

A professor has taken to ringing owls on his mobile phone. What is most remarkable is that they return his calls in a project that could revolutionise surveys of wild bird populations, reports The Telegraph.

"Researchers at MIT near Boston report today that the phones can help keep more accurate counts of owls.

When Eben Goodale wants to count the birds, he places a call that triggers phones in the forest to play, via speakers, pre-recorded owl calls, such as hoots and whistles.

Territorial owls raise their heads and approach what they think may be an intruder. If they respond with a hoot, the phones transmit the sound back to the "Owl Project" website.

Goodale and Dale Joachim, who describe the research today in the journal Biology Letters, believe that they have shown that mobiles are an effective way to listen in to how birds are doing in the wild, and the diversity of the area. " Read full article.