Google readying speech translator phone

According to TechRadar, Google is preparing new smartphone translator software that it say will be able to hear speech and translate it instantly.

The software would take the information learned from the company's text translation software, and voice recognition, a feature Google is putting in many smartphones.

It would obviously be basic at first, analysing small segments of speech before translation, but Google believes it would soon be refined with many users, according to Franz Och, Google's head of translation services.

Read full article.

Solar-powered handsets a boon for Haiti

The Telegraph reports that though cell phone networks were up and working within days in earth shaken Haiti, the crucial issue for many was not being unable to communicate, it was being able to keep their phones charged.

Some entrepreneurs immediately saw a business opportunity – thousands were prepared to pay for 15 minutes connected to a car battery to recharge their mobiles.

Dutch mobile phone firm Intivation, however, has long realised that its solar powered handsets were a solution to the problems of Haiti’s unreliable infrastructure. Mobile phones that use this technology have been deployed worldwide since 2009, predominantly in regions that do not have reliable electricity girds. Over half a million of these devices have been sold worldwide in the last six months.

And Intivation donated 1,000 of its solar-powered handset to the earthquake-stricken Caribbean country.

Read full article.

Toshiba cell phone promises to act like a secretary

Toshiba is developing new tech that will supposedly make your cell phone function like a secretary. It notices behavioral patterns in users and does things like display train schedules, recommend nearby restaurants, and learn the lifestyle of its owner with frequent usage.

[via Tokyomango]

Related:

-- What your cell phone knows about you

-- Want to know who your friends are? Ask your cell phone

16-Year-Old Develops Underground Texting System

A remarkable teenager in New Mexico has invented a device that may significantly speed that process with the ability to text from underground caves. The young man's invention may have other applications, as well. NPR reports via Switched.

Alexander Kendrick, 16, won the 2009 International Science Fair for inventing this cave-texting device.

The device is something like a computer attached to a ham radio. It transmits data using low-frequency radio waves that can penetrate rock more easily than high-frequency transmissions, like those in FM broadcasts.

If this test succeeded, it would be the deepest known underground digital communication ever to take place in the United States.

Nokia Research Center unveils mobile radar concept

Nokia Research Center (NRC) Helsinki yesterday unveiled a new research concept at Demo House 2010 research exhibition in Espoo, Finland. Slashphone reports.

The mobile radar demonstration shows how a mobile device can use an active radar sensor to measure speed and the direction of movement of approaching objects, just as traditional RADAR would. It uses electromagnetic waves to provide a different type of mobile wireless sensing.

More in Nokia Conversations.

Energy-harvesting Rubber Sheets Could Power Mobile Phones

Power-generating rubber films developed by Princeton University engineers could harness natural body movements such as breathing and walking to power pacemakers, mobile phones and other electronic devices.

Way over my head. Read more from Cellular News.

Washable cell phone to launch at CES

Seal Shield, a Florida-based company will introduce what it calls the world’s first washable and antimicrobial cell phone this week at CES in Las Vegas. Business Jacksonville.com reports.

According to the company, the electronics are sealed in patented rubber and silicone gasket that can expand and contract while still intact. That allows the devices to not only be soaked in high-strength liquid, but endure the heat of a dishwasher.

Seal Shield already makes a line of washable keyboards and mice. Last year, it introduced two washable TV remotes.

Related articles linked to other germ resistant cell phones and bacteria, here, here and here.

Generating Mobile Energy With The Swing Of A Finger

Spotted on PSFK via Yanko Design, a concept mobile battery by designers Song Teaho & Hyejin Lee called The Swing Your Energy Charger.

130 swings of the device around your finger, power it up to fuel an emergency conversation on your cell phone.

Japanese Professors Develop “Vision-Based” Mobile Phone Interface

Tokyo University professors, Masatoshi Ishikawa and Takashi Komuro, have developed air tapping as a new interface for mobile phones. Teleclick.ca reports.

The “vision-based input interface” uses a tiny camera to record movements of the user’s fingers then translate these movements into commands.

Firefox for mobile 'days away' from launch

The first mobile phone version of the popular web browser Firefox is "days away" from launch, the head of the project has told the BBC.

The browser, codenamed Fennec, will initially be available for Nokia's N900 phone, followed by other handsets.

The open-source browser will be able to synchronise with the desktop version.

T-Shirt-Based Interactive Marketing

The shirt on your back has long been used as an advertising billboard, but Chicago-based Apparel Media Group (AMG) is now turning it into an engagement marketing platform that creates an emotional bond with consumers by combining demographic targeting, group sponsorships and SMS/URL interactivity.

The company matches brands with groups such as college organizations, youth sports leagues and young mothers looking for sponsors to cut the costs of custom apparel. The brand receives premium real estate on the shirt to publicize its service or product, and the buyer, grateful for the price break, becomes a brand ambassador.

Brands can also include an SMS code or unique URL inviting consumers to send text messages to receive special offers or visit a campaign website, enabling t-shirts to serve as interactive mobile marketing vehicles with potential viral reach.

Full Press release.

Sustainable Cell Phone Concept, to Preserve the Planet

FastCompany via Yanko Design writes up James Barber's cell phone concept, commissioned by Nokia, for a green design in mobile phones, using sustainable components.

Apparently, "for a cellphone used for 2 years, the energy used to create the phone is “roughly 3 times larger” than the energy used by the phone in it’s lifetime!"

James Barber’s trying to push those amounts of energy closer to equal. To do that, he’s created this extremely rough and tough phone with, easily replaceable parts, 85% of which are recyclable. It's made to last 5 years.

Links to other green cell phone concepts

Can Deleted Text Messages be Retrieved? Yes

The New York Times reports on how text messages are being used in court cases to prove that a partner has strayed.

But one question most people ask is what happens to text messages once they are deleted.

Even though you delete an incriminating SMS from your own phone, it can remain on the recipients phone and in your wireless carrier's system. Carriers stores them for anywhere from days to a few weeks (at most). According to The NYTimes article, AT&T said saves text messages for 72 hours while Verizon for 5 to 10 days.

Can deleted text messages be retrieved from the phone itself? According to eZine articles, the answer is yes.

Your Sim card doesn't immediately erase a file once you delete it. Instead it just frees up the space that was occupied by that file (massage) and lists its space as available re-usable space. However until that space is overwritten by new data, in your case new messages, phone numbers etc., your old deleted file is still there and can be recovered.

With recovery programs, such as SIM Card Data Recovery Software, you can recover deleted text messages, deleted phone numbers, call logs and plenty of other deleted data from your SIM.

Technology Offers New Ways to Ignore your Family

Technology, they say, is bringing families closer together, with children cell-phoning, e-mailing and instant messaging their parents to a degree not possible in the days when communication meant a pay phone. However, technology has provided my husband, son and daughter with new ways to tune me out.

A must read article by Susan Reimer for the Baltimore Sun.

Google Phone Could Mean Free Mobile Phone Service

Images of the new Google phone surfaced this week after months of rumors, writes Live Science.

It appears the phone is manufactured under the Google brand, will use an even newer version of Android than that of the Droid−the only Android phone running 2.0, and most important, may use VoiP service, which uses a wireless connection to the Internet for calls rather than a cellular network. This could mean lower cell phone bills, and for some, no bill at all.

Read full article.

DoCoMo to Sell Phones With Self-Healing Paint Covers

Japan's DoCoMo is to license a "Scratch Shield" paint for its mobile phones from Nissan Motors. The self-healing paint, currently applied to certain Nissan and Infiniti vehicles worldwide, was developed in collaboration with University of Tokyo and Advanced Softmaterials. Cellular News reports.

Scratch Shield is a clearcoat that is more scratch resistant compared with conventional clearcoats, helping a vehicle maintain its new look for a longer period of time. The paint also repairs fine scratches, restoring a vehicle's surface close to its original state.

According to Nissan special highly elastic resin has been combined with a conventional clearcoat to increase the paint's flexibility. This has also increased its strength by raising the resin density.

Press Release

Xbox-Based Alerts, in addition to SMS emergency alerts

According to InformationWeek, State authorities are testing a plan that would see the Emergency Management Office issue alerts over online gaming networks in addition to regular channels.

The goal, said New York State Deputy CIO Rico Singleton, is to reach younger residents who spend more time on the Xbox, PlayStation, or Wii than with television or radio.

Singleton, speaking Thursday at the Interop technology conference in New York City, said the plan makes sense, "considering the amount of time our youth spend on video games."

Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo operate online networks that allow players to compete against each other over the Internet. Under the state's plan, authorities would tap those networks to broadcast warnings about natural or man-made disasters.

Read full article.

Texting Arcade Game Tests Your Texting Speed

Spotted on Ubergizmo, a Textminator, a coin-operated arcade game that lets you put your texting skills to the test.

Spyware Listens In On Cell Phone Calls

KKTV has a news segment on spyware that allows you to listen in on cell phone calls. They don't name the company, but in their video you get a glimpse of a web page of a company called Flexispy which offers this kind of eavesdropping as "a way to catch a cheating spouse or keep tabs on children".

The software downloaded into your cell phone allows someone to eavesdrop, see your text messages and read your e-mails. Every time that target phone receives a call or text, it alerts the phone of the spy.

The best way to protect your phone, according to KKTV, is to never let it out of your sight. The spyware can only be installed if it is physically downloaded onto the phone and it takes about 15 minutes to do so.

The secrets on your smartphone

Hang on to your handset ... smartphones are a goldmine of information for thieves, writes The Sydney Morning Herald.

... While many mobile-phone SIM cards might contain contacts and texts deleted from years ago, experts agree that it is the vastly improved data and storage capacity of the new generation of smartphones that presents the most potent risk to their owners.

... “It may not be what's recoverable from the phone that is valuable but what can be further discovered online, by ringing around and using the easily accessible information,” Kim Khor, director of Khor Wills & Associates says.

Mobile phone forensics comprise an important part of crime detection and corporate security, but they are increasingly playing a role for private detectives investigating marital or work disputes.

Read full article.

Related:

-- Mobile forensics turns up heat on suspects - How forensic science is developping new tools to investigate cell phone data - even when deleted - and solve crimes.

-- Fighting Crime With Cellphones' Clues - Extracting clues and leads from mobile electronics is no cakewalk.

-- Cellphone Forensics at Crime Scenes - Logicube has developed a portable kit which can extract data from over 160 handset when needed by the police and forensic staff.

--Digital evidence is increasingly crucial to criminal investigations - Cell phones have become the new "smoking gun" for prosecutors and police in the Twin Cities and around the world.

-- UK police making Gil Grissom jealous... - The Forensic Science Service (FSS) has developed a mobile laboratory which will travel to crime scenes and carry out real-time forensic investigation and analysis.

-- The field of Cell Phone Forensics - Modern detectives are now using cell phone forensics to capture more and more criminals.

-- Police turn forensic skills on handhelds - Handhelds are likelier to lead to handcuffs for techie criminals following the release of a report from the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

-- Mobile phone forensics 'hole' reported - Police investigations are being hindered by the use of proprietary mobile phone technologies, say forensics experts

Power wheelchair electronics displayed on iPhones

Dynamics Controls has integrated an iPhone with its power wheelchair electronics - enabling power wheelchair users to enjoy all the benefits of an iPhone or iPod touch.

The solution connects a user's iPhone or iPod touch to the wheelchair system to display speed, battery and other wheelchair information in a great looking and easily visible way.

Lee Kwok, a wheel chair user in Christchurch says it will be fantastic to be able to buy an off the shelf product that has so many features for powered wheelchair users. "Having access to mainstream technology via a wheelchair is a huge advantage," says Lee Kwok.

[via iPhoneFreak]

Using cellphones to fight noise pollution

According to New Scientist, cellphones could soon be used to fight noise pollution.

In a bid to make cities quieter, the European Union requires member states to create noise maps of their urban areas once every five years. Rather than deploying costly sensors all over a city, the maps are often created using computer models that predict how various sources of noise, such as airports and railway stations, affect the areas around them.

Nicolas Maisonneuve of the Sony Computer Science Laboratory in Paris, France, says that those maps are not an accurate reflection of residents' exposure to noise. To get a more precise picture, Maisonneuve's team has developed NoiseTube, a downloadable software app which uses people's smartphones to monitor noise pollution. "The goal was to turn the mobile phone into an environmental sensor," says Maisonneuve.

The app records any sound picked up by the phone's microphone, along with its the GPS location. Users can label the data with extra information, such as the source of the noise, before it is transmitted to NoiseTube's server.

Read full article and more about NoiseTube on their website.

Related, sort of:

-- Cell phones to sense our environment and its pollutants (2009)

-- Cyclists' cellphones help monitor air pollution (2008)

-- Cellphone masts can measure rainfall (2006)

-- Aero Phone measures air pollution (2004)

-- Saving the World With Cell Phones (2005)

-- Cell phones could warn of gas leaks (2003)

-- Phones that detect terrorist attacks (2003)

Cough into your cell phone for a diagnosis

According to The Economic Times, you may soon be able to cough - not in our hand - but in your cell phone to diagnose a cold, a flu or some other respiratory ailment.

A research company that proposes using acoustic vocalization analysis software to measure and interpret cough characteristic of pneumonia has won a $100,000 grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Read full article.

Related technologies:

-- Siemens working on breathalyzer cellphone

-- Fitness Phone fights fat and bad breath

-- LG’s Cellphone Prevents Drunk Dialing

-- DoCoMo Cell Phone Can Test Whether Drivers Have Been Drinking

Student Invents New Cell Phone Charger Using Bank Notes

This is wild, or at least I think it is because I don't understand it. According to the Sierra Express, Emmanuel James, a Sierra Leonean student from the Makeni Polytechnic Institution, has invented a device that charges mobile phones without electricity.

James discovered that local bank notes (Leones), can be used together with two component circuits in between the two circuit’s poles terminal to produce electricity.

Turning a Cellphone Into a Microscope

Assistant professor of electrical engineering Dr Aydogan Ozcan has developed special software and adapted cellphones to substitute for microscopes and diagnose diseases. The New York Times reports.

The adapted phones may be used for screening in places far from hospitals, technicians or diagnostic laboratories.

... In one prototype, a slide holding a finger prick of blood can be inserted over the phone’s camera sensor. The sensor detects the slide’s contents and sends the information wirelessly to a hospital or regional health center.

Read full article.

Related:

-- Phone gadget to diagnose disease - CellScope developped by California Berkeley researchers, works as a so-called fluorescence microscope that can identify the markers of disease.

Cell-All Could Put Chemical Sensors Everywhere

New technology that would add chemical sensing capabilities to cell phones has been developed by three researchers as first-generation laboratory prototypes that will be demonstrated at the San Diego State University Regional Technology Center on Tuesday October 27. OH&S reports.

This program, named Cell-All, "is designed to provide greater detection capabilities in areas where people congregate," according to the announcement from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate. "The concept allows for chemical agent detectors to ultimately be everywhere where there are cellular telephones.

At the option of the cell phone owner, the GPS in the phone could provide sensor location information to emergency operation centers. While still years from implementation, researchers are working on the proof of concept before attempting full-scale miniaturization. This demonstration will provide a look at the state of the science to date."

Related:

-- Radiation detectors in your cell phone (2008) - Purdue University is developing sensors which fit inside a cell phone that can detect radiation, and thus perhaps stop the detonation of a nuclear bomb by terrorists is a bit outlandish to my way of thinking.

-- Saving the World With Cell Phones (2005) - As cell phones evolve to include souped-up games, streaming video and MP3 players, some University of California at Berkeley professors and graduate students want to slip a pollution detector into the mix.

-- Phones that detect terrorist attacks (2003) - A newly opened research center at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, USA is developing a cell phone that can also detect "dirty bombs" by containing detectors that then upload their information to a central database.

-- PCell phone could warn of gas leaks (2003) - A mobile phone able to warn against fire, leakage of methane or other types of toxic gas has been submitted to the Canadian Intellectual Property Office for patent.

-- 2003: Cell Phones - For so much more than just talking ... And down the road, research is working on cell phones which can warn of gas leaks (thanks to sensors that verify changes in the atmosphere) and cell phones that will be able to warn about the presence of bacteria and viruses (thanks to bio-sensors) or detect dirty bombs (thanks to detectors that can upload information to a central database).

Japan debut for mobile fuel cell

An alternative to batteries that uses methanol and water to recharge gadgets is to go on sale in Japan, according to the BBC.

The Dynario fuel cell Made by Toshiba can triple the battery life of portable gadgets such as mobile phones and music players.

Toshiba said the cell was ready to power gadgets about 20 seconds after it was fuelled with methanol. It estimated that each fill up produces enough power to recharge two mobile phones. Power is transferred via a USB cable.

Read full article and Toshiba news release.

Universal phone charger standard approved

ITU has given its stamp of approval to an energy-efficient one-charger-fits-all new mobile phone solution.

The announcement comes as ITU lobbies hard to have the essential role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) recognized in the draft Copenhagen Agreement as a key part of the solution towards mitigating climate change.

Every mobile phone user will benefit from the new Universal Charging Solution (UCS), which enables the same charger to be used for all future handsets, regardless of make and model. In addition to dramatically cutting the number of chargers produced, shipped and subsequently discarded as new models become available, the new standard will mean users worldwide will be able to charge their mobiles anywhere from any available charger, while also reducing the energy consumed while charging.

ITU Newsroom via Twitter/raphaelhunold and Twitter/kiwanja

Samsung's latest environmental phone launches in Sweden

Spotted on the Independent, Samsung's new S7550 Blue Earth cell phone, integrating environmental awareness.

Launching in Sweden this month and due in other European and Asian countries later on, the Blue Earth has a casing sourced primarily from recycled water bottles, a solar panel covering the back of the phone, a 3inch touch screen, wi-fi, and fully featured software.

Read full article.

A new future with solar mobiles

For millions of people in Africa and Asia, with no connection to electricity grids or unreliable and expensive power access, t solar-powered gadgets are proving to be revolutionary. stuff reports.

... Solar cell phones could build on the economic advantages that mobile phones have already brought to far-flung regions of Africa and the Indian subcontinent, including price transparency and more accurate and timely information.

Mobile phone penetration in these regions has been held back by a lack of electricity: there is simply no way to charge a cell phone in many rural areas of developing countries.

An estimated 1.6 billion people have no access to electricity at all, while another 1 billion people have no electricity for much of the day, according to estimates by development groups.

Fortuitously, perhaps, most of these people live in sunny climates. And this is where solar mobile phones come in.

Read full article.