What do you do when your viola recital gets interrupted by someone in the audience getting a call on their cellphone?
Improvise.
posted by scalefree
on Jan 24, 2012 -
26 comments
"That stainless steel band that runs around is the primary structural element of the phone. And there are these three slits in it. It turns out, this is part of some brilliant engineering which actually uses the stainless steel band as part of the antenna system... it's never been done before. And it's really cool engineering!"
Less than three weeks after Steve Jobs
announced the iPhone 4's
(previously) revolutionary signal-boosting design, the internet discovers a
fatal flaw that causes calls to drop when the bottom-left corner is touched. Jobs personally offered one customer a solution via email:
"Just avoid holding it in that way." Apple's marketing department apparently
didn't get the memo.
[more inside]
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis
on Jun 25, 2010 -
230 comments
Flash Mobs Take Violent Turn in Philadelphia [H]undreds of teenagers have been converging downtown for a ritual that is part bullying, part running of the bulls: sprinting down the block, the teenagers sometimes pause to brawl with one another, assault pedestrians or vandalize property. . . .
The flash mobs have raised questions about race and class.
Most of the teenagers who have taken part in them are black and from poor neighborhoods. Most of the areas hit have been predominantly white business districts.
In the flash mob on Saturday, groups of teenagers were chanting “black boys” and “burn the city,” bystanders said.
Bill Wasik is not proud.
posted by grobstein
on Mar 25, 2010 -
70 comments
Karsten Nohl and a team of fellow researchers has
cracked the 64-bit encryption used in 80% of the world's GSM phones.
Nohl had previously cracked the encryption in the
MIFARE smartcard system,
demonstrating that the encryption on that device can be cracked in approximately no time whatsoever. These, of course, aren't the first gaping holes in cellphone security to come to light; indeed,
lack of security seems to be part of the design spec. Perhaps all new cellphones should be just be
distributed with a deck of cards.
posted by kaibutsu
on Dec 28, 2009 -
51 comments
There's been quite a
stir in Finland about the world's biggest cell phone maker,
Nokia, after it was alleged yesterday that politicians had been
pressured by the company in order for a law on electronic surveillance of its employees would to be passed. The company
denies threats to leave the country if email monitoring laws are not introduced.
Electric Frontier Finland is considering taking the case into the
ECHR.
posted by keijo
on Feb 2, 2009 -
17 comments
"Thanks to tremendous progress achieved by the General Packet Radio System (GPRS), the wireless communication protocol, it is now possible for Africans to send articles and images (still and moving) about events taking place in their countries without using a computer and without having internet connection. Under those circumstances, the bigger the number of people expressing their opinions through that technology, the stronger becomes democracy, and the more valuable is the contribution to good governance efforts in Africa" -
Voices of Africa, Mobile stories and videos from Africa. Quote above from article
Mobile Reporters in Africa.
posted by infini
on Jul 27, 2007 -
11 comments
For four months, the Kuykendalls, the Prices and the McKays say they’ve been harassed and threatened by mysterious cell phone stalkers who track their every move and occasionally lurk by their homes late at night, screaming and banging on walls.
Police can’t seem to stop them. The late-night visitors vanish before officers arrive. The families say investigators have a hard time believing the stalkers can control cell phones without touching them and suspect an elaborate hoax. Complaints to their phone companies do no good – the families say they’ve been told what the stalkers are doing
is impossible.
posted by daninnj
on Jun 29, 2007 -
99 comments
Dead Ringers: the Science Museum asks us the question "should we upgrade our mobile phone?" "
No" and "
no" say the Times and the Observer, but we still do: on average every 18 months. What's the problem? Well it isn't just the lead, arsenic, beryllium and
brominated fire-retardant cases (pollutants all) disappearing into our land fills (which are not covered by the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive [
WEEE] in Europe). Coltan also goes into our phones. It occurs mainly in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and as such our demand for upgrades has been
contributing to a war (despite mobile phone companies' claims to the contrary, coltan is not regulated like timber). If we must upgrade, we can at least
recycle or hack our
old phones.
posted by nthdegx
on Aug 7, 2006 -
49 comments
This is not resolved! When a young man on a double decker bus in Hong Kong asked an older man to lower his voice whilst talking on the phone, the young man invariably became the receiving end of a torrent of half coherent phrase and insults about his mother. Naturally, you can watch it unfolding here since
the entire event was captured by another passenger with his cell phone.
This video has become one of the most viewed clips on youtube, spawning
remixes, rap, reenactments, new school yard sayings, and yes, t-shirts.
And they say youtube is just a site for narcissistic kids and tv show clips.
NSFW if you have co-workers who can understand Cantonese. And it's not the subtitle's fault, this guy really does rant off for a bit.
posted by phyrewerx
on May 28, 2006 -
96 comments
Safety of In-Flight Cell Phone Use Airlines are currently preparing to allow use of cell phones for in-flight calling. A Carnegie-Mellon study raises interesting questions about potential interference with critical avionics.
posted by docpops
on Mar 14, 2006 -
43 comments
In the UK, people are sending
100 million SMS messages with their mobile phone every day, at prices that are far higher than you would expect. Now, some people have started an
online campaign to try and influence the mobile phone operators to drop their prices.
(more SMS statistics)
posted by SharQ
on Mar 14, 2006 -
56 comments
