Ever spend a few moments during the day idly mucking about with your cellphone? You're part of a new trend known as micro-boredom - which now presents "a significant opportunity for a publisher to exploit readership and advertising consumption". Get away from the bombardment of advertising and find some sacred space, or just turn off the phone.
posted by divabat on Dec 30, 2008 - 30 comments

The Evolution of Computer & Video Games (Google video) The Evolution of Computer Commercials (video) The evolution of mobile phones (video)
posted by desjardins on May 14, 2008 - 10 comments

The Nokia Morph concept phone is currently featured in The Museum of Modern Art “Design and The Elastic Mind” exhibition (warning: flash interface). This 'self-cleaning' shape-shifting mobile follows Nokia's other recent phone concept, the environmentally-friendly Remade, unveiled at Mobile World Congress earlier this month.
posted by chuckdarwin on Feb 28, 2008 - 20 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

WIRED: A cell mobile phone helped police find the body of missing student Kelly Nolan. "The average citizen is not aware that they are carrying a location-tracking device in their pocket..."
posted by chuckdarwin on Jul 18, 2007 - 51 comments

Bridging the digital divide - The ubiquitious cellphone has been recognized as a key tool for the social and economic development for many at the bottom of the pyramid - Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr Yunus' GrameenPhone received an award in a category that didn't exist last year - "Best Use of Mobile for Social & Economic Development" for their Healthline project at the recently concluded 3GSM Congress in Barcelona last week. Another winner was the ultra low cost Motofone which was designed after two years of research into the needs of the rural and urban poor in India. We need many more such applications available for the "other 4 billion" if this bridge is to be built across the divide.
posted by infini on Feb 19, 2007 - 37 comments

The mobile content market is big but the mobile service companies control the bottleneck of data to your phone and may well be holding the industry back. A NZ site has launched offering a platform for mobile content producers to sell direct to mobile content consumers globally: Voeveo.
posted by Samuel Farrow on Feb 11, 2007 - 8 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

$110 gets you last 100 calls made by any cellphone. Apparently it is legal.
posted by riffola on Nov 29, 2005 - 26 comments

The Crazy Frog / Axel F Song (previously mentioned on the Blue) is about to make history by being the first ringtone / pop music crossover to successfully invade the British charts. How successful? A little band named Coldplay also have a new single out; as it stands, Crazy Frog is outselling their effort by a factor of 4 to 1. People, this is serious. Prepare for some major league irritation to descend upon us. The success of this single will only spawn a legion of imitators, and that can only lead to the dark side. As Malcolm McLaren, ex Sex Pistols manager puts it: "Listen to this song and you can hear the death knell of the traditional music industry."
posted by LondonYank on May 28, 2005 - 40 comments

Chris-calls! What if you received Chris Rock's old cell phone number and his celebrity friends kept on calling you? "amazing entertainment" :D [via Gulfstream]
posted by kliuless on Mar 6, 2004 - 72 comments

oh glorious rapture, vertu has launched. (flash) the phones (called "instruments" in vertu-speak) are okay, but the real meat seems to be the one-touch vertu concierge: allows one to find theatre tickets, make reservations, or (assumably) order KFC. and, as promised, they are indeed clutch-the-pearls expensive: €6000 to €24000. golly.
posted by patricking on Mar 27, 2002 - 12 comments

Study: Mobile Phone Users Worse Than Drunk Drivers
It took mobile users half-a-second longer to react than normal, and one-third of a second longer than when they had been drinking.
They were also less able to maintain a constant speed and found it harder to keep a safe distance from the car in front. Participants in the study stated that they found it easier to drive drunk than when using a cell phone.
Here's the fun quote:
"Eventually," said Dominic Burch, road safety campaign manager at Direct Line, "we would like to see the use of mobile phones when driving, both hand-held and hands-free, become as socially unacceptable as drink driving."
Nice graphic Here that explains the time/distance it takes to stop. That fraction of a second = +46 feet stopping time over normal, and +33 over being drunk. More Here and The Full Report[PDF].
posted by Blake on Mar 24, 2002 - 61 comments

Erotigo's got the goods for your sexy mobile lifestyle. Now: Which of you's got a subscription? We want details!
posted by Su on Feb 25, 2002 - 10 comments

CellManners.com: "A site devoted to promoting civility between cell phone users and the people around them." Don't miss the Cell Slang. (Brought to my attention by NY Times article "Cell Yell: Why Do Phone Calls Turn Into Broadcasts?")
posted by Carol Anne on Nov 23, 2001 - 20 comments

Anyone starting to play NokiaGame? It incorporates all forms of communication (web, cellphone, tv and radio) to guide you thru an interactive adventure game in loads of countries, and has loads and loads of players... anyone had good/bad experiences? I played last year - got shamelessly addicted...
posted by wibbler on Nov 3, 2001 - 2 comments

Before you get that cell phone check to see where the tantalum inside it comes from. You could be funding a civil war in the Congo.
posted by kliuless on Jun 6, 2001 - 4 comments

Cell Phone Guns Discovered. “We find it very, very alarming,” says Wolfgang Dicke of the German Police union. “It means police will have to draw their weapons whenever a person being checked reaches for their mobile phone.”
posted by pnevares on Dec 5, 2000 - 70 comments

While I originally thought that this was a joke, in the 11/14 print version of Business2.com mentions that they will be shipping and receiving "the goods" via WAP enabled phones. Aww jeah!
posted by thc on Oct 27, 2000 - 1 comment

Headcheese?! According to Wired's Infoporn, if you are the unlucky sap who own's an analog Sanyo SCP-4000 the you run the risk frying yoru brain. Perhaps if we all looked to the future for handy solutions, our problems would be solved.
posted by Brilliantcrank on Sep 13, 2000 - 8 comments

The August 2000 issue of Wired points readers to Tokyo Motor Trenz (site doesn't appear to be working at the moment), a small store in SF that will "trick out" your Nokia cell phone for you. Glow-in-the-dark buttons, clear plastic cases, LCD "tattoos", funky antennas, etc.
posted by jkottke on Jul 12, 2000 - 2 comments

Not Quite fast enough.
I sent the weblogbiosphere link to Matt's cellphone, so that he could include this important milestone in the sxswweblogpaneldiscussion, but he'd already turned it off. Oh well... so much for wireless contributions to the greater body of weblogknowledge.
posted by CrazyUncleJoe on Mar 14, 2000 - 0 comments