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

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

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

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

The use of a mobile phone up to 10 minutes before a crash is associated with a fourfold increased likelihood of crashing according to a forthcoming article in the British Medical Journal. There is no safety advantage in 'hands-free' devices. The authors interviewed 456 drivers in hospital ERs in Perth, and then accessed, with consent, their phone records. The authors had wanted to carry out the study in the United States, but the phone companies would not release customer billing records, even with a customer's consent. [Article pdf free for the next few days, but BMJ will charge for it after next week I think.]
posted by carter on Jul 12, 2005 - 47 comments

Wapedia is Wikipedia for your WAP phone or PDA. Alternatively, why not just download the whole thing and carry it with you?
posted by Mwongozi on Apr 23, 2005 - 13 comments

Loglands. Ongoing mobile phone cam coverage from the rainy mud Lowlands Festival taking place this weekend.
posted by sebas on Aug 19, 2004 - 2 comments

As if verbal and physical threats in the schoolyard aren't enough. Give a bully a mobile phone and voila, another way of torturing another kid. But which is worse? Being picked on to your face or being bombarded with nasty text messages? It seems that kids have a pretty rough go of it nowadays. It makes me glad I'm almost a grown up.
posted by quietfish on Sep 4, 2002 - 33 comments

This past week (Sir) Richard Branson (otherwise known as "That Nutty Billionaire"), showed that corporate disclosure is a good thing, as he stripped bare, except for a muscle suit, to launch the U.S.'s first Virtual Phone carrier, Virgin Mobile.
posted by benjh on Jul 28, 2002 - 33 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

Sacrifice your mobile? Not sure if the US of A is gripped by the text epidemic sweeping Europe, but this sounds a bit different. What messages would you send? (Clean ones please!)
posted by snowgoon on Oct 15, 2001 - 15 comments

This weekend's DialTones is yet another fascinating "found sound" performance. (Let's just hope Andras Schiff's not in attendance.)
posted by Fofer on Aug 29, 2001 - 3 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