According to a new report from Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, 72% of American adult cell phone users now send and receive text messages, up from 65% last September. Teens continue to text more than adults with 50 messages a day "on average," in contrast to the "typical 10 text messages sent and received by adults" every day, Pew said. The non-profit organization compared the results of its May survey of 2,252 … [Read more...]
Get Better Cell Phone Service
Even the best cell phone service providers often can't deliver a consistent signal everywhere. It seems everyone has experienced a time when a network's signal sometimes simply isn't strong enough to support voice calls or data services. There are new products becoming available that address the problem. These cell signal-boosting products fall into one of two categories: femtocells or signal repeaters. Femtocells act as miniature cell phone … [Read more...]
Google Mistrials
In a case of modern technology meets the traditional courtroom, a small but increasing number of jury trials are being declared mistrials as a result of jurors doing research on Google and using their mobile phones to send text messages and to Twitter. An article by John Schwartz in the New York Times published March 17, 2009, details some of the problems arising because of jurors' use of modern technology. In one example, the judge in a … [Read more...]
Text Messaging Most Important for Cell Phone Buyers
Cell phones aren’t just used for talking anymore. In a survey conducted by Amplitude Research, buyers of new cell phones look at video capability (33%), music (34%), Internet access (61%), e-mail capabilities (63%), camera (67%), and text messaging (73%) as the most important features. For driving in the car, 62% said they would use Bluetooth, while 51% would use the hands-free microphones. Forty-one percent said they send or check e-mails one … [Read more...]
Make Cell Calls on Airplanes
Israeli company Aerophone Ltd. has developed a communication system that enables telephone calls to be made from airplanes—independent of GSM/CDMA ground stations. The system supports all wavebands and requires neither prior written registration of the passengers nor a particular billing system. Calls cost $1.60 per minute and are invoiced via the normal mobile telephone bill. The development has been made possible by the installation of … [Read more...]
Paperless Boarding Pass
Paperless boarding schemes aren't exactly revolutionary, but they're still far from common at US airports. Now, however, Continental Airlines has announced that it will be experimenting with a cell phone-based boarding pass setup at Houston's Intercontinental Airport. This will enable single passengers (as in one bar code per person, per device) to show security personnel a jumbled mixture of blocks alongside their ID in order to board the plane. … [Read more...]
Driving to Distraction
A survey by Liberty Mutual Group and Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) showed that teens considered sending text messages via cell phones to be their biggest driving distraction. Of the teens surveyed, 37% said that text messaging was extremely or very distracting, while 20% said that they were distracted by their emotional states, and 19% said that having friends in the car was distracting. A January 2007 survey by Nationwide found … [Read more...]
Google With Your Voice
As part of Google’s ongoing effort to make the world's information universally accessible, they have created and are testing a free service called Google Voice Local Search. The service allows you to use any phone to search for a business listing. Simply call 800-GOOG-411 (800-466-4411) and speak your search phrase. You can search for a specific business name or for a category. For example, you could just say “pizza” — and you’ll get … [Read more...]
