Million $ Phone

Till now I thought the Nokia Vertu, Moto SLVR and Goldvish were the only expensive phones, and now there is one more, its worth 1.3 million dollars. 1.3 million dollar for this phone??? Well the price is totally based on the looks of the phone. The phone, which is made by a Russian, has been embedded with diamonds on its left and right border. There are diamonds even on the keypad of the phone. There are total of 50 diamonds. Each one is a blue diamond of 0.5 - 2 carat. The phone is completely made from platinum with logo and button's made out of gold. The phone has been introduced in the market by the company "Ancort"

FOR EVERYONE

Up to 90 percent of the world's six billion people will have mobile telephone coverage by 2010 an industry study has said, reports the AFP.

"... Mobile networks now cover 80 percent of the world's population, double the level in 2000," said the study.
Mobile phone coverage could reach nearly 100 percent in four years' time if governments used a pool of funds collected from telecom operators to extend mobile coverage to rural areas instead of using the money on fixed telephone line services, which are more expensive, said the report commissioned by the GSM Association."

ROBUST MOBILE APPLICATIONS

There's more to mobile apps than ringtones, text messages and casual games, according to telecomasia.net via Tome Hume.

Some robust mobile phone applications:

1. The Lie/Love detector
The "Truthful Calls" service uses a voice analysis system by Israeli company Nemesysco that functions as an emotion detector, assessing the level of honesty of the person you're calling.
2. Call yourself in the future
From Web services company CDyne, a Web-based app that allows you to call yourself in the future. Really!
3. Ghost detector
TV show tie-ins are becoming a frequent excuse for mobile apps. Mobile content development company Wiretown (started, appropriately, by two men with TV broadcasting backgrounds) have developed a paranormal detector for cellphones.
4. Car alarm
The "Silent-I" system not only sends an SMS to the car's own
5. Spy phones
An ordinary-looking mobile phone that actually doubles as an eavesdropping device
6. Halal verification service
An SMS-based service in Malaysia that allows Muslims to conform the halal status (which is to say "permissible" under Islamic law) of products.
7. Liquid wallpaper
Technically more of a user-interface feature than an app, but still innovative: the N702iS handset (developed by NEC, NTT DoCoMo and Japanese design company Nendo) comes with sensor-driven wallpaper that makes the screen look like a glass of liquid.
8. Send SMS messages and emoticons to your clothes
Uranium-Jeans has a line of "interactive clothing" that comes with embedded flexible micro screens that display images and scrolling text messages that can either be downloaded from Uranium's Web site or sent by SMS.
9. Camera dictionary
Camera Dictionary is a software app that allows users to scan English words using their camera phones and translate them to Japanese.
10. Mobile breathalyzer
Not sure if you or your driver has had one too many martinis? Use your mobile phone to check his or her alcohol level via a breath analyzer connected to the handset.

Increased risk of infertility for Men who use mobile phones

Mobile phones as a threat to male infertility is a reoccuring issue and it's a headline again in the Daily News, reporting on a new study which shows a worrying link between poor sperm and the number of hours a day that a man uses his mobile phone talking AND texting - which raises the question of whether it's talking/texting(SMS) on the phone that's potentially damaging or men keeping their cell phone in their pants pocket - which was the usual theory?
"Those who made calls on a mobile phone for more than four hours a day had the worst sperm counts and the poorest quality sperm, according to results released yest at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine annual meeting in New Orleans.
... Sending text messages uses less power than talking but it can be a more intense emission of radiation, especially on trains."
"I've seen men on trains spending two or three hours continually texting with their mobile phones held in their laps, and they press Send in the same position when it starts to seek a signal, said Alasdair Philips, director of the consumer pressure group Powerwatch. "This needs a considerable amount of power within what is effectively a metal box. We advise people to send a text with their arm outstretched next to the window when travelling on a train" he added.
The latest study backs up previous research which indicated a link between mobile phone use and sperm quality, but it is the biggest and best designed to date

Source: Textually

Childhood obesity linked to youngsters staying up too late because of cell phones

Cell phones have previously been blamed in various studies as chronically depriving children of sleep - as they stay up all night texting, but now, a new study, reported in UK's Daily Mail goes one step further. Child obesity is on the rise becaue youngsters are getting too little sleep - because the'yre on the phone! In all fairness, video games are blamed too.
"Soaring levels of child obesity may be caused by youngsters getting too little sleep, claim researchers.
"Children today get fewer hours of sleep than in the past and less than they need, which can disrupt hormones that help control weight gain, said Dr Shahrad Taheri from Bristol University.
He blames TV viewing, computer games and mobile phones for keeping children up later and affecting the quality of their sleep."
A previous study reported in 2003 already claimed cell phones made children fat.

Cell phone charger to wear on your belt

One of the many inventions from the British Invention Show held in London since last Wednesday through Saturday and posted in a gallery on Repubblica.it.
It's a cell phone charger that you wear on your belt.
The show is covered in an article on the BBC for those who want to read more about it.
<--Earlier this year, TRF picked up on a solar charger that recharges your cell phone while on the move - using daylight - which seems like an even better idea.

Turning your cell phone screen into a mirror

Senko's ScreenMirrors are transparent films that produce a high quality mirror effect when a screen's backlight is off, but allow for clear display visibility when the backlight is on.
"When the phone's backlight is on, you can see the screen beneath the sticker — but only if you're holding the phone within a 45° cone. The "advantage" of this specific angle feature is that nobody to either side of you can see what you're doing with your phone".
[via Sci Fi Tech]
Other cell phones with mirrors:
-- The ELLE Glamphone is a stylish mobile camera phone packed with an array of feature included a screen which converts to a mirror when not in use.
-- Motorola's Boost Mobile i285has a discreet vanity mirror located inside the handset's back cover.

Questions to Putin thru SMS

On October 25, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin held his annual nationally televised, question-and-answer broadcast in the Russian city of Irkutsk, reports a Regnum correspondent.
"The organizers received 25 text messages with questions. Three managed to ask Putin 3 questions live. The questions concerned aviation, land issues and timber industry.
A previous article mentions that "more than 1,5mln of questions for the president were asked by phone (presumably voice calls) and received via the internet."

Nokia sells 4 lakh phones in a day

Nokia will always remember this Diwali. It sold 4 lakh phones all over India on October 19th; the most it has sold on a single day anywhere in the world.
“It is even more than what Nokia has ever sold on any Chinese new year,” says a dealer who has seen an Nokia internal communiqué on this matter.
The company’s previous single day sales record was about one lakh phones. This is the kind of sales its competitors generally do over the entire year in India.
Low-end segment of phones have effected a reversal of fortunes for the Finnish company.
Nokia currently has 38 models available on the retail shelf, of which around 13-25 can be categorised into the low-end segment
This segment has a product at every Rs 200-400 price point beginning from sub-Rs 2,000
Other companies have only a few models placed at entry level
Margins in the low-end segment are around 6-8%
30% of Nokia’s demand comes from rural and semi-urban India
70% of the models sold in rural and semi-urban markets are low-end

T-Mobile Tests Dual Wi-Fi and Cell Service

T-Mobile became the first major mobile phone carrier in the United States to begin selling a service that allows a single handset to communicate over both cellular networks and Wi-Fi hot spots. The New York Times reports.
"The first phones, which are available to consumers in Seattle on a trial basis, link to T-Mobile’s cellular network outdoors and to Wi-Fi routers at homes, in offices and in other locations like airports and hotels. This lets customers avoid using some of their cellular minutes and increases coverage in places where signals are typically weak, like basements and rooms without windows.
The dual-use phone service may appeal most to younger consumers who do not have a traditional phone line and rely solely on cellular phones and broadband lines.
A company spokesman, Peter Dobrow, declined to say how long the trial in the Seattle area would continue, or on T-Mobile’s plans to introduce the service elsewhere.
T-Mobile has set up a Web site, theonlyphoneyouneed.com , for customers who want to sign up for the service."