Just in time to make the 2008 news cycle, a new research study suggests that cellphone radiation can actually cause kidney damage. While radiation from mobile phones has been blamed for everything from killing bees to causing cancer and mental retardation, this may be the first time that cellphones have been linked to kidney damage.…
LUCAS imaging technology turns cellphone into blood analysis tool
We’ve seen many a camera add-on that turns your cellphone camera into a microscope or telephoto shooter. But, it’s not everyday that we see technological breakthroughs in bio-tech that can turn your lowly mobile phone into super portable blood analysis tool. That’s right, your cellphone can now help you track the progression of Malaria and…
4 billion wireless subscribers and counting!
Planet Earth saw its 4 billionth wireless subscription go live in 2008. According to that latest statistics from GSM trade group 3G Americas, wireless world hit the 4 billion milestone in December 2008. The number represents 60% of the global population, indicating that more emerging markets are starting to enjoy wireless connectivity. “The Latin America…
Opera’s “State of the Mobile Web” November 2008 report is out
Opera Software is out with their “State of the Mobile Web” report for November 2008. In it, the company behind the popular web browser reviews the top sites and top phones for Opera Mini in both Europe and North America. Here are the highlights: Opera Mini users viewed more than 5.7 billion pages in November.…
New BlackBerry users likely to return BlackBerry Storm while loyal fans stick it out
Following up on Simon’s speculation that Verizon customers were returning BlackBerry 9350 Storm handset en masse, I decided to perform a casual survey of BlackBerry Storm buyers. In and around Los Angeles, I approached 10 people that had either purchased their BlackBerry Storm as an upgrade from a previous BlackBerry smartphone and 21 people that…
New Technology Promises to Extend Bettery Life 12 Times
Emerging battery technologies have been slipping out here and there, but this is the biggest leap we’ve heard in awhile. The study comes out of Carleton University’s Atif Shamim, who has proposed to cut all the wires from the antenna, potentially increasing power efficient twelve times over. “This has not been tried before — that…
AdMob November report: WiFi usage growing rapidly in US and UK
AdMob is out with their November 2008 Mobile Metrics Report. From there we find out iPhone requests grew again, this time for 52% month to month, reaching a total of 359 million. This in turn gave iPhone 6.3% of total requests or 9.9% of U.S.-based requests. with 42% of all requests coming in over WiFi…
Wireline Service Going Extinct in US – Mobile Phone Use Up
It seems every now and again, a research firm releases statistics that confirm the slow death of wireline (landline) telephone services. The latest stats come from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), and indicate that approximately one out of every six US households has ditched their fixed-line telephone for a completely wireless mobile phone.…
NFC Could Hit Primetime Following Regulation
The GSM Association has recently settled on a common format (single wire protocol) for near-field communications, opening the gates for many manufacturers to start incorporating NFC chips into their mobiles as early as the second half of 2009. Credit cards are already testing the waters for wireless transactions, but cell phones have yet to make…
ABI Research: Alternative mobile payment technologies offer promise as NFC awaits take-off
It used to be that the industry was thinking it’s the Near Field Communication (NFC) that is the leading contender among technologies to enable mobile payments. However, NFC has developed more slowly than anticipated, and will not offer viable large-scale mobile payment solutions for at least six years. In the meantime three existing technologies —…