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Pope Text Messaging

Pope Benedict will text message thousands of young Catholics on their mobile phones during World Youth Day in Sydney in July, hoping going digital will help him connect better with a younger audience.

The Pope will text daily messages of inspiration and hope during the six-day Sydney event while digital prayer walls will be erected at event sites and the church will set up a Catholic social networking Web site akin to a Catholic Facebook.

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Clearwire

Clearwire and Sprint Nextel will combine their wireless broadband units to create a $14.55 billion communications company.


The new company, to be named Clearwire, will receive a $3.2 billion investment from Intel Corp., Google Inc., Comcast Corp., Time Warner Cable Inc. and Bright House Networks. The investment is based on a target price of $20 per Clearwire share and will give the companies a 22 percent stake in the new venture.

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911 Wireless Problems Are Critical

As more advanced wireless devices are put into use, the nations 40-year-old 911 emergency system is becoming increasingly antiquated and unable to function properly for users of the new devices, according to the 911 Industry Alliance.


Jeff Robertson, executive director of the industry group, said in an interview Wednesday that the issue is reaching crisis proportions. The problem is that consumer technology has surpassed the 911 technology, he said. Ninety-five percent of 911 call centers are analog. Emergency data gets stripped out.

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iPhone Moves To Latin America

In another step in the worldwide march of Apple iPhone, the top mobile phone operator in Latin America said Wednesday that it has inked a deal to bring the multimedia gadget to more than a dozen countries starting later this year.


America Movil SAB, controlled by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, said it plans to bring the iPhone to all of its Latin American operations but did not offer any more details about the arrangement, including whether it would be the exclusive iPhone provider in the targeted countries.

New Computers Could be Revolutionary

Computers that boot instantly to the exact place where you left off and mobile devices that do not need recharging for weeks. These are only some of the possibilities resulting from Hewlett-Packard research that proves the existence of what the company described as the fourth fundamental circuit element in electrical engineering.

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Urban Mining Goes Mobile

Thinking of throwing out your old cell phone? Think again. Maybe you should mine it first for gold, silver, copper and a host of other metals embedded in the electronics -- many of which are enjoying near-record prices.


It is called urban mining, scavenging through the scrap metal in old electronic products in search of such gems as iridium and gold, and it is a growth industry around the world as metal prices skyrocket.

CinemaNow Brings Movies via Phones

Privately held digital entertainment provider CinemaNow said on Tuesday that U.S. consumers would be able to use their cell phones to view movie trailers and order full-length movies to watch on their home television or computer through its mobile website.


The service, offered on Web-capable phones at http://mobile.cinemanow.com, would let U.S. consumers immediately buy or rent a movie from their mobile phone.

Kennebec County Alert System

Kennebec Countys emergency-alert system operates a little differently than the newly-approved FCC program.

The county system, called PageGate, enables county crisis-management officials to send emergency messages via text message, pager, e-mail and fax, but only to first responders, school administrators and municipality officials. Several hundred key numbers are stored in the PageGate system.

PageGate has been used since January 2007 to alert emergency agencies and officials when there has been severe weather or flooding. Developed with a federal grant from the Department of Homeland Security, it will continue to be used, no matter how the FCC plan will be deployed through cellular providers across Maine.

complete article about PageGate

Silencing Cell Phones

The world has never been more connected, but in some corners, its developing a real hang-up over the ubiquitous cell phone.

Taking a cue from Frances national railway, which offers phone-free zen zones on high-speed trains, Austrias second-largest city this week began ordering public transit commuters to keep their phones on silent mode.

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TextBuyIt Launched By Amazon

Amazon TextBuyIt, which launched late Tuesday, lets people text the name of a product, its description or its UPC or ISBN to 262966 (that is Amazon on the keypad) from anywhere their cell phones work — including from inside physical stores.

If Amazon stocks matching items, the service returns two results at a time. Shoppers can immediately buy one of the first two the selections by texting back the number 1  or 2 or they can ask for more by texting the letter M.

Sopranos and Bell Canada

Bell Canada on Tuesday began delivering full episodes of The Sopranos to its mobile phone subscribers as part of an agreement with HBO.

A Cellular Cuba

As befits a new dictator seeking to win some popularity, Raul Castro is lifting ownership restrictions for ordinary Cubans on mobile phones, computers, DVD players, even toasters.

These however do not come free. Each of Castros offerings to buy goods comes with a state-set price most Cubans have no realistic prospect of affording.

China Investigates Text Messaging Spam

Chinese authorities said Monday they are investigating complaints that millions of cell phone users were spammed with unwanted text messages from advertisers.


The uproar over what China's media has dubbed Text-message Gate has drawn apologies from a major advertiser and the country's biggest mobile phone carrier, China Mobile. The commercial text messages were sent to more than 200 million mobile phone users through two companies — China Mobile and its smaller rival, China Unicom.

China Investigates Text Messaging Spam

FCC Auction

The Federal Communications Commission auction for the 700-MHz wireless spectrum is over, and the winners are known. One obvious winner is the FCC itself, which exceeded its initial estimate of $10 billion with a $19.59 billion total.

A Mobile Iraq

Saddam Hussein deemed Iraqis could live without modern technology such as mobile phones and the Internet. Now that his regime has been swept away, they are finding they just can not get enough of it.

Nokia Music Store in Germany

Nokia opened on Monday its online music store in Germany, the second such store for the worlds largest cell phone maker, which plans to open the stores in nine more countries by mid-2008.

Students Slow to Adopt Alerts

The massacre at Virginia Tech last year sent colleges nationwide scrambling to improve how they get alerts to students during crises on campus. One solution: Text messages sent to cell phones.


But while hundreds of campuses have adopted text alerts, most students are not embracing the system — even in an age when they consider their mobile phones indispensable.

Students Slow to Adopt Text Alerts

Lawmakers Debate Mobile Consumer Rights Bill

A proposed consumer rights bill for mobile telephone service drew mixed reviews during a hearing in Congress Wednesday, with detractors saying the legislation would place too much regulation on a competitive industry.


The draft legislation, floated by Representative Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, calls for the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to make rules requiring mobile carriers to offer unsubsidized handsets to customers, to offer service with no early termination fees and to detail charges such as termination fees.

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Smart Phone War

The battle for smartphone supremacy is about intensify after Apple Inc. said last week that developers will learn the details needed to create third-party software for its iPhone.

Apples move is viewed by analysts as a way to bolster sales of the massively popular smartphone, which have been declining lately. But its mention yesterday of additional enterprise features may have serious implications for Research In Motion BlackBerry devices.

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Unlimited Wireless

ATT Inc , the biggest U.S. mobile service, said on Tuesday it would offer unlimited mobile phone calls for a flat rate of $99.99 a month, hours after Verizon Wireless announced a similar plan.

Cellular TV Taking Off in Japan

Shipments of cell phones compatible with Japans mobile digital TV service have surged to more than 20 million units in fewer than two years since launch, according to industry data released last Wednesday.

T-Mobile Favors Yahoo

T-Mobile announced on last Tuesday that it will soon begin using Yahoo as its preferred mobile search provider in Europe, ending the operators existing relationship with Google for mobile search.

RIM Reliability Problems

Research In Motion, maker of the popular BlackBerry smartphone, said last Tuesday it was trying to locate the cause of a service disruption that left subscribers with only intermittent access to e-mail and other data services for three hours.


Service problems started about 3:30 p.m. EST on Monday, and lasted until about 6:30 p.m. EST, RIM said in an e-mailed statement. BlackBerry subscribers, most of whom are business people, did not lose any messages during the interruption, and voice communications were not affected.

Portable Google Search

Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia said on Tuesday it had reached an agreement with Google to incorporate the Google search engine in its handsets.

Text a Message of Love

There is no doubt that on Valentines Day the text messages sent will contain anecdotal notes of affection. We even had a customer inquiry about scheduling love notes to be sent every hour on February 14th!

Mobile World Congress

The most established names in telecoms, Internet and media gathered in Barcelona Monday for the Mobile World Congress, one of the worlds biggest events for the mobile phone industry.


Attention at the trade show, which runs until Thursday, is likely to focus on how to encourage users in developed countries to use their phones for more than simply making calls.

Recycling Cell Phones

We recycle our soda cans and our newspapers, so why do not we recycle our cell phones?


U.S. consumers who bought new mobile phones recycled the old ones in the fourth quarter of 2007 at double the rate of the third quarter, a market research firm said Tuesday. But the overall number of recyclers remained low at less than one in 10.

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Cell Phones to Get Widgets

Widgets, or small Web applications that supply useful information direct to the desktop, could soon be appearing on your cell phone screen.

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NotePager Pro Featured on Software Deal of the Day

For the next 24 hours NotePager Pro standalone software to send text messages to pagers and cell phones is featured on the Software Deal of the Day website. NotePager Pro is 50% off for only 24 hours.

Automate Tasks and Improve Productivity with Software

This is VERY cool software discounted 45% for only 24 hours. Macro Scheduler is windows automation and scripting solutions that enhance productivity and automate processes.

Create scripts and record macros to automate and control your Windows applications, automate software processes and assign tasks to schedules, desktop shortcuts or hotkeys. Perform complex tasks with a single mouse click, or schedule your computer to perform tasks while you are away.

The powerful Macro Recorder makes it easy to create macros even if you have no programming experience. If you can do it, Macro Scheduler can automate it.

Motorola Considers Bailing on Cell Phones

Last week, Motorola laid a bit of a bombshell on the cell phone world. The company announced it was considering a structural realignment to rejuvenate its mobile device business. Though the company had a huge hit with its ultrathin Razr V3 in late 2004, Moto has been struggling to regain solid footing over the last couple years.

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Germans Upset with Nokia

German anger over plans by Nokia to close a plant escalated on Friday, with the finance minister accusing the cellphone maker of caravan capitalism and others vowing to replace their Nokia phones.


Nokia, the worlds top cellphone maker, said earlier this week it would close the plant in the western city of Bochum because it was not competitive and move production to Romania.

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Cellular Health Risks

With the proliferation of mobile devices and their extensive use, past studies on health risks related to cell phone radiation need to be re-examined, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which this week asked the National Research Council to identify further research that shows the effects of long-term exposure to these devices.

Cellular Health Risks

Sprint Suffering

Sprint Nextel Corp.s stock plunged Friday after the wireless carrier said it will cut 4,000 jobs and close 125 retail locations in response to a steep drop in its customer base.

Sprint shares plummeted nearly 25 percent, prompting analysts to forecast even more cuts in the coming months as the nations third-largest wireless carrier struggles to compete with AT&T; Inc. and Verizon Wireless.

Recellular Recycles

The green computing trend is in full force, driven by the need to cut costs on energy on one hand and the need to get rid of old machinery on the other.


As old mobile devices begin to pile up inside companies, they will need a place to get rid of phones just like they do with PCs. One company aims to make it easy, safe and profitable to recycle those old cell phones.

It does not matter what kinds of devices companies are trying to recycle, ReCellular will recycle them.

GPS on Blackberry

Flowfinity Wireless, a provider of mobile enterprise productivity applications, on Thursday rolled out a tool for BlackBerry smartphones that adds GPS-location information to every transaction and tells where the data originated from.

Al-Qaida Videos Now on Cell Phones

Al-Qaida video messages of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri can now be downloaded to cell phones, the terror network announces as part of its attempts to extend its influence.

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Motorola Device

Motorola Inc, which has recently lost cell phone market share, is introducing a mobile device for playing live television to expand its reach in portable consumer electronics.

Motorola said on Thursday that its DH01 device, to be showcased at the Consumer Electronics Show  in Las Vegas this week, will also play on-demand video clips and programs saved on digital video recorders.

Cellular Commutes Longer

Drivers talking on cell phones are probably making your commute even longer, concludes a new study.


Motorists yakking away, even with handsfree devices, crawl about 2 mph slower on commuter-clogged roads than people not on the phone, and they just do not keep up with the flow of traffic, said study author David Strayer, a psychology professor at the University of Utah.

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RIM Angling for New Keyboard

Just when you have gotten to the point where you can type on your BlackBerry upside down in the dark, they are thinking about changing the keyboard.

A patent application filed on behalf of Research in Motion was recently revealed by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and it describes an angular keyboard where the keys are set at a 45-degree angle to the base of the unit.

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NotePage a Year in Review

2007 ushered in some new releases. Including a major overhaul to PageGate. The long awaited PageGate v5 launched with a big splash mid-summer. We also expanded our support offerings offering priority support to customers who rely on PageGate for the daily operations. In addition to enhancing our software and support offerings NotePage, Inc. expanded its educational offerings by adding a knowledgebase to the website.

As we look ahead to 2008 we have a number of plans on to enhance the NotePage product line. Stay tuned and Happy New Year!

Cellular Entertainment

All of the entertainment options that are hot on the PC—social networking, web video, user-generated content—are downright torrid on the smallest of screens, the cell phone. New research from Deloitte & Touche finds that 47 percent of 25-41 year olds use their cell phones for entertainment, a massive surge from the 29 percent who said they did so only eight short months ago. And where the eyeballs go, there go both the ad dollars and the aspirations of many businessmen.

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Nokia Pushing Back Dates

Nokia has again pushed back the launch of its gaming service N-gage due to delays in software testing, a spokesman said on Thursday, in the latest blow to the Internet services ambitions of the worlds top cellphone maker. The gaming service, together with a music shop and mapping services, is one of the cornerstones of Nokias drive into mobile Internet services under its new Ovi brand.

Cell Phones are for Safety

Most parents who bought cell phones for their children this Christmas are doing so for safety reasons, according to a new survey.


An online poll of 339 parents found that 78 percent were considering getting a cell phone for their children so they could be in contact with them in case of an emergency.

Cell Phones are for Safety

Chicago Cellular Ban Lawsuit

A class action lawsuit was filed this week against the city of Chicago by an attorney claiming that arrests of drivers talking on their cell phones made by the citys police officers were illegal.


The lawsuit states that Chicago police officers have been arresting and ticketing thousands of drivers violating the citys cell phone ban, which was imposed almost two years ago. Drivers are typically fined $75 if caught talking on their cell phones or up to $200 if they are involved in an accident.

complete article

Study Uses Blackberrys

Dave Ritchie has a BlackBerry, but he doesn't use it as a cellphone or to receive and send e-mail. Instead, he pulls it out once a day, rolls the track wheel and clicks on it to fill out a questionnaire.


Ritchie, who turns 80 on Sunday, has COPD, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and he is taking part in a year-long study that puts modified BlackBerrys in the hands of patients to find out more about their condition and what might be behind cyclical flare-ups.

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Analog Cell Phones Will Be Shut Down

Carriers will start shutting down the country's oldest cellular network, for analog devices, in February.

How to know if you will be affected:
Cell phones. If your phone is less than five years old, or has features like texting, Internet access or a built-in camera, it's not analog. An unknown number of analog handsets are still in use. Carriers say it's less than 1 percent of all U.S. cell phones. But with 250 million cell phones in use, that could still mean a million phones.

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China Regulates Text Messages

A Beijing city regulation clamping down on people who send text messages that spread rumors or endanger public security is a threat to freedom of expression, a watchdog group said Monday.Chinese authorities commonly use vague charges to detain dissidents.

China Human Rights Defenders, an international network of activists and rights monitoring groups, said the recent regulation on text messages raises serious concerns over the restriction of freedom of expression in China. The group said in a statement that an average of 180 million text messages are sent every day and that text messaging has become one of the most important means of receiving information unavailable in the mainstream media.

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TryPhone

Mobile Complete on Monday launched an interactive Web service that lets mobile users test-drive popular phone models before buying them.

The company's free service, dubbed TryPhone, can be accessed via a Web site, which contains virtual mobile phones that simulate the exact same features of physical phones. The devices appear on the screen larger than normal, allowing people to press buttons, run programs, and compare different devices.

TomTom and Google Maps

TomTom, a maker of personal navigation devices, said last week that customers can now use Googles mapping service to find business addresses and then transfer them via a computer to a TomTom gadget.

AT&T Open to External Devices

Customers of AT&Ts; mobile-phone service can attach outside devices and run outside applications, the company said Thursday, following an announcement last week that Verizon Wireless would open up its network.


But AT&T;'s GSM-based network has been open to outside devices and applications for years, the company said. AT&T; will start to publicize that information through salespeople at AT&T; stores.

Wireless Internet in the Air

JetBlue plans to introduce limited in-flight e-mail and instant messaging access on one airplane on Tuesday.


Customers on the equipped plane will be able to use their laptops and Wi-Fi-enabled phones to access a customized version of Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Messenger. BlackBerry users will also be able to check e-mail and use BlackBerrys IM client on their phones. The service is being launched in partnership with Yahoo and BlackBerry.

In the future, JetBlue hopes to offer additional services beyond e-mail and instant messaging.

iPhone Possible in China

China Mobile is in talks with Apple to sell the iPhone in China, the company's CEO said on Tuesday. But he's not keen on the type of revenue-sharing model that Apple has insisted on elsewhere in the world.

China Mobile on Mt Everest

China's largest cell phone service provider successfully tested a transmission station on Mount Everest on Tuesday, making it possible for climbers and those on next years Olympic torch relay to make calls, a state news agency reported.


China Mobile had to hire yaks and porters to help transport equipment up to the station site at 21,325 feet, the Xinhua News Agency said.

iPhone in Germany

Customers in Germany and Britain lined up to buy the iPhone as it debuted there Friday, with Apple Inc. hoping to replicate the success that the combination cell phone, music player and Web browser has seen in the United States.


Apple hopes to sell 10 million iPhones in 2008, helped by its launch in Asia next year. In Germany, the phone went on sale at more than 700 T-Mobile shops, including one in Cologne that opened just after midnight with some 350 customers already waiting outside.

Disney Mobile in Japan

US entertainment giant Disney said Monday it will launch a mobile telephone service in Japan in a tie-up with Softbank Corp., hoping to use its popular characters to win a slice of the cutthroat market.


Walt Disney Japan, the local unit of Walt Disney Co., applied to the communications ministry to start Disney Mobile in spring 2008 by leasing networks from Softbank Mobile, the two companies said in a joint statement.

Cellular Payments

A trial group of Taiwanese citizens are already using their mobile phones to pay for subway rides using a contactless payment system, and they will soon start testing handsets with credit and cash cards on board.

Google Cell

AT&T;, Verizon and Sprint are talking with Google (GOOG) about the possibility of accepting Google applications and ads on mobile devices.

The prospect of a branded device that could be sold in cellphone stores is not currently under discussion, say people familiar with the talks. They declined to be identified because Google has not yet made an announcement.

Mobile Phone Bill of Rights

Customers of mobile-phone carriers should not have to pay early termination fees if they're called to overseas military service or have their contracts automatically extended every time they call customer support, critics said Wednesday.


Several lawmakers called for the U.S. Congress to pass a mobile-phone subscriber bill of rights during a hearing before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.

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Text Messaging Settings

We have updated a number of settings for telecom carriers. Refer to the lists, the carriers are listed alphabetically in each section.
SNPP Settings , WCTP Settings , TAP Phone Numbers , and SMTP Settings.

Western Union Transfers via Cell

The Western Union Co. said Thursday it is teaming up with cell phone service providers to develop a system that would allow consumers to transfer money from country to country via their mobile phones.

HTC Touch

Sprint is hoping to answer ATT with a touch-screen device of its own and a faster network experience. On Tuesday, the wireless carrier announced a partnership with smartphone manufacturer HTC to offer a device to rival Apples lawsuit-riddled iPhone.

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Cell Phones and Telemarketers

An e-mail warning consumers that cell phone numbers will soon be released to telemarketers is making the rounds again, and government officials have a key detail they would like to add: it is not true!

Garmin Possibly Joining In

No. 1 cell phone maker Nokia raised eyebrows this month when it announced a big acquisition that encroaches on Garmins navigation device business. But Garmin, the leader in navigation, or GPS, devices, might respond in kind. It is said to be mulling a move into the cell phone business.

Samsungs iPhone Rival

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and audio product maker Bang & Olufsen has unveiled their latest joint music-mobile phone, Serenata, which holds 4G bytes of songs and has a number of other music features similar to the iPhone.

Nokia Deals

The worlds top cellphone maker Nokia has signed partnership deals with seven companies including CNN and Sony Pictures to bring video content to its top-of-the-range multimedia phones.

Verizon Is Challenged

Verizon Wireless Inc. should be sanctioned and possibly barred from bidding in an upcoming spectrum auction for a violation of U.S. Federal Communications Commission lobbying rules, another wireless company has alleged.


Verizon has attempted to circumvent rules prohibiting it from lobbying the FCC behind the scenes to change conditions on the upcoming 700MHz auction, while, at the same time, challenging the conditions in court, alleged Frontline Wireless LLC, a likely competing bidder in the auction.

Flash on Cell Phones

Adobe Systems Inc released new software for its popular Flash Player on Sunday that promises to bring the quality of live video on cellular phones closer to that of video on computers.

Nokia Purchase to Compete with Apple

Nokia Corp. is buying U.S. navigation-software maker Navteq Corp. for around US$8.1 billion as the worlds largest mobile phone maker continues to expand services and content.

In a push to challenge rivals, including Apple Incs iTunes and iPod, Nokia unveiled new Internet services and gadgets this year to help customers download music and to play games on mobile handsets.

Armani Cell Phone

You might be what you drive, what you eat, and, if Samsung and Armani have their way, what you dial. Italian designer Giorgio Armani has teamed up with Samsung to design a series of consumer electronics devices, beginning with a mobile phone.


An appropriately ultraslim phone -- the size of a credit card and 9.9 millimeters thick -- was scheduled to be unveiled on Monday at Armani's spring and summer fashion show in Milan.

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Text Message Last Contact

Nailah Franklin was last heard from Tuesday, when she sent an uncharacteristically vague text message to friends and family saying that she was having dinner and that she would call later. She never did.

Days earlier, Franklin had filed a police report saying she had been getting threatening phone calls.

Virgin America Cell Service

AirCell is partnering with Virgin America to offer Wi-Fi broadband Internet services on the airlines flights in the continental U.S. in 2008.

New E911 Rules

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has adopted new rules requiring wireless telephone providers to move toward testing location-based emergency dialing service at the local level.


The FCC late Tuesday opposed regulations that require wireless providers to phase in testing of enhanced 911, or E911, dialing services over the next five years. E911 allows emergency dispatchers to pinpoint the location of callers.
Until now, wireless providers have been able to test and report the E911 location accuracy on a regional or statewide basis. But the new rules would require wireless carriers to provide the FCC with local accuracy information.

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More NTP Lawsuits

NTP Inc., the patent-owning entity that got $612 million out of a suit against BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd., has hit the nation's top four wireless carriers with similar lawsuits.


The cases, filed last Friday in the federal district court in Richmond, contend that the carriers infringe on eight patents related to wireless e-mail that were granted between 1995 and 2001 to Thomas Campana, whose inventions became NTPs portfolio. The defendants are AT&T; Inc., Deutsche Telekom AGs T-Mobile USA, Sprint Nextel Corp. and Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group PLC.

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Cell Phone Results

Cellular phones do not pose short-term health risks, but it remains too soon to say whether they can cause brain cancer or whether children face greater risks than adults, British scientists said on Wednesday.


Publishing the largest UK investigation into possible health problems from mobile technology, scientists said the six-year program found no evidence that short-term mobile phone use affected brain function or could cause brain cancer.

Complete Article

Mobile Phones Not Responsible for Death of Bees

Recent claims that mobile phone signals may be responsible for the decline in honeybee numbers have been quashed by research.


In April Landau University in Germany suggested that the mobile phone signals were confusing bees and leading to their death from CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder). The disease paralyses bees so they then die outside the hives. It has been responsible for the deaths of between 50 and 90 percent of commercially managed bees in the U.S. alone.

A three-year scientific study conducted at U.S. universities has uncovered a virus which is thought to have come from imported bees and royal jelly and then spread through apiaries, causing the death of the bees.

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Qualcomm vs Nokia

The U.S. International Trade Commission last weekend opened a hearing in a case in which U.S. chip maker Qualcomm Inc accused Nokia of infringing some of its patents in cellphones using the GSM technology.


Nokia said it was confident its products did not infringe on Qualcomm patents in the case.

Never Forget

All Clear on Cell Phones in Hospital

Anyone who has been inside a hospital probably has been cut off from relatives and colleagues because of a common rule: no cellphones. But some health care facilities are creating wireless networks to let patients, family members, physicians and staff members use their phones.

Parental Controls Provide Teen Censorship

It may be something of a teenage nightmare: limits on when a wireless phone can make and receive calls and to whom, restrictions on text messages and talk time, and set allowances for ring tones and other downloads — all at a parent's fingertips.

AT&T; Inc., the nations largest wireless carrier, will launch a service Tuesday giving parents that kind of wide-ranging control on almost all of its 63.7 million subscriber lines.

Carriers in Hot Water Over 911

U.S. regulators said on Thursday they had proposed penalizing three wireless carriers which the government says failed to meet new stricter standards for being able to locate cellular telephone callers in an emergency.


The Federal Communications Commission said it proposed fines totaling $2.825 million against Sprint Nextel Corp, Alltel Corp, and United States Cellular Corp for failing to meet the new standards.

The new standards require all carriers to ensure that by the end of 2005, 95 percent of their subscribers have handsets with enhancements that would enable emergency workers to locate someone who has dialed 911 from a cellular telephone.

Carriers in Hot Water Over 911 Standards

Text Message Source of Arrests

Malaysian police have set up a special police task force to investigate mobile telephone text messages amid fears they could incite racial violence, the Star newspaper reported Friday.


The paper said police have arrested two more men for sending the messages, taking the total to four detained under a tough security law that allows them to be held without trial.

The details of the text message were not released.

Text Message Imprisons Citizens

Google Patented A SMS Payment System

A new patent application published by Google gives a unique insight into a possible mobile version of Google Checkout.

The Text Message Payment patent, filed on February 28th 2006, details how text messages could be used to pay for goods from vending machines and retailers as well as secure methods for validating larger payment amounts.

Campus Wide Messaging Answer to Security Concerns

Many Universities are implementing campus wide messaging using cell phones and pagers as a means to alleviate security concerns. As students return to school they are becoming connected to security officials using their mobile phones and text messaging. The trend has been comforting to parents everywhere.

Wireless Vendors Chosen for European Launch

Apple has chosen its carriers for the iPhone launch in Europe, according to a report published Tuesday in the Financial Times. The report, citing unnamed sources, said the chosen partners are T-Mobile Deutschland for Germany, O2 in the UK, and Orange SA for France.

Stolen Wireless Access

Police officers in London arrested a 39-year-old man using his laptop to access someone elses wireless Internet connection on Tuesday. His actions could potentially breach the Computer Misuse Act and the Communications Act, according to a Metropolitan Police Service statement.

Battery Recall Costs Covered by Manufacturer

Matsushita Electric Industrial will cover the direct costs of a battery recall affecting 46 million Nokia mobile phones, which could be as high as $172 million.


MEI is the parent company of Matsushita Battery Industrial, which manufactured the batteries.

Skype Back Online

Skype announced late Friday that all users could now again log on to the voice-over-IP service, marking the end of an outage that affected millions and lasted more than 48 hours.

Safety Network

The US nation emergency communication system is inadequate, and the government has come up with a solution — a nationwide wireless broadband network that will operate on a highly valuable portion of the publicly owned airwaves.

While legislators and bureaucrats have embraced the idea, they have not dedicated funds to pay for it. For that, the plan depends on private investors.

safety network

New Sony Phone

With the launch of its K770 Cyber-shot phone, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications hopes to narrow the quality gap between dedicated digital cameras and mobile phones with integrated cameras.The phone also includes a built-in media player, FM radio turner, support for Bluetooth wireless, and a battery that is good for up to 10 hours of talk time.

Nokia Batteries

Nokia warned Tuesday that up to 46 million batteries used in some of its cell phones could be faulty and pose a risk of overheating.

Stylish Cellphones

Trendy dorm furnishings and stylish cell phones should spur U.S. college students and their parents to spend nearly 9 percent more on back-to-school items this year, according to a survey released on Tuesday.

FCC Shakeup

The Federal Communications Commission voted to shake up the wireless market last week by approving rules for a big airwaves auction that would require the winner to make them accessible to any cell phone or other device.

Chinese Mobile Users with War Movies

Chinese mobile phone users can now download film clips of the Korean War and stirring military anthems to celebrate the founding of the Peoples Liberation Army.

Priority Support

A word about NotePage Priority Support. The goal of priority support is to give customers the opportunity to upgrade and extend their support. Time is money, so with priority support we guarantee you priority access to skilled technicians knowledgeable about PageGate software.  

Many PageGate customers use PageGate for critical and time sensitive issues, for this reason we are now offering a paid priority support option.

Details related to priority support and what is included can be found here: Priority Support Overview

Please keep in mind regular support is still available to all users both pre and post-sales free of charge.

Upgrade Reminders

Customers who have taken the opportunity to upgrade to PageGate v5 love the new features! If you have not already upgraded consider upgrading now.

Verizon Wireless to Buy Rural Cellular

Verizon Wireless, the No. 2 US wireless service, said it would buy Rural Cellular Corp for $757 million in cash to save on roaming costs and expand its customer base.

Book Written on Mobile Phone

An Italian writer decided to put his mobile phone to good use during his daily commute to and from work -- by writing a book. Robert Bernocco, an IT professional took advantage of his travel time by writing a 384-page science fiction novel, Compagni di Viaggo (Fellow Travelers), on his Nokia using the phone.

Apple iPhone Numbers Not as Glowing as Hoped

AT&T; Inc. wiped some of the glow off Apple iPhone on Tuesday, releasing numbers that showed fewer people than expected signed up for service in the first two days of the multimedia cell phone's release.


AT&T; — the iPhone exclusive carrier — said it activated 146,000 iPhones on June 29 and 30, a number that disappointed investors following some analyst forecasts that Apple would sell 500,000 or more iPhones in its first weekend.

complete article

ATT Shows Growth

Top U.S. telecommunications service provider AT&T; Inc. said on Tuesday quarterly profit and revenue rose, helped by growth in wireless and Internet subscribers.

Latest Text Messaging and Communication News

PageGate v5 Released
The long anticipated release of PageGate v5 has arrived. The new version of PageGate is now available. Existing customers can upgrade to the latest version for only $ 100.00!

Details on the new version can be found here: http://www.notepage.net/pagegate.htm
Upgrade Details - http://www.notepage.net/pagegate-v5.htm


Practical Use - College and University Notifications
Universities and colleges can use PageGate to notify students and staff on mobile phones and pagers in the event an urgent situation arises. We will be detailing some practical uses, and if you would like to be profiled please let us know!


New Priority Support Option
Realizing that many customers use PageGate for critical response, we have started offering a priority support option. Priority support is available to existing customers for only $ 395.00 per year. Both pre-sales and post-sales support will continue to be provided free of charge to existing and potential customers.

The priority support options is recommended and encouraged for clients interested in upgrading the level of support that they receive.
Additional Details http://www.notepage.net/priority-support.htm


New NotePage Knowledgebase
Check out the new NotePage knowledgebase. The knowledgebase contains answers to a variety of commonly asked questions. http://www.notepage.net/knowledgebase.htm


NotePager Pro and PageGate Support Tips
Remember to do backups! Backing up NotePager Pro and PageGate's data is incredibly important and needs to be done weekly, at the very least. Backing up is easy and simple, in fact, all you have to do is save one file.

In the NotePager Pro directory, you'll see a file called npp.mdb - that's the only file that needs to be backed up. For PageGate, if you'll look in the PageGate directory, you'll see a file called pagegate.mdb - that also is the only file that needs to be backed up. Backing up your data can avert disastrous situations, like having to manually input all of your carriers, recipients, and special program settings should the program need to be reloaded due to a hardware or software crash.

Note: DO NOT have either program running when you do a backup of the database. The programs must not be running in order to insure a proper backup.

If you need Carrier information, like which protocol to use or what settings go with what protocols, be sure to visit our website for an up-to-date list available. Feel free to visit http://www.notepage.net/support.htm and visit the SNPP, WCTP, SMTP, and TAP sections. If you know of carrier information we don't have, be sure to email us we are always happy to accept new information!

Just email it to support@notepage.com Having trouble sending pages out? Do the messages leave your system but never reach the cell phone or pager? Please email our support staff at support@notepage.com


Interested in Other Communication Mediums?
NotePage has another new product line, FeedForAll. FeedForAll, is used for creating, publishing and manipulating RSS feeds and podcasts. Interested in learning more? There is a great educational article section at: http://www.feedforall.com/newsletter.htm


Vista
If you are installing PageGate v5 on Vista we have set up a special set of instructions to assist you.
http://www.notepage.net/pagegate-5-vista.htm


IIS 7
Likewise, if you are using a system with IIS 7 use the following instructions to assist you
http://www.notepage.net/pagegate-iis.htm


Other New Applications from NotePage include:
FeedForAll - Software for creating and editing RSS and podcast feeds. An evaluation version is available for download from http://www.feedforall.com
RecordForAll - Audio recording and editing software. Primarily designed for podcasters. An evaluation version is available for download from: http://www.recordforall.com
SQL2RSS - A new PHP script. SQL2RSS has been released to allow users to dynamically create RSS feeds from database queries! More info at: http://www.feedforall.com/sql2rss.htm

Raising Funds via Text Message

Do not tell mainstream marketers this, but text-messaging promotions can work.

At least for Virgin Mobile, which used the power of its network of 5 million mobile customers to raise money and awareness for homeless children in America.

raising funds via text message

Cell Phone Free Town

A group of residents in the valley in southeastern British Columbia have asked telephone company Telus Corp. not to build a planned cellphone tower in New Denver, a one-time mining boomtown that is now home to about 600 people.

If Telus decides against building the system, the economic development group plans to promote the valley'cellphone free status as a unique reason to visit or move to the region, Roberts said.

Google Expressing an Interest in Wireless

Google Inc said on Friday it would take part in a major auction of wireless spectrum airwaves, meeting a minimum required bid of $4.6 billion, if U.S. regulators added a sale condition that Google said would promote an open wireless market.


The prospect of Google participation in the auction escalates the debate over how the valuable airwaves should be used.

Ericsson Missed Earnings

Ericsson missed market forecasts for second-quarter earnings as its multimedia drive produced disappointing results and revenue in its key European market stagnated, sending its shares down 5 percent.

Motorola Restructuring

A troubled Motorola Inc. has realigned itself as its critical cell-phone business slows down.


The company sketched out the reorganization in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing Tuesday, two days before it is set to announce its second-quarter financial results. Last week, Motorola slashed its earlier revenue forecast for the quarter and predicted a larger loss, blaming lower phone sales.

EU Regulators Relax Stance

The European Commission said Wednesday it had dropped its antitrust investigation into mobile phone roaming prices charged by operators in Britain and Germany after new EU rules forcing telecom companies to cut the cost of using mobile phones abroad.

Wireless Messaging on a New Level

Wireless messaging communication is important in todays fast paced environment. PageGate allows critical alerts to be sent instantly to wireless devices regardless of the recipient's locations. PageGate supports group messaging and preprogrammed alerts, so that with the press of a single button notification can be sent to defined groups of individuals. .

To ensure delivery even in the event of connectivity loss, PageGate version 5 supports failover options and redundant connectors. Messages that cannot be delivered to their intended recipients can be automatically redirected to a backup recipient or group, or the message can be sent to the same recipient via an alternative delivery method.

Messages can be sent into PageGate via: a Windows client, web page, email, commandline, text file, serial port, modem, wireless modem, wireless phone or the Internet.

PageGate's modular design allows users to select from eight different interfaces, allowing users to scale PageGate to meet their business needs and expand as their needs change. Interfaces can be used individually or in conjunction with each other, as PageGate can receive and process messages simultaneously from multiple sources.

PageGate supports multiple telecom carriers, multiple connectors, direct connections to paging terminals, group paging, scheduled messages, repeating messages, on-call groups, and ad hoc paging, making it ideal for demanding, high-end messaging and communication.

PageGate supports a variety of delivery methods including the following protocols: Fax, GSM-AT, SMTP, SNPP, TAP, Tone, UCP and WCTP. Messages can also be delivered out the serial port, or via the Internet and TCP/IP to another computer.

Full PageGate Press Release

Cell Phones for Data Entry

When maintenance workers finish a job at an Indianapolis university, they do not return to the office to fill out paperwork and pick up their next assignment. They grab their cell phones.


By punching a few buttons, they submit forms, calculate the time spent on the project and see where the next task awaits them at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

complete story

Blackberry To Be Available in China

Research in Motion has obtained permission from Beijing to sell its popular Blackberry mobile email device in mainland China, the worlds biggest cell phone market, media said Wednesday.

PageGate Version 5 Has Arrived

PageGate version 5 is now available!

This powerful network messaging gateway incorporates numerous protocols for sending messages via the Internet to pagers, mobile phones and other wireless devices. Three additional delivery methods including faxing has been added, and two additional interfaces have been added. There have also been a myriad of other enhancements and feature additions including security enhancements and synchronized database support. Details on this new release can be found at:  http://www.notepage.net/pagegate-v5.htm

Realizing how important PageGate is to many of our customer's daily businesses we have also added a Priority Support option. Priority Support can be purchased for only $395.00. Priority Support will give priority to those customers who rely on PageGate for their daily operations.

Upgrades!
Existing customers can upgrade for just $100.00, regardless of their existing license. If you have purchased pageGate version 4 within 90 days of this releease, version 5 is available to you free of charge (just email us your current 5 digit serial number). Version upgrades, along with interface and connector additions can be ordered on line at:
http://www.notepage.net/upgrade-order-forms.htm or just give us a call. Keep in mind a PageGate version 5 key is required prior to upgrading!

New customers that are interested in PageGate can see the regular PageGate overview and purchase options.

BlackBerry Creates Security Concerns in France

The manufacturer of BlackBerry smartphones has assured the French government that their products are not vulnerable to espionage.

Canadian phone maker RIM said after France's national defense agency banned many government officials from using the devices for sensitive government purposes that the communications are protected by sophisticated encryption codes that would take billions of years to crack, The Times of London reported Wednesday.

French security officials had expressed concern that communications sent via BlackBerry could be intercepted by the U.S. National Security Agency or other foreign agencies, as the phones use mail servers located in the United States, Cnet News.com reported.

complete article

Mobile Virus Creator Arrested

Spanish police have arrested a 28-year-old man on charges that he created variants of the CommWarrior and Cabir mobile phone viruses, according to published reports.


The man, whose identity was not disclosed is accused of creating 20 new variants of the viruses.

Dobson Communications Might Be Up for Sale

Rural cell phone service provider Dobson Communications is the latest telecommunications firm to attract the attention of buyout managers, according to media reports Monday.


Dobson has a customer base of 1.76 million subscribers over a mostly rural 17-state area. The region has a population of more than 12.6 million.

Chronic Health Monitored Via Cell Phones

Most teens say they could not live without their cell phones. For some of them, the exaggeration may soon have a kernel of truth.


Doctors are testing technology that uses wireless data, text messaging and other youth-friendly technology to monitor and manage chronic illnesses.

While these systems do not address life-and-death medical emergencies, some experts say the emerging field does show promise for improving the lives of those with long-term conditions.

Monthly iPhone Service Charges

AT&T; Inc. and Apple Inc. on Tuesday said wireless service for the iPhone will range from $59.99 to $99.99 per month.

European Mobile Operators Must Pay VAT

Mobile phone operators have lost a legal battle to reclaim more than £3bn of the £22.5bn they paid to the British government in 2000 for third-generation licences.


The final decision by the European Court of Justice confirmed a preliminary opinion issued last September. It rejected arguments by companies such as Vodafone, T-Mobile, Orange and Hutchison that value added tax was charged in the price paid for licences.

Wafer Thin Camera Phones

Tessera Technologies has revealed new wafer-level camera technology that can be implemented into devices such as mobiles and PCs.

EU to Charge Americans Roaming Charges

European Union governments approved a cap on cell phone roaming fees this week, but the move isn't likely to have much if any impact on U.S. cell phone callers traveling in European this summer.

Approved Thursday, the new cap is scheduled to take effect in European countries in August. Rates will be capped at 66 cents a minute for outgoing calls and 33 cents a minute for incoming calls. The lid on roaming fees drops prices drastically and service providers have complained about the action.

Cellular YouTube

YouTube co-founder Steve Chen said on Saturday consumers in many parts of the world will have access to the popular video-sharing Web site on their mobile phones by next year.

Catching Large Leopards with Ringtones

Forest guards in western India are using cell phones with ringtones of cows mooing, goats bleating and roosters crowing to attract leopards that have wandered into human settlements, officials said on Monday.

But rather than use methods such as live bait like goats tied to trees to lure the leopards, which then fall into large pits dug by guards, officials say they have found a safer method to trap the cats.

complete article

Cell Phones Used in Earth Quake Warnings

Cell phones in Japan could soon provide a vital warning seconds ahead of a major earthquake. Japans three largest cellular carriers, NTT DoCoMo Inc., KDDI Corp. and Softbank Mobile Corp., plan to develop a way to automatically funnel alerts to cell phones from a new government advance warning system, which went into operation last year.

complete article

Motorola Cutting Forces

Motorola will cut an additional 4,000 jobs as the mobile phone maker tries to cope with tough global competition.

SMS Haults Construction

A Chinese city has halted construction of a chemical plant after residents sent more than 1 million mobile phone text messages protesting possible pollution dangers, news reports said Thursday.

Prince Free on Mobile Phones

Prince is giving away the first single from an upcoming album to cell phone users as the rock star, who is also launching a perfume, looks to create a buzz around his Planet Earth album, due out in weeks.


Similar to David Bowie's involvement with a Nokia phone launch last year and Paul McCartneys plan to publish an album through Starbucks, Prince's latest stunt is part of a trend for long-established musicians to try to interest new fans in their latest music by aligning themselves with the next new thing.

Fastest Growing Companies According to CNN

CNN rankings show another banner year for the leaders of the tech revival. BioMed and Pharmaceuticals also make a strong showing!

Fastest 100 Growing Companies

The 100 Best Products of 2007

PC World editors rank the best PCs, HDTVs, components, sites, and services. Plus: the products PC World is looking forward to next year, and which technologies are rising and falling.

Google Apps Premier Edition
Intel Core 2 Duo
Nintendo Wii
Verizon FiOS
RIM Blackberry 8800
Parallels Desktop
Pioneer Elite 1080p PRO-FHD1
Infrant Technologies ReadyNAS NV
Apple Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger"
Adobe Premiere Elements 3
Apple TV
Samsung SyncMaster 244T
BillP Studios WinPatrol
HP dv9000t
McAfee SiteAdvisor
Canonical Ubuntu 7.04
Pandora.com
Microsoft Xbox 360 Elite
Paint.net
Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000

more in the top 2007 list

The Life of a Cell Phone

Everyone who's still using the cell phone they bought five years ago, please raise your hand. Any takers? The odds are good that not many hands are in the air right now. According to a recent J.D. Power and Associates report, the average replacement cycle for a mobile phone is just under 18 months.

Alltel - Size Does Not Matter

Little Alltel does not look so little anymore after two buyout companies moved to purchase the mobile phone service provider for $27.5 billion on May 20th.

Clear Channel Taking Service Approach

Clear Channel Communications Inc. launched on Monday a free mobile program that enables listeners to text-message radio stations from their cell phones to make song requests, get real-time traffic reports and access other information.

Audio Recording Software Wins SIA Nomination

NotePage's audio recording software, RecordForAll received a 2007 SIA nomination for the Best Sound and Audio Program for 2007. We are honored that RecordForAll was recognized as an intuitive easy to use audio recording and editing application.

Cellular Tracking Saves a Life

Police located a 10-year-old boy awaiting a heart transplant by asking his mother's cellular provider to locate her cellphone.


John Paul May of Harrisville had the successful surgery at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh on Saturday night, but came dangerously close to being passed over for the donor heart until police tracked down the boy and his mother at a jazz festival.

The hospital called state police Saturday afternoon because officials couldn't reach the boy's parents to let them know a donor heart had been found.

Smellophone!

Touting the future of the mobile phone market at the Software 2007 Conference in Santa Clara, Calif., earlier this week, Motorola CEO Ed Zander made no mention of his company's secret weapon: The smellophone.


Last month, Motorola received a patent for a Communication device having a scent release feature and method thereof.

Another Plan for Cellular Phones

The government is researching whether the best defense against a chemical, biological or radiological attack might one day be right in everyone's hands - or on their ears. Homeland Security officials are looking into outfitting cellphones with detectors that would alert emergency responders to radiological isotopes, toxic chemicals and biological agents such as anthrax.

Cell Phones are Fashion Accessories?

Necessities or accessories? That is the question, some say and I quote:

Cellphones have become fashion accessories like nice ties....

Mobile Game Said to Ease Culture Shock

Nipan Maniar, a senior lecturer at the University of Portsmouth in Britain and one of the creators of the cell phone game C-Shock, describes his creation as an e-mother.


The game offers a 3D recreation of the Portsmouth campus that can be distributed to foreign students planning to come to British universities for the first time. Maniar, an Indian who arrived at Portsmouth in 2000, is well-acclimated to the culture shock the setting can inflict on new-comers.

C-Shock, which is currently in its final stages of development, focuses on giving potential students a list of tasks to complete on their virtual first day. The activities put them in contact with unexpected sites for many of those unfamiliar with Western culture: the informal relationship between students and teachers, women smoking, drinking, interacting with the opposite sex and public displays of affection from couples.

complete article

Cellular Tapping Takes Off

Luciano Moggi, the former head of the Juventus soccer club, could have used one before Italys soccer game-fixing scandal exploded after his phone conversations, which triggered the investigation, were intercepted by investigators and then leaked to the media.

And Prince Victor Emmanuel would have been well served by a secure cellphone before his conversations made public resulted in his arrest last year over allegations of providing prostitutes and dealing in illegal slot machines.

Cellular Tapping

WhatsUp and PageGate

Great forum post about using Ipswitch WhastUp with PageGate

I did this exact thing, but incorporated another product called PageGate from a company called NotePager.
I had issues with the paging engine in WhatsUp failing to send pages 100% of the time. So, rather than having WhatsUp send the page it writes a text file into the directory used by PageGate. PageGate can pick up this file and send it any way you want it.

PageGate is a full blown paging application. It can send over the Internet using SNPP, WCTP, SMTP and a couple of others. If one method fails it can be configured to failover to another method. I have SMTP as the first method and it fails over to Paging via the TAP protocol.

If receiving pages is critical to your company, I recommend using this product since this company does nothing but Paging applications.

Vonage Wins Reprieve

Internet phone company Vonage Holdings Corp. won a legal victory that sent its shares sharply higher when a U.S. appeals court ruled on Tuesday the company can continue signing up new customers while it appeals a patent infringement ruling.

New RSS Scripts

The RSS scripts directory has a new addition RSSFilter. The RSSFilter script allows for feeds to be filtered and the filter results are outputted to a new feed.

Adwords Cellular Alerts

AdWords phone alerts let you receive important alerts about your account as text messages on your mobile phone.

Google Phone Alerts

Shrek 3 Mobile Game

Videogame publisher Gameloft has gained the rights to bring DreamWorks Animation's "Shrek the Third" to mobile games in conjunction with the film's May 18 theatrical release. The game will be released across 170 operators in more than 75 countries.

Mobile The Next Frontier In Search

"Mobile, mobile, mobile" were the words of Google Inc. Chief Executive Eric Schmidt this week when asked what technologies are most intriguing to the computer Web search leader.

System Update Cause of Blackberry Outage

After two days of silence about a lengthy outage in its BlackBerry e-mail service, the company that makes the addictive mobile device issued a jargon-laden update indicating that a minor software upgrade had crashed the system.

Nokia Phone Sales

Nokia Corp.'s core mobile phone business dropped in the first quarter as competition intensified in the global handset market, particularly from Asian vendors.

Colleges and Universities with Campus Notification

PageGate software can be used by schools, colleges or universities to send text messages to students and staff cell phones, pagers or handhelds in the event of an emergency.

ShopText Purchase Using Text Messages

A company called ShopText has introduced a system that lets people buy products instantly using text messages, a process that eliminates the need to go to a store or even to visit a Web site. For instance, a woman seeing an ad for a pocketbook in a magazine can order it on the spot simply by sending the text code found beside the item through her cellphone.

complete article

Analog Nearing End

Regulators are poised to send the crackling and bulky analog cellphone to the scrap heap next February, denying a last-ditch appeal from a business group.

The shutdown of analog wireless networks Feb. 18 will mean lost service or disruptions for 500,000 GM car owners with OnStar emergency wireless service, up to 1 million alarm customers and a few million diehards who refuse to trade in their analog phones.

Complete Article

Could Text Messaging Have Made a Difference at Virginia Tech?

Campus security experts have said that they believe text messaging students cell phones could have resulted in a different outcome to the tragedy at Virginia Tech.

Dealing With Stolen Phones

An independent study found that phone networks blocked more than 80% of stolen mobile phones within two days.


The U.K. Home Office reported last week that mobile phone network changes, requested by the government, blocked stolen phones within hours of theft.

Cell Phone Security

Cell phones have long served as the mother of all convergence devices, swallowing our PDAs, digital cameras, MP3 players and more. Now phones are becoming the terminal of choice for monitoring home security. When a perp breaks into your house, your security system calls your phone, and shows you the live video.

Text Messaging Tracks Runners

Brendan Burke's cell phone was beeping within minutes of the start of his wife's marathon in San Diego. A text message arrived with her latest time as she crossed the six timing mats around the course.


It didn't matter that he was across the country at home in New Jersey. Pushing to make the 26.2-mile races more friendly to fans and runners alike, marathon officials are increasingly offering free online tools to help spectators and loved ones back home track runners along courses that can span entire cities.

complete article

Phones on Plane a Dead Issue

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has ended a proceeding that would have allowed mobile phone calls on airplanes, for now ending the possibility of phone conversations during flights.

There Was No Campaign Texting

Cell phone text messaging were blocked during this weekend's local elections in Cambodia, the government imposed a two-day "tranquility period" to keep voters from being inundated with campaign messages.

Childish or Brilliant - New Cellular Service?

My Sprint phone shook violently in my hand. My reflexes kicked in and I found myself wrapping my other hand around it to steady it. Before I knew it, the vibrations literally catapulted the phone out of my hands and onto the rug where it bounced along the floor, slammed into my door, and finally came to rest in the hallway. I stood over the phone, staring down at it, waiting for another violent outburst. After a few moments, I picked it up, opened it, and answered the call.


"Pretty cool, huh?" Derek Galsworthy, CEO of TouchBak Technologies, said, his voice full of cheerful enthusiasm.

complete article

More Phones Than People

Mobile phone subscriptions in the European Union outnumber citizens for the first time, the European Commission said Thursday in its 12th annual report on the E.U. telecommunications market.

Beijing Cracking Down on Cellular Porn

Beijing has banned sending pornographic text messages or pictures via mobile phones after busting phone dealers who sold mass-storage devices containing porn, state media reported Wednesday.

Texting Soon to be Against the Law?

New Jersey drivers who insist on sending text messages on their cell phones or personal digital assistants may find themselves on the wrong side of the law if legislators approve a new bill.

Is Sprint worth 80 Billion

Just a few years ago, a leveraged buyout of a company as big as Sprint Nextel would have been unthinkable. The No. 3 wireless carrier has $41 billion in annual revenue and a market cap of $56 billion. Add in the cost of a 25% premium and the assumption of more than $23 billion in debt, and a Sprint Nextel buyout could be nearly twice as large as Texas Pacific's record $45 billion proposed buyout of power company TXU.

complete article

Safety Could be Impacted by Qualcomm Ban

Government agencies would have a harder time communicating with the public in an emergency if imports of cell phones containing Qualcomm chips are banned, a federal official said.

Flight Ban Likely to Stay

The chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission will ask fellow commissioners to keep in place a ban on mobile phone use during airplane flights.


FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said Thursday that he has asked the commission to end its inquiry into whether mobile phones can be used safely on airplanes, based on concerns from ground-based wireless carriers that the calls could interfere with their networks. The FCC's proceeding to lift the ban on mobile phones, launched in December 2004, also drew comments from thousands of passengers who supported the ban.

Kenya SMS Payments

The ping of a text message has never sounded so sweet. In what is being touted as a world first, Kenya's biggest mobile operator is allowing subscribers to send cash to other phone users by SMS.

complete article

Cellular Payments

Belgians will be able to use their cell phones as debit cards within a few months, Belgian cell phone operators and Banksys, a Belgian firm specialized in electronic payments, said on Tuesday.

Using text messaging, the payment system will allow consumers to pay anything from six euros up to the limit of their bank account, Banksys Chief Executive Vincent Roland told a news conference.

Cellular Payments

Google Phone

Google Inc. is developing its own mobile phone, according to industry insiders and analysts, while a Google official in Spain last week acknowledged the company is "investigating" such a project.

Google is not commenting directly on leaks from Europe and the United States which describe a low-cost, Internet-connected phone with a color, wide-screen design.

complete article

Cell Phones are Handier than Most Realize

There are a few things that can be done in times of grave emergencies. Your mobile phone can actually be a life saver or an emergency tool for survival.  Check out the things that you can do with it:
  
FIRST:  The emergency number worldwide for mobile is 112.  If you find yourself out of the coverage area of your mobile network and there is an emergency, dial 112 and the mobile will search any existing network to establish the emergency number for you, and interestingly this number (112) can be dialed even if the keypad is locked.  Try it out.
  
SECOND:  Have you locked your keys in the car? Does your car have remote keyless entry? This may come in handy someday. Good reason to own a cell phone.  If you lock your keys in the car and the spare keys are at home, call someone at home on their cell phone from your cell phone.  Hold your cell phone about a foot from your car door and have the person at your home press the unlock button, holding it near the mobile phone on their end.  Your car will unlock. Saves someone from having to drive your keys to you.  Distance is no object. You could be hundreds of miles away, and if you can reach someone who has the other "remote" for your car, you can unlock the doors (or the trunk).
  
  
THIRD: Hidden Battery Power - Imagine your cell battery is very low. To activate, press the keys *3370#.  Your cell will restart with this reserve and the instrument will show a 50% increase in battery.  This reserve will get charged when you charge your cell next time.
  
FOURTH: How to disable a STOLEN mobile phone? To check your mobile phone's serial number, key in the following digits on your phone: * # 0 6 #    A 15 digit code will appear on the screen. This number is unique to your handset. Write it down and keep it somewhere safe. When your phone get stolen, you can phone your service provider and give them this code.  They will then be able to block your handset so even if the thief changes the SIM card, your phone will be  totally useless. You probably won't get your phone back, but at least you know that whoever stole it can't use/sell it either.   If everybody does this, there would be no point in people stealing mobile phones.
  
And finally....
  
FIFTH:  Cell phone companies are c