Recent Cellteks News

Mobile phone chargers are energy vampires
November 19, 2008
A group of mobile phone makers is out to raise awareness that charging devices consume energy when left idle but plugged into an outlet. Around two-thirds of the energy used by mobile devices is wasted in this way. "It may seem like it's a very small thing when you think of an individual charger, but given the number of chargers that are out there it has the potential of large energy savings," said Susan Smith, communications manager at Nokia.

To raise awareness LG, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung Electronics and Sony Ericsson have developed a new ratings system to show consumers how much energy chargers use in standby mode. Five stars designate the most efficient chargers, using 0.03 watt or less. Chargers that consume more than 0.5 watt get no stars. The ratings are based on the European Commission's energy standards for chargers and the internationally recognized Energy Star standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency in the U.S. The vendors will display the ratings on their websites.

The program is mostly about making people aware that there is an issue, according to Gartner senior research analyst Annette Zimmermann. She doesn't expect consumers to go out and buy a new more energy efficient charger. "The first thing is to make people aware that there are these issues around chargers, and that there are certain ones that are more energy efficient," said Smith.

But she also expects consumers will make energy use one of many factors when they pick up a new phone in the future. There is also a potential to reduce electronic waste related to chargers; by giving users the option of not purchasing a charger with every new phone, something NTT DoCoMo has already implemented.

"It is something we are researching and looking into, but haven't made any decisions yet," said Smith.
Going forward we will see more announcements related to more environmentally friendly mobile phones, according to Zimmermann. "We will see more mobile phones that use, for example, recycled materials and bio-plastics," she said.
Apple's iPhone passes Motorola's Razr to become top consumer phone
November 12, 2008
Apple's iPhone 3G became the most popular handset among U.S. consumers last quarter, passing Motorola's Razr after less than three months on the market.The iPhone 3G, which started selling July 11, ended the Razr's three-year reign as the No. 1 U.S. consumer handset, research firm NPD Group said Monday. NPD's numbers exclude purchases by companies.

Apple increased sales of the touch-screen device even as total handset purchases by U.S. consumers dropped 15 percent to 32 million units, NPD said. The faster iPhone 3G, an update to the model Apple started selling last year, accounted for more than a third of the company's revenue last quarter. "It's one of the first devices to provide a desktop-like browsing experience that we've seen consumers flock to," Ross Rubin, an analyst at NPD, said in an interview. "The device represents a fusion of design and an advanced operating system."

The latest iPhone model has benefited from the reduced price of as little as $199 and new applications, Rubin said. The first iPhone sold for as much as $599.Apple stock declined $2.36, or 2.4 percent, to $95.88 Monday. Motorola shares fell 29 cents, or 6.1 percent, to $4.50. Apple posted a 26 percent rise in fourth-quarter profit last month as sales of 6.89 million iPhones beat analysts' estimates. The iPhone accounted for 39 percent of total sales of $11.7 billion, when setting aside an accounting standard in which revenue from the iPhone and the Apple TV set-top box is spread out over two years.

The Razr took second place last quarter and was followed by Research In Motion's BlackBerry Curve and two LG Electronics models. Motorola's phone sales have slid for seven straight quarters as the handset maker has struggled to compete with touch-screen devices such as the iPhone.

Motorola has been slow to adapt to the demand by consumers for phones with larger screens, e-mail and Web capabilities, Rubin said. He said Motorola can't depend on the Razr as the handset continues to lose users.
"Consumers are beginning to tap into the idea of Internet access on-the-go and richer media features that are becoming more difficult to navigate on a small screen," Rubin said.

Source: (www.seattletimes.nwsource.com)
AT&T Mobility looks beyond handsets
October 27, 2008
Thanks to a new executive position, AT&T Mobility is attempting to expand the range of gadgets its network interacts with — and counter similar efforts by its rivals.

The carrier announced the appointment of Glen Lurie to president of AT&T’s newly created Emerging Devices, National Distribution and Resale operation. Lurie will lead the carrier’s initiative to move beyond handsets and integrate new devices and applications onto AT&T Mobility’s network — including personal computers, mobile Internet devices (or mini computers), in-car entertainment and navigation systems, cameras and machine-to-machine communications solutions.

Lurie was formerly the president of national distribution for AT&T Mobility.

Lurie’s appointment appears to be an effort to draw attention to the issue, since the technology is nothing new. AT&T Mobility representative Mark Siegel recently said the carrier already has 200 non-handset devices already running on its network, although many are not introduced to the mass market. Most devices are industrial in nature, Siegel said.

Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Corp. have been talking up their attempts to open up their networks to a plethora of devices. Verizon Wireless last year announced a program designed for those looking to get their inventions and devices onto the carrier’s wireless network, while Sprint Nextel has long stated the goal of its mobile WiMAX push has been to host many different devices, not just handsets.AT&T Mobility said its re-organization is a key component of its business strategy to grow wireless penetration and develop new distribution models.

“High-speed wireless broadband service can enhance a huge variety of gadgets, including many consumer electronics such as personal computers and laptops, GPS systems and digital cameras,” Lurie said. “There is also a host of exciting new applications — from social networking to navigation to location-based solutions — being developed that will rely on wireless connectivity.”

Source: (www.rcrwireless.com)
How to take a better picture with your camera phone
October 22, 2008
How many times has this happened to you? You see the perfect picture and wish you had a camera. Then, suddenly, you remember your cell phone has a built-in camera. You take it out, snap a shot and find the picture you wanted isn’t the picture you got. There’s one big reason for this, namely, shutter lag. The phone isn’t snapping the picture the second you press the button to capture the subject, which ultimately makes you miss the shot. There’s not much you can do about shutter lag, however, there are a few simple things you can do to improve the quality of the pictures you do take.

* Turn on the camera
Locate the camera button and activate the feature. Be sure to be in camera mode and not video mode if your cell phone has the ability to record video. This may seem pretty basic, but you can’t do anything unless you turn on the camera first.

* Choose the resolution
Next, you need to choose the camera resolution. This is easily done typically on any cell phone by choosing options and then selecting resolution. It will either appear as a number or listed as quality (highest, lowest). If you have a number option, it’s best to pick the highest number.

Resolution helps determine picture quality: the lower the setting, the poorer the picture quality. This is particularly important if you want to print the photo at a later date. Choose a lower resolution setting when you want to keep the picture on your cell phone or want to send it to another cell phone via messaging service (i.e. a multimedia message/mms). If you have a 1.3-megapixel camera (or higher) in your cell phone, you’ll get a decent print of the picture if you set the resolution at the highest setting when snapping the photo.
Note: The higher the resolution, the larger the size of the picture file, thereby using more memory in the cell phone. If you take all your pictures at the highest setting, you’ll have less room to store photos and other files on your cell phone.

* Locate the light source
Once you identify what you want to photograph, you’ll need to scope out your lighting options. Whenever possible, locate the best light source and make sure your back is to it so that the light is illuminating your subject and not shining into the camera phone lens. If you don’t do this you’ll end up with something called lens flare, or as we like to call it, a crappy picture.

* When to use the flash
Generally, the flash that comes with cell phones don’t make a huge difference in overall picture quality. The only time you need to use the flash is if there is absolutely no light source at all. The few times you should consider using the flash on your camera phone is outside at night, or in an extremely dimly lit room. Other than that don’t bother setting the flash, since it will likely over-expose the subject and renders a useless picture. If your camera phone doesn't have a flash, you can adjust brightness to get more lighting options.

* Outline the shot in the viewfinder
Frame your shot by composing your subject matter within the limits of your cell phone screen. Typically what you see is what you’ll get. If your subject is moving a lot, ask them nicely to “Please, hold still a second.” You’ll end up with a much better picture.

* Hold the phone still
You’ll need to keep the phone from moving too much in your hand as you try to snap the photo. If there’s a stable object nearby set your elbows down on it to give you more stability. If not, try pulling your elbows tight into your body. This forces your body to act as a tripod. The end result will be a picture with less motion blur.

* Final image adjustments
Look at the subject in the screen that you are about to take and determine if you'd like to make further adjustments by accessing the Options in the camera application on the cell phone. Novice photographers should stay away from making too many adjustments since the automatic settings (especially in VGA or 1.3-megapixel camera phones) will work just fine. However, scene settings or zany frames (sometimes included in your camera phone application) are always fun to play with! More advanced photographers should check out options such as zoom, contrast, metering and white balance to further perfect your image control.

Note: If it's a once in a lifetime shot, such as a celebrity sighting, just shoot it and cross your fingers.

Source: (www.phonedog.com)
Verizon Wireless considers extra text fee
October 11, 2008
On Thursday RCR WirelessN News published a story citing a letter that OpenMarket, a direct to consumer messaging service that sends alerts for companies like Google or Orbitz, was sending to its clients explaining that it would have to tack on an additional three cents for every text message that is terminated on Verizon Wireless network.

"Effective Nov. 1, 2008, Verizon will assess a transaction fee of $0.03 for every MT message processed on its network," the letter said. "Please note that these message fees will apply to standard rate and premium programs. Transaction fees will not apply to Free-2-End-User, Mobile Giving or Non-Profit organizational programs."

OpenMarket went on to say in its letter that it planned to pass on the charges to its clients.

"Pursuant to your Commercial Services Agreement with OpenMarket (including former Simplewire Agreements) concerning Third-Party/Operator Fees, in the event message fees are assessed by Verizon for any of your programs, these fees will be passed on to your company at cost."

The letter ignited a firestorm of criticism from bloggers all over the Web who complained that this steep fee hike would kill services like ChaCha, which allows anyone to text a question to a number from their cell phone and receive an answer relatively quickly.

Others said it would likely discourage brands like ESPN from using SMS text messaging.

"Three cents may not sound like a lot, but think about how much profit ESPN generates for sending you the latest Red Sox score," Brennon Slattery of PC World writes. "Nothing. Raising the fee may eventually discourage companies from participating in the convenient service."

My colleague Sam Diaz at ZDNet said he'd stop using Twitter if the charge was passed along to him.

"Certainly, as someone who updates my own Twitter account somewhat regularly, I'm not inclined to start paying for users to receive my notifications via SMS. If that were the case, I'd just stop using Twitter."

But Jeffrey Nelson, a Verizon Wireless spokesman, said the price hike has not been finalized. Still, he acknowledged that Verizon Wireless has been discussing ways to offset increased costs associated with heavy volumes of SMS text messaging on its network.

"We are currently assessing how to best address the changing messaging marketplace, and are communicating with messaging aggregators, our valued content partners, our technology business partners and, importantly, our friends in the nonprofit and public policy arenas," he said in an e-mail. "To that end, we recently notified text messaging aggregators--those for-profit companies that provide services to content providers to aggregate and bill for their text messaging programs--that we are exploring ways to offset significantly increased costs for delivering billions upon billions of text messages each month."

Even the mere thought that Verizon is considering upping rates on text messaging is enough to get people worked up, especially since Verizon and the other three major wireless operators in the U.S. have increased the price of sending and receiving texts for consumers by 100 percent over the past two years. Rates have gone from 10 cents a message to 20 cents per message.

These price hikes come as the volume of text messages has also increased. Last month, the wireless industry association CTIA reported that 75 billion SMS text messages were sent in June, averaging about 2.5 billion messages a day. This represents an increase of 160 percent over the 28.8 billion messages reported in June 2007.

Even though text volumes have increased, I'm still not sure why Verizon would have to increase rates to cover the cost of delivering the service. SMS text messages cost carriers very little to transmit. In fact, SMS uses a pathway or control channel that already exists in cellular networks to establish communications between cell towers and handsets. Devices are constantly in communication with cell towers to let them know where they are, and the SMS messages are simply delivered along with this normal course of communication.

Given that the carriers haven't had to do anything extra to enable SMS, I'm not sure why increased volumes would necessitate raising rates to cover increased costs. Right now it seems like SMS is nearly 100 percent profit. So Verizon could use some of those existing profits to invest in some kind of expansion of the service.

That said, Verizon notes it hasn't increased per-message costs to aggregators since the messaging service began in 2003. Nelson made it clear that nonprofits and political organizations would not be charged extra to send text. And he emphasized that Verizon is still reviewing all its alternatives.

"Specific information in one proposal, which would impose a small per-message fee on for-profit content aggregators for commercial messages, has been mistakenly characterized as a final decision to implement," he said. "That draft was intended to stimulate internal business discussions and in no way should have been released to the public and represented as a final document."

Source ( http://www.news.cnet.com )
First BlackBerry touchscreen device to storm Verizon, Vodafone networks
October 8, 2008
Network operators Vodafone and Verizon Wireless will sell Research In Motion's BlackBerry Storm smartphone from next month, the companies said Wednesday.

The Storm will be available from Vodafone in the U.K., Ireland, Germany, Romania, Spain, Italy, France (via partner SFR), India, Australia and New Zealand from next month, and from Verizon Wireless in the U.S.
With a touchscreen interface, the largest screen size ever on a BlackBerry device and a long list of features, the Storm will be a worthy competitor to Apple's iPhone all over the world, according to Ben Wood, analyst at CCS Insight. Pricing will be announced in the coming weeks, according to RIM.

The Storm is the first touch-screen BlackBerry device and has what RIM calls a "clickable" screen: The user feels the screen being pressed and released, similar to the feeling of a key on a physical keyboard or a button on a mouse, which should make it easier to type, according to RIM.

The touchscreen technology is very impressive, according to Wood, who describes the 3.26-inch, 480 by 360 pixel screen as a big key. "They have reinvented the touchscreen with the Storm. It's not as good as a qwerty keyboard but it comes close," he said.

That doesn't make it better than the iPhone touchscreen interface, but it is a credible competitor, according to Wood. The Storm has 1G byte of built-in memory and a microSD card slot that can hold up to 16GB of additional storage. Pictures can be captured using the 3.2-megapixel camera, which has auto focus and a flash.

Research In Motion clearly has Apple in its sights, as it highlights that the Storm comes with a removable battery, support for MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) and turn-by-turn satellite navigation, all of which the iPhone currently lacks. The Storm measures 112.5 millimeters x 62.2 mm x 13.95 mm and weighs 155 grams, compared to 115.5 mm x 62.1 mm x 12.3 mm and 133 grams for the iPhone. (Watch Network World's products of the week slideshow.)

Users can surf the web and download e-mail using either EV-DO Rev. A or HSPA (High-Speed Packet Access), but there is no Wi-Fi. "If there is one shortcoming with the Storm it's the lack of Wi-Fi, but that is a price I'd be willing to pay," said Wood. Want to compare wireless products? Visit the IT Buyer's Guides now.

The reason for the exclusion is a combination of technology and politics: there isn't much room left inside the phone and both Verizon and Vodafone are pushing mobile broadband, so the incentive to include Wi-Fi is low, according to Wood.
T-Mobile USA Says It Sold Triple The Amount Of G1 Pre-Orders Originally Anticipated
October 6, 2008
T-Mobile USA issued a statement today, updating customers on how they can be one of the first people to get their hands on the first Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Android phone called the G1. A spokesperson said: “Given the great anticipation and the heavy pre-sale demand for the T-Mobile G1 with Google, we nearly tripled the number of phones initially available for delivery on our Oct. 22 launch date, and have sold through them all.” The demand is not unexpected that the Web site and customer call phone lines were tied up for hours after the announcement was made on Sept. 23. This may give some more weight to a report that leaked out on Wednesday, which said T-Mobile is planning to sell up to 500,000 of the phones this quarter and may order up to 2 million devices from handset-maker HTC in the near future.

T-Mobile customers who still want to pre-order a device, will be able to place a pre-order through Oct. 21, but the phone will be delivered at a later date. More information can be found at www.T-MobileG1.com. Of course, general availability will begin Oct. 22 at select T-Mobile retail stores and online in the U.S. The phone will cost $179 with a two-year voice and agreement and data plans will start as low as $25 for unlimited data and 400 text messages and go up to $35 a month for unlimited messaging and Internet browsing.

Source: ( http://www.moconews.net )
Verizon says Alltel buyout will happen
October 6, 2008
Verizon Wireless says it is moving forward with plans to acquire Alltel for $28.1 billion, although the country's financial climate has worsened since the companies reached an agreement four months ago.

Verizon insists the deal, which would make it the nation's largest wireless carrier, is still on track to close by the end of the year, spokeswoman Robin Nicol said.

But a major ratings firm that evaluates companies' financial strength for world credit markets is not so sure.

"Considering the size of this deal, it would be surprising that Verizon would enter something with such significant risk that it really threatens to preclude this deal from closing," said Bill Densmore of New York-based Fitch Ratings.

In a Sept. 26 report, largely written by Densmore, Fitch identified several factors that could threaten New Jersey-based Verizon.

For one, it must have enough financial strength to buy assets it will probably have to sell for federal regulators to approve the deal.

Also, the deal with Little Rock-based Alltel contains triggers that allow Verizon to back out if the company has to divest too many subscribers for federal approval.

So far, nothing has emerged from talks between Verizon and the Department of Justice, Nicol said.

Source ( http://seattletimes.nwsource.com )
Nine Inch Nails Land iPhone Game
October 2, 2008
Nine Inch Nails are to become the musical stars of a new iPhone game. The industrial rockers, led by Trent Reznor, have landed their own branded version of the game Tap Tap Revenge. The game will feature 16 songs by Reznor, including some remixes made especially for the game, according to RollingStone.com.

Source: ( http://www.webn.com )
Texting while driving 'more dangerous than drugs or alcohol'
October 1, 2008
Texting behind the wheel is more dangerous than driving while under the influence of alcohol or cannabis, researchers said Thursday.

Research carried out on 17 young drivers (aged 17-24) using a simulator found that reaction time slowed by 35% when they were writing or reading text messages while driving. In comparison, reaction time deteriorated by 21% for those under the influence of cannabis, and by 12% at the legal alcohol limit.

Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) -- which carried out the study for the RAC Foundation -- also found that steering control worsened by 91% for those who were distracted by texts, compared to 35% when cannabis was involved.

The tests also showed that texters were less able to maintain safe distances from other cars and they tended to drift out of their lane more often.

RAC Foundation director Stephen Glaister said the research "clearly shows that a motorist who is texting is significantly more impaired than a motorist at the legal limit for alcohol."

TRL researcher Nick Reed added: "When texting, drivers are distracted by taking their hand off the wheel to use their phone, by trying to read small text on the phone display, and by thinking about how to write their message. This combination of factors resulted in the impairments to reaction time and vehicle control that place the driver at a greater risk than having consumed alcohol to the legal limit for driving."

Nearly half of all drivers aged 18 to 24 in Britain admit to texting while driving, according to an earlier RAC poll of over 2000 young drivers.

Source ( www.yahoo.com )