geekosystem

Last night, National Review Online writer Kevin Williamson lived out our collective dreams and tossed the phone of a fellow audience member into the wings of a small outdoor theater. Part of us wants to call Williamson a hero, but polity brings us up short on that point. The cure for rudeness shouldn't be more rudeness, and grabbing someone's phone is likely to land you in some legal trouble or a fistfight, depending on the demeanor of the person whose phone you just threw. It's just bad behavior all the way around, and though it's tempting to, we can't condone any of it.

Our hearts go out this afternoon to the people of Boston and those with family there, and sometimes, that's all we can say about a thing. In the wake of two explosions near the marathon's finish line, it's too early to do much but offer our condolences to those affected. We do feel obliged to pass along one piece of advice -- if you're looking to get in touch with friends or family in the area, please text them rather than calling. We know there's no replacement for hearing a loved ones' voice in the wake of a senseless tragedy like this, but authorities in the area have requested that people use text in the interest of keeping phone lines open for emergency response teams.

The biggest thing keeping most people tied to their cell phone company is the hefty early termination fees attached to their contracts. Even when you can get a better deal at a different company, having to pay upwards of a few hundreds dollars (mine is $325 with AT&T) to get out of your contract can keep you from pulling the trigger. What if the company you're switching to offered to pay that fee for you? That's what prepaid provider Ting is trying. They want to pay your early termination for you to get you to switch -- sort of.

A number of sources have reported to The Times of India that Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, is planning to provide mobile handsets to the nation's over 6 million families living below the poverty line. The plan involves not only distributing mobile phones completely free of charge, but also providing 200 minutes of free local calls. Although the Office of the Prime Minister has yet to make an official statement regarding the "Har Hath Mein Phone" plan, it is expected to be announced to the public next week, on August 15. This could very well be the first chance for many Indian children to whine and beg for mom's phone to play the preinstalled trial version of Snake.

The venerable comedy show Saturday Night Live turned its satiric eye to the confusing, brand name and acronym laden world of cellular phone advertising with their satire of Verizon LTE ads last night. In it, a hapless customer endures a barrage of meaningless comparisons, buzzwords, and bewildering stats before reaching a rather inevitable conclusion. Oh, and even if you think you know what all those words meant, it's far more confusing than you might think.

On December 3, 1992, Richard Jarvis received the world's first text message on his Orbitel 901 cellphone from Neil Papworth. The text of that first message is a bit premature, saying: "Merry Christmas." In a twist which seems to foreshadow the birth of services like Google Voice and spam texting, this seminal text was sent from a computer.

Black Friday. You've heard about the crazy mobs, the tramplings, the stampedes. With the number of people running around on Black Friday, if you watched them hard enough, you might even be able to learn something about swarm intelligence. And where people shop. It's probably that second one that prompted the Promenade Temecula in southern California and Short Pump Town Center in Richmond, Virginia to track their customers' movements via cell signals.

Cell phones have changed college life for sure. I mean, back in the day, people used to actually have hardwired phones in their dorms and stuff. Right? I don't even know. I'm not that old. In any event, there's no arguing that among people who are using their phones to the fullest extent possible, college kids are right up there. But what exactly are the using them for? This infographic from HackCollege jumps right into that.

As it turns out, a whopping 94% of college students are texting everyday, 97% of those with smartphones are using them for social networking and 88% regularly text in class. Of course, there are some exceptions to these rules. The one I find the most confusing is that apparently only 75% of college students sleep with their phones next to them. How is that not 100%? Where else would you keep a phone at night? Does anyone actually still use dedicated alarm clocks? I guess so, but I find that pretty hard to believe.

Full infographic after the jump.

The San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) has confirmed that the organization disrupted cell phone service inside subway stations during a protest. Transit officials say that they intended to prevent what they called a disruptive protest planned for August 11. From the release:

Organizers planning to disrupt BART service [...] stated they would use mobile devices to coordinate their disruptive activities and communicate about the location and number of BART Police. A civil disturbance during commute times at busy downtown San Francisco stations could lead to platform overcrowding and unsafe conditions for BART customers, employees and demonstrators. BART temporarily interrupted service at select BART stations as one of many tactics to ensure the safety of everyone on the platform.

The release goes on to say that BART recognizes the individual right to free speech, but does not allow protests in areas that require payment to enter -- including station platforms, and subway cars. Protestors reportedly planned activities in response to the killing of Charles Blair Hill by the BART police on July 3, after Hill apparently pulled a knife on officers. This came after another fatal shooting of an unarmed man in 2009 by BART officers. Like other transit systems around the country, BART operates underground nodes to provide cell phone coverage to subway travelers.

The World Health Organization now lists cell phone use as a "carcinogenic hazard," a category of cancer risks that contains lead, engine exhaust and chloroform, though it only lists cell phone use as a risk, and made clear that it has found no conclusive evidence linking cell phone use to any adverse health risks. The news here, however, is that the WHO now recognizes cell phone use as a potential cancer risk, whereas previously, they did not. A team of 31 scientists from 14 countries peer-reviewed studies on cell phone safety and found enough evidence to reach the conclusion that cell phone use could indeed pose a health risk. There haven't been any longterm studies to determine if cell phone use definitely poses a health risk, but the WHO claims there is a possible connection.

Finally! A law with universal popular support. (via Reddit | Available at Burning Books)

"I don't have a cell phone. I won't carry a cell phone ... It's Stalin's dream. Cell phones are tools of Big Brother. I'm not going to carry a tracking device that records where I go all the time, and I'm not going to carry a surveillance device that can be turned on to eavesdrop." -- If you've been playing at home, add cell phones to the list of things that master hacker, GNU creator, and web freedom advocate Richard Stallman has a problem with. Speaking with NetworkWorld, Stallman called cell phones a tool for totalitarians. (NetworkWorld via Slashdot)

The Phonekerchief is a handkerchief/pocket square made of "a smart material that actually blocks phone signals." (Its makers don't say what that material actually is; assuming it actually works, I'd guess it's some sort of metalized synthetic material like aluminized Mylar, although I suppose it could contain electrified chicken wire. You never know.) Basically, the idea here is that if you're out on a date at a fancy restaurant that doesn't mind slightly sillily embroidered handkerchiefs, you at once block the signal on your cellphone and broadcast the information that you're blocking your cell signal to your date (and possibly to other diners) to ensure for an intimate meal and undivided attention. One might ask, "but why not just turn the cellphone off during the meal?" But come on, nobody actually does that. (via Fashionably Geek; product page starting November 25th)

With the help of a four million pound grant (about six-and-a-half million dollars), the UK Clinical Research Collaboration is currently developing a computer chip that, once urinated or spit on, can be plugged into a phone and can then tell the user whether or not he or she has STDs including herpes, gonorrhea, and chlamydia. Ultimately, they plan for the chips -- which are projected to be the size of a USB chip -- to be sold in vending machines for around $0.80 to $1.60, in order to encourage people to perform self-exams who would otherwise avoid an exam because of embarrassment or cost issues.

"Teens send an average of 34 texts a night (adding up to 3,400 a month) after going to bed — in some cases up to four hours after hitting the sack, found researchers from JFK Medical Center, in Edison, N.J. The evidence has been mounting that teens mightily prefer texting to actual contact with family members, with studies from Nielsen and Kaiser contributing data that show teens consider the loss of a cell phone more dire than the loss of an internal organ." --The next generation's technological habits are egregious and highly upsetting, just as this generation's technological habits were egregious and highly upsetting to our forebears. Seriously, though, get some sleep, your bones are still growing. (via MSNBC.com. title pic via ICHCB.)