Mobile Phone Cellular

I have reduced my mobile phone usage by about 96% since I started researching its health consequences. I went from one hour per day on my mobile, to less than one hour per month.

Am I overreacting?
You might have a different answer after reading the articles in this series.

Each article in this series will go into at least one of the seven disadvantages of mobile phones. The 7 disadvantages of mobile phones that will be covered are:

• An Unsafe Safety Standard (see below)
• Negative Health Effects
• Male Infertility
• The Effect on Children
• Mobile Phones and Driving
• Increased Stress Level
• The Effect on the Environment

I am thinking of adding ‘Mobile Phones and Privacy’. The last part of the series will provide actions you can take to reduce the health risks.

All articles will be posted in the coming few weeks.

A Short History – The exponential use of mobile phones

Almost every adult has a mobile phone, and so do many children. Prof. Kenneth J. Rothman, one of the world’s leading epidemiologists, states the following:

Within only a few years a substantial proportion of the world’s population has adopted a new technology that involves placing a small radio transmitter up against the head, in some instances for hours a day.

The explosion of mobile phone use in the last few decades has been astounding: In 1988 there were approximately 500,000 mobile phone subscribers in the US, by 1993 this had grown to 13,000,000. By 2006 there were 223 million mobile phone users.

Mobile phones transmit and receive Radio Frequency (RF) signals in order to communicate. The RF signals from mobile phones fall within the microwave part of the electromagnetic spectrum. This radiation is also referred to as microwave radiation or electromagnetic radiation. In short: Mobile phones use microwave radiation to communicate.

Consequently, our landscapes and cities are covered by ‘base stations’ that relay the microwave signals used for communication. Both the base stations and the mobile phones emit microwave radiation.

In the last twenty years, the US has adopted mobile phones as a integral part of everyday life; 223 million people have started using personal mobile devices that emit microwave radiation. In order to make this work, there are at least 126,000 cell phone towers that also emit microwave radiation.

Could this microwave radiation have a negative impact on our health?

Did you know that only percent of cell phone owners recycle their old handsets? Although a tiny figure, this can be changed with a little bit of awareness.

The statistic that only 3% of cell phone owners recycle their old handsets, released by Nokia in the results of a survey, suggests that the message has not got through to people to recycle their old handsets. Even in the UK, which led the table of countries with its recycling rate of 10%, the figure is still incredibly low given the amount of schemes available.

Where Are All the Cell Phones Going?

The survey from Nokia also suggested that hardly any phones are thrown away on landfill sites, but if only 3% being recycled then it is fair to ask where the rest are going. Common sense suggests that they are collecting dust in cupboards and drawers across the world. But this means that many people are missing out not only on saving the environment, but on helping charities and even making a bit of money on the side for themselves.

Cell Phone Recycling Schemes

A simple Google search reveals no end of cell phone recycling schemes. There’s the UK site Mazuma Mobile, or the American Cell for Cash, which estimates that up to 500 million old phones are currently not in use across America at this moment.

These are just a couple of schemes, but the list is extensive. Nearly all of the schemes offer cash for phones, and their motives range from helping the environment and providing a resource for charities, to simply making money from a successful business.

What are the Benefits of Recycling My Cell Phone?

There are many benefits to be had, depending on what your fundamental aim is. If you are simply trying to get rid of your phone because it is taking up space, then you may want to consider donating it to a charity. Many charities now run schemes to collect old handsets from members of the public and sell them in bulk to the recycling schemes as a source of revenue.

However, if your main concern is making money then you may be surprised by the prices on offer. A Nokia 8600 can sell for up to $300, making a tidy amount for something that you are not using. And if you are unconcerned about money then the knowledge that you are doing something good for the environment and saving some precious materials is reason enough to recycle your phone.

Although the number of people currently recycling their cell phones is very low, as more people become aware of the worthwhile ways in which to recycle their phones then by the time the next survey comes out some significant improvements will have been made.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Verizon Wireless settled a lawsuit over voice mail technology with the patent's owner, Klausner Technologies Inc, the companies said on Friday.

Klausner said it granted Verizon Wireless, owned by Verizon Communications Inc and Vodafone Group, a patent license related to voice message alerts.

Verizon confirmed the deal but both companies did not disclose the financial terms of the settlement, which was reached on Thursday.

The technology in question involves visual voice mail, which helps consumers access voice messages on their mobile telephones or computers.

Klausner has agreed to similar settlements with other telecommunications and technology firms, such as AT&T Inc and Sprint, as well as Apple Inc.

It also settled with Comcast Corp and Cablevision in recent months, while outstanding cases include those against Comverse Technology Inc, Embarq Corp and Google Inc.

Company founder Judah Klausner said more agreements may follow.

"Several more are negotiating licenses right now," he told Reuters, but declined to give details.

(Reporting by Ritsuko Ando; Editing by Derek Caney, Leslie Gevirtz)

3G technology gives iPhone fast access to the Internet and email over cellular networks around the world. iPhone 3G also makes it possible to do more in more places: Surf the web, download email, get directions, and watch video — even while you’re on a call.

Last Friday, after Congress turned off its lights for summer recess, about a dozen Republican congressmen remained on the floor to discuss energy policy. There were no press releases issued and no reporters on the scene. Still, the event was broadcast live. How? Rep. John Culberson, a Texas Republican who has emerged in recent months as a partisan Twittering one-man C-Span, pointed his Nokia N95 mobile phone at Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana and began filming. "We are calling on Speaker Nancy Pelosi to call this Congress back into session immediately" to count a vote on opening up domestic reserves for drilling, said Pence. "We're going to use the people's house to call on the American people—to call on this Congress and this speaker—to bring this institution back into session immediately."

The plea went unheeded, but it didn't go unheard. Culberson was using a new service by Qik.com, a Silicon Valley startup that lets users stream live video directly from their video-enabled phones onto the Web.Qik isn't the only new program that can turn your mobile phone into a pocket-size television station. Kyte.tv and Flixwagon also recently opened to the public, for free. (And last week Flixwagon even began offering an application for unlocked .) All three services let you embed a video player on your own site, so you can stream from your homepage. Once your live broadcast is done, the video is stored on their servers, making them easy to replay or even edit. And since the video camera lives on your cell phone, anyone watching your live broadcast can message you as you film—and send in questions, commands or other feedback.

These services are still so new that what they portend isn't exactly clear. But the immediate implications are evident: with the right mobile phone, anyone can cover breaking news as fast as the pros—faster if the network trucks don't arrive on the scene in time. "It's big. It's a fundamental change in how news will operate," says , a prominent media blogger and City University of New York journalism professor. "If the news is what we care about, then waiting for a news person to get there is no good." Seasoned media outlets are, some have argued, more capable than laymen to provide cohesive, balanced and well-reported narratives after the fact. But the first mobile-phone video that ever aired on CNN was taken during the Virginia Tech shootings last year. Should anything as terrible occur again, expect the first essential footage to potentially be live, unfiltered and uncurated by any major network—for better or worse.

In fact, , one of the Web's more beloved video bloggers and Qik beta tester, claims already to have "scooped CNN." During the New Hampshire primary, he stumbled into interviewing Republican presidential candidate Rep. Duncan Hunter, who happened to be on his way to a press conference.Garfield live-cast Hunter's news online (that he wasn't dropping out of the race, just yet) before anyone else. Of course it's not every day you bump into a congressman with news. Garfield has also recently streamed a live stroll along the beach because "a lot of people I know are stuck in the middle of the country." He's also shot footage from a concert by the rock band Boston, which hints at the latency of this technology. Boston's lawyers may or may not be thrilled to know that someone was broadcasting live from the audience. Still, the technology is far enough under the radar that it may come in handy not just for breaking news but also shooting video covertly, be it for good or ill.

An example of the good:Laura Fitton, a Boston-based blogger and consultant, was visiting with her paternal grandmother in hospice care. Fitton's father, who was in Florida at the time, wasn't sure whether he ought to fly up. "I had the Qik phone with me," says Fitton. "I told my dad, 'Hey at 6:15, be at this Web site and we'll be able to videoconference live.'" Her father saw his mother and, based on that alone, decided to fly immediately to her bedside. Because of Qik, he was able to be with her just hours before she died. Fitton, who so far has primarily shot footage of her family, also believes that live mobile videoconferencing has great business potential. "Instead of launching a whole business trip and sending a team out to a trade show or conference," she says, "you can send one person with a phone, tell them to walk up to a table, ask a question and beam the answer back live."

For now, these services only function on a small number of video-enabled phones, mostly Nokias, and the quality of the stream is about what you'd expect coming from a cell phone (a far cry from HD). But it could be only a matter of time before we're all carrying portable TV studios everywhere we go. Even the Vatican—the Vatican!—is already live-streaming Qik video of the pope's travels abroad. "The more we share, the more we witness, the more we document," says Jarvis, who adds he has carried a camera with him ever since he emerged from the subway to see the South Tower of the World Trade Center come crashing down on 9/11. "I think it's a good thing that the world is quickly becoming equipped with the tools to record what they witness." Maybe Orwell had it backward, because it looks like the future belongs to Little Brother.