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Now here’s the invention that we’ve all been waiting for: A device that instantly charges our cell phones. A gadget like this might soon be on its way thanks to a bright 18-year-old from Saratoga, Calif., who was recently honored at an international science fair. Eesha Khare is the mind behind a super-powerful and tiny gizmo that packs more energy into a small space, delivers a charge more quickly, and holds that charge longer than the typical battery. Khare showed off her so-called super-capacitor last week at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Phoenix, Ariz. In her demonstration,...

Called the supercapacitor, this revolutionary device can charge cell phones within 20 seconds. The brainchild of 18-year-old Esha Khare of Saratoga, California, the lucky teen collected $50,000 at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Phoenix, Arizona this week.LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic online) - The device is sure to make waiting around for your cell phone to recharge a thing of the past, In addition, the gizmo packs more energy into a smaller space than traditional phone batteries -- and holds the charge longer. Khare traveled from her California home to Phoenix last week for the Intel International Science...

Camera focuses on man and woman during a game. He's on a cell phone and blows her off. She is not amused.

A Cleveland-area woman who found a couple of ghostly figures in a photo taken with her cell phone said she's not freaked out about it. "To me, it was awesome," said Marcella Davis. "It's not scary to me." David took the photo about 4 p.m. April 15 at Cleveland High School, where she was trying to get a shot of her nephew, who attends the school. "He spun around so I couldn't take his picture, so I got the back of his head," she said. "I didn't try to take no more because he didn't let me." Davis, the mother...

I have an ENV3 cell phone. I love it as antiquated as it is. However I find I can no longer send picutres to my friends with smartphones and they sometimes cannot send me texts. Sometimes their texts come through as letter trains of squares. Is this normal between phones as the technology improves or do I need a new ENV3? I really like the level of tech I have with my current phone. I really like to text the kids. I like to occasionally like to send a picture out. And nothing beats this technology for actually being able...

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — A young actress was allegedly assaulted and mugged for her cellphone last week in Los Angeles’ Fairfax District. JT Vancollie said she was walking home from babysitting Friday night when a teenage girl approached her at Sierra Bonita Avenue and 8th Street. “She said, ‘Hey, I’m trying to get my friend to help me get home. Could I use your cellphone?’” said Vancollie. The victim said the suspect started dialing repeatedly. “She starts to run away. I run after her like, ‘Are you kidding… I was trying to help you…like, what are you doing?’” Vancollie told...

FBI investigators for at least five years have routinely used a sophisticated cellphone tracking tool that can pinpoint callers’ locations and listen to their conversations — all without getting a warrant for it, a federal court was told this week. The use of the “Stingray,” as the tool is called, “is a very common practice” by federal investigators, Justice Department attorneys told the U.S. District Court for Arizona Thursday, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. Installed in an unmarked van, Stingray mimics a cellphone tower, so it can pinpoint the precise location of any mobile device in range and...

The Obama Cell Phone woman describing hail in Brookshire Tx. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2gubQbcGlI

I'm looking for a good basic cell phone. I have an Aspergers son who needs a phone for safety purposes, but I don't want him to have texting, email or internet access with it. Believe me, that would be a major mistake. Where can someone obtain an inexpensive, basic cell phone plan. I'd like to be able to restrict calls to selected numbers. An added bonus would be if I could track his location.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Just because you own your smart phone doesn't mean you have complete control over the device. No matter where you live or work or attend school, lots of people communicating on smart phones is pretty standard. "If you spend money on a phone you should be able to use the phone however you please as long as it's within the boundaries of the law," says GW law student CJ Hancock. Those boundaries have just gotten a little smaller, at least for anyone who bought a phone after January 26. Now, exemptions laid out in the Digital Millenium...

A petition submitted to the White House demands the Librarian of Congress to rescind his recent decision which removed the unlocking of cellphones from the exceptions to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA).

Think you own your wireless handset, inside and out? Think you can do whatever you wish with your own property? Think again. Beginning Saturday, it will become illegal to unlock a phone without the express permission of the carrier who locked it. While the relevant portion of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act legalizes jailbreaking for three years, it also makes it illegal to unlock new, locked wireless handsets (without the permission of the previous carrier). Exemptions include “legacy phones” ("used (or perhaps unused) phones previously purchased or otherwise acquired by a consumer"). So this ruling won’t kill the secondary market...

Users will not be able to alter their cellphones to access different networks starting Saturday. But advocacy groups are questioning the law. Starting Jan. 26, buying and unlocking a phone will no longer be legal in the United States. The term "unlocking" a phone means to remove the security feature that prevents the phone being used on a different network. Once a phone is unlocked, it can work on more than one carrier's network. Unlocking phones is useful for those traveling internationally because it allows phones to work on different networks.

Big Brother has been outsourced. The police can find out where you are, where you’ve been, even where you’re going. All thanks to that handy little human tracking device in your pocket: your cellphone.  There are 331 million cellphone subscriptions—about 20 million more than there are residents—in the United States. Nearly 90 percent of adult Americans carry at least one phone. The phones communicate via a nationwide network of nearly 300,000 cell towers and 600,000 micro sites, which perform the same function as towers. When they are turned on, they ping these nodes once every seven seconds or so, registering...

SNIPPET: "Social media is no longer simply a fun way to share updates on the harmless idiosyncrasies of our lives. It can undermine national security, and there ought to be a more robust discussion between the Bay Area technology world and Washington on what to do about it. Cyber-terrorism, especially the potential for electronic tampering with U.S. industrial or military installations, is a paramount national security threat that Washington is working to forestall. We're all working to protect our accounts from hackers. But the cyber-threat getting far less public attention involves the social media networks we use every day and the...

A nanogenerator made from inexpensive materials harvests mechanical energy and produces enough power to charge personal electronics. The phenomenon that causes a painful shock when you touch metal after dragging your shoes on the carpet could someday be harnessed to charge personal electronics. Researchers at Georgia Tech have created a device that takes advantage of static electricity to convert movement—like a phone bouncing around in your pocket—into enough power to charge a cell phone battery. It is the first demonstration that these kinds of materials have enough oomph to power personal electronics. Excess energy produced when you walk, fidget, or...

Interesting tweet from analyst Horace Dediu, "Apple's share of operating profits from global mobile phones dropped to 60% in Q3. Samsung now at 39%. HTC 1%. No other companies profitable." A couple of thoughts on this: How is this sustainable for all the other phone makers? What happens to Motorola, RIM, Nokia, LG, et al.? Do they go away? If they go under what happens to Android? If you're wondering why Google is trying to save Motorola, this could be a clue. It doesn't want to be held hostage by Samsung, the only smartphone maker that's profitable. What happens to...

SAN FRANCISCO – In this tech-savvy city teeming with commuters and tourists, the cell phone has become a top target of robbers who use stealth, force and sometimes guns. Nearly half of all robberies in San Francisco this year are cell phone-related, police say, and most occur on bustling transit lines. One thief recently snatched a smartphone while sitting right behind his unsuspecting victim and darted out the rear of a bus in mere seconds. Another robber grabbed an iPhone from an oblivious bus rider -- while she was still talking. And, in nearby Oakland, City Council candidate Dan Kalb...

Republic Wireless has again opened a beta test for $19/month unlimited smartphone service. With this innovative service, you get unlimited calling, texting, email, and web on a Motorola DEFY XT -- all with no contract. That means you pay the full retail price of $249 for the phone, plus a $29 activation fee. Republic Wireless is an invitation-only service, so sign up today to get your invitation as a beta tester. With junk fees, this offer works out to be about $21/month and is the absolute cheapest unlimited smart phone plan in America. Meanwhile, Metro PCS has a new no-contract...

Maryland woman has 6 "Obama phones" in her purse, and claims to have have obtained a total of 30 of them... http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aTYiKjFnMos

The priciest real estate in New York is just a few inches of SoHo. A street vendor hawking cellphone cases was slapped with $2,250 in fines for selling from a table that stood 1 inch too high and 2 inches too close to the nearest store entrance. Alessane Fall — who lives in The Bronx with his wife and six children — intends to fight the three tickets he received from the same officer on Sept. 20 because, he says, city regulations are crippling entrepreneurs. “I don’t know why the city is giving out tickets, but we’re here just to...

Over the past two weeks, American taxpayers have become aware of the “Obama Phone,” a program to provide welfare recipients with free cell phones. Public outrage grew after a rather colorful video went viral, in which one of Obama’s core supporters threw out the term “Obama Phone” during an angry tirade at a rally for Mitt Romney.President Obama actually had nothing to do with implementing this program. It’s a 2008 mutation of a decades-old program to provide welfare recipients with land-line telephones, on the grounds that such equipment is important for securing employment and dealing with medical emergencies. The program...

As America's mania with cell phones as an aspirational status fad hits new records every day, this borderline addiction to "thinner, longer" mobility and a sub-1 year upgrade cycle, is starting to extract its pound of flesh: average cell phone bills that have risen by over 10% in one year (from $1,110 to $1,226), even as total household spending rose by half, or $67. In a word: iNflation. It gets worse. As the WSJ reports, "spending on food away from home fell by $48, apparel spending declined by $141, and entertainment spending dropped by $126." Like a true faux status/gadget...

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A woman apparently walking and looking down at her cellphone was fatally struck by an Amtrak train in Ventura on Saturday. Responding officers said they found the victim, identified only as a 28-year-old woman from Ventura, underneath the train. She was pronounced dead at the scene. According to the train conductor, the southbound train was traveling at about 40 mph around 5:15 p.m. as it approached the Amtrak station near the Ventura County Fairgrounds on Harbor Boulevard, when the victim was seen walking on the tracks. The conductor began sounding the warning horn, but the victim appeared to be looking...

Sheryl Crow believes excessive cell phone use may be to blame for the benign tumor in her brain. Crow just appeared on Katie Couric's new show and said the tumor is located in her "cell phone area" ... and says, "I do have the theory that it's possible that it's related to [cell phone use]." Crow admits her theory has not been confirmed by doctors, but says she's convinced because "[in the] early early days when I was promoting my first record, I did hours of phoners on the old archaic cell phones." The singer says it became difficult to...

Kara Pavelich, the wife of former U.S. Olympic hockey and NHL star Mark Pavelich, died Thursday, Sept. 6, at their Lutsen, Minn., home when she accidentally fell approximately 20 feet from a second-story balcony that has no railing. She was 44. Cook County Sheriff Mark Falk said Saturday that deputies were called to the Pavelich home at 11:32 a.m. Thursday. It is likely that Kara Pavelich was on the balcony seeking better cell phone reception; a cell phone was found beside her. The death is being considered accidental.

Brief thoughts/quotes from the last 11 years. "Looking away, not caring, or hoping for the best are not viable options in fighting terrorism (in general) and the global jihad (specifically). Terrorism must be fought head on 24/7 and preventing terrorism is far better than just reacting to one terror-related event after another." -Cindy (July 1, 2011) ~ "WHAT DID I LEARN from the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001? OPINION: I have learned that more Americans love America than the lame-stream media will ever let on. I have learned that America's military is the finest in the world. I have...

Security and medical officials in Kibaale District have registered a case in which a man allegedly went in an isolation ward at Kagadi Hospital and stole a cellular phone from one of the Ebola patients. The 40-year-old resident of Kyakabugahya LCI in Kagadi Town Council travelled about three kilometers to the hospital to apparently obtain a phone estimated to be valued at Shs60,000 more than two weeks ago. The suspect allegedly broke into the isolation ward on the night of Tuesday August 14, undetected by hospital guards. The patient, who has since succumbed to the deadly hemorrhagic fever, then reported...

Click a few keys, exchange a few numbers, and it’s done. With just a mobile phone and a registration with Safaricom, Kenya’s mobile service giant, you can pay for anything in seconds – no cash, no long journeys to towns to reach a bank, and no long lines when you get there. This is m-Pesa, the revolutionary approach to banking which is changing economies across Africa. The service allows customers and businesses to pay for anything without needing cash, a bank account, or even a permanent address. In today’s Digital Diversity, in honour of its recent fifth birthday, we present...

This is really rather amusing. Until just recently if you asked Siri, the voice assistant on the latest of Apple‘s iPhones, which was the best cell phone ever the reply would be that it was the Nokia Lumia. Which is, as all know, a Windows based phone. The proof is here with a screen shot. The reason why it gave this unexpected answer (well, unexpected to me, it might actually be that the Lumia is the best cell phone ever) is that Siri interrogates the Wolfram Alpha database to answer such questions. And if there are four reviews (as there...

Every day in the United States, professional cyber-spies are stealing tremendous amounts of information. Mainly from Russia and China, these spies target computer networks and increasingly seek entryways through mobile phones. Modern mobile phones -- Smartphones -- are powerful, networked computers, but they lack the firewalls and safeguards typically installed on PCs. What protection is commercially available is weak and unsatisfactory. America's cyber-systems are under attack because what they hold is extremely valuable. Everything from the design of a stealth fighter-bomber to the investment portfolio of a powerful entrepreneur is open to professional cyber-spies and, thus, to the governments that...

He may have co-founded the company that became Microsoft's largest competitor, but former Apple boss Steve Wozniak has glittering things to say about his former rival's mobile OS. Mr Wozniak, who co-founded Apple with the late Steve Jobs in 1976, has given a shocking endorsement of Windows' 7.5 Mango interface. The 61-year-old, who no longer works full-time for Apple, says of the four phones he travels with (including two iPhones), the Nokia Lumia makes him feel as though he is 'with a friend, not a tool'. Shock endorsement: Steve Wozniak, who co-founded Apple with the late Steve Jobs in 1976,...

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is known for playing around with all kinds of mobile tech, even if it competes with iOS devices. Wozniak recently bought Nokia's new Lumia 900 Windows Phone, and shared some of his thoughts on Microsoft's Mobile platform in a podcast interview with The Report. (The Verge first picked up the interview). Overall, Wozniak says he prefers the look and feel of Windows Phone apps over Android and iPhone apps. He also likes Windows Phone better overall than Android. We had similar feelings towards Windows Phone apps when we reviewed the Lumia 900. Many apps such as...

SAN ANTONIO, April 26 (Reuters) - U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood called on Thursday for a federal law to ban talking on a cell phone or texting while driving any type of vehicle on any road in the country. Tough federal legislation is the only way to deal with what he called a "national epidemic," he said at a distracted-driving summit in San Antonio, Texas, that drew doctors, advocates and government officials.

If you havn't heard, Verizon is starting up a new fee. It was all over the radio yesterday, and now I am seeing it on the internet. I am currently with Verizon but I am off contract and using an old flip phone. I've been doing this purposely in anticipation of the day when I would kick Verizon to the curb. What Cell carrier are you with and what advantages do they offer? How many ways are there to get cell phone like service without using an actual cell phone(if any)? I'm thinking maybe VOIP on a wireless modem or...

This is from a Dutch TV show, I thought it was pretty comical: It dices... it slices... it warns you if your roommate is gay! [YouTube] Video/more at Reaganite Republican ___________________________________________________________________ GroenBrothers (Netherlands)   StickBoyDaily   Apple   h/t Robert 

Swedish telecom operators want to implement technologies that will block mobile phone users in Sweden from making free calls using services like Skype and Viber.

The FCC is currently seeking public comments on whether or not it is appropriate and feasible to grant local police forces the power to shut down mobile phone networks.The request for the public’s input comes after BATR officials in San Fransisco shut down cell towers in an attempt to stop a first amendment protected protest for “public safety” reasons.An article published by CFO World broke down the FCC request in an easy to understand fashion: The FCC asks several questions in its request for comments. Among them:– When have government agencies in the U.S. considered interrupting mobile service?– When would...

A Newark man died after a tussle with a former high school wrestler he tried to rob early Saturday, NBC New York has learned. Law-enforcement sources told NBC New York that 30-year-old Gian Davis approached two men near Bloomfield Avenue at about 1:15 a.m. and asked for change. When the men said "no," he then asked to borrow a cell phone, grabbed it and tried to run off with it, sources said. One of the men lunged to get the phone back and Davis put him in a headlock, according to sources. Then, sources say the other man, a former...

Southeast Asia is closer to the equator than the North Pole, but an electronics store in Vietnam is ringing in the holidays with a 15-foot Christmas tree made from more than 2500 unusable cellular phones. Nguyen Trai, a store manager at Westcom Electronics in the southern city of My Tho, says 10 workers spent two weeks building the cellular Christmas tree that he hopes will raise awareness about hazardous waste and promote environmental responsibility.

If you are like us, every day you pick up a smartphone and you send email, visit with friends on Facebook, send a text message or even log into your bank's website and pay a bill. These modern day conveniences have become routine. We all believe that our passwords are secure, our data is protected, and life is easier if we don't have to write a check to pay a bill or dig around and find a stamp to send a friend a quick note. But this morning we are no longer sure. The tech world is in a fury,...

An Android app developer has published what he says is conclusive proof that millions of smartphones are secretly monitoring the key presses, geographic locations, and received messages of its users. In a YouTube video posted on Monday, Trevor Eckhart showed how software from a Silicon Valley company known as Carrier IQ recorded in real time the keys he pressed into a stock EVO handset, which he had reset to factory settings just prior to the demonstration. Using a packet sniffer while his device was in airplane mode, he demonstrated how each numeric tap and every received text message is logged...

[You'll need to scroll about half way down the page]...Yes, says a California court, at least for purposes of interpreting a California law that prohibits using a cell-phone while driving.

Since this spring’s blink-and-you-missed-it debate over reauthorization of several controversial provisions of the Patriot Act, Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Mark Udall (D-CO) have been complaining to anyone who’d listen about a “Secret Patriot Act“—an interpretation of one of the law’s provisions by the classified Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court granting surveillance powers exceeding those an ordinary person would understand to be conferred from the text of the statute itself. As I argued at the time, there is an enormous amount of strong circumstantial evidence suggesting that this referred to a “sensitive collection program” involving cell phone location tracking—potentially on a...

SNIPPET: "Dan Folk (21), an Israeli who was invited to the event in which over 100 students took part, ended up getting a business card and memento from Ahmadinejad. "It was at his hotel in Manhattan, we got there and had to wait in the security check line for nearly an hour," said the student, adding, "we gave them our cell phones and any kind of camera we were carrying. During the security check I showed them my Israeli driver's license and the Iranian security officer smiled at me." Folk said he had mixed feelings over the question of whether...

For more than a year, federal authorities pursued a man they called simply "the Hacker." Only after using a little known cellphone-tracking device—a stingray—were they able to zero in on a California home and make the arrest. Stingrays are designed to locate a mobile phone even when it's not being used to make a call. The Federal Bureau of Investigation considers the devices to be so critical that it has a policy of deleting the data gathered in their use, mainly to keep suspects in the dark about their capabilities, an FBI official told The Wall Street Journal in response...

I am reading a very interesting book on surveillance (Surveillance or Security? - The risks posed by new wiretapping technologies by Susan Landau). In it the author makes a passing comment that cell phone locations (proximity to a tower) can be tracked even with the phone turned off. The implication is that turning the phone off only turns off the user interface, not the periodic pings. Removing the battery will turn this off. I have seen some statements that this is correct and others that say it's not but nothing (in a quick search) that's definitive. Does anyone have an...

Now I have an LG cell phone which I've had for about the last 8 months. When I first got it, the battery would last for up to five days or so before I needed to put it on the charger. In the last ten days or so, that was not the case. It was dying after about two days. So I ordered a new battery. Then I did some googling and one of the first things that popped up was "TURN BLUETOOTH OFF!!!" Checked my phone, and sure enough, I had forgot to turn it off last time I...

Driving while talking on a cellphone or texting may get costlier if Gov. Jerry Brown signs a bill that passed out of the Legislature yesterday to increase the fines for the offenses. Senate Bill 28, authored by state Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, will also add a “point” on driving records for second offenses, leading to higher insurance rates for those who do not comply with the state’s hands-free law, which went into effect in July 2008. The bill also will now apply to bicyclists, who were unintentionally omitted from Simitian’s original hands-free law. “Bicyclists also have to abide by...