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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...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 22, 2011 – Somali pirates killed all four Americans they had held hostage aboard a sailing vessel in the Indian Ocean this morning, U.S. Central Command officials announced. U.S. officials were negotiating with the pirates for the safe return of the captured Americans when the murders took place, officials said. Centcom officials said that in the midst of negotiations, U.S. forces responded to gunfire aboard the S/V Quest. When the forces reached the boat, officials said, they discovered all four hostages had been shot by their captors. Despite immediate steps to provide life-saving care, all four hostages ultimately...

Bond Set At $1 Million For Passenger Who Disrupted Flight July 12, 2011 2:42 PM Federal agents investigate after a disruption on an international flight from Chicago to Germany that was diverted to Cleveland. (Photo provide by a passenger) Federal agents investigate after a disruption on an international flight from Chicago to Germany that was diverted to Cleveland. Flight 944, Flight Diverted, Saleh Ali Alramakh, United Airlines CHICAGO (CBS) — Bond was set at $1 million on Tuesday for a United passenger who authorities say caused a disturbance on Chicago-to-Germany flight last week. The flight wound up making an emergency...

The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee is weighing fresh concerns about the sweeping nature of domestic spying using one controversial section of the Patriot Act. This particular part of that law is notable because it has been divisive for years — and because during those years President Obama has quietly moved from being a Senator skeptical of the provisions to being an enthusiastic spy chief whose Administration embraces them. Last Tuesday the committee met to consider the worries of some members, mostly Democrats, who say the Justice Department has drafted a breathtakingly broad interpretation of Section 215 of the Patriot Act....

Top 10 lowest radiation emitting cell phones (i.e. least cancer risk) 10. Samsung SGH-T249 (T-Mobile): 0.63 W/kg Tied with Motorola i890, Samsung SGH-T249 is ranked as the 10th least radiation emitting cell phone. Spec Data Compact slider phone for voice communication as well as text and instant messaging Compatible with T-Mobile's EDGE data network; access to text/picture messaging 1.3-megapixel camera; Bluetooth stereo music; microSD memory expansion; personal organizer tools Up to 4.5 hours of talk time, up to 312 hours (13 days) of standby time; released in October, 2010

I have various tech needs that I'm looking for solutions for. Ideas? Bueller....Bueller....Bueller....

A woman who was escorted off an Amtrak train by police this weekend after she allegedly refused to stop talking loudly on her cell-phone has the Internet cheering her fate. Civilians and quiet-car champions are supporting her ejection for violating policy at high volume during the 16-hour journey. It doesn't help her cause that she became belligerent when confronted about it by one of her fellow passengers. KOMO News reports that Lakeysha Beard says she felt "disrespected" by the incident, though passengers said it was Beard who was being rude by refusing to stop yapping while sitting in one of...

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel's kosher cellular phone market has a new model, a device with a Yiddish interface to help devout Jews combine tradition with modern technology. Hundreds of thousands of mobile phones, popularly dubbed kosher because they block access to services frowned upon by ultra-Orthodox rabbis, have been operating in the Jewish state for years. Last month, Israel's second largest mobile provider, Partner introduced what it hailed as the world's first Yiddish cell phone, manufactured by Alcatel-Lucent. Marc Seelenfreund, CEO of Israeli Accel Telecom which imports and distributes mobile phones to all Israeli operators, had a special team of...

Victim politics meets Big Brother-style technology, who would have thunk it? Friday on MSNBC’s daytime programming, host Thomas Roberts explained that in the wake of revelations the iPhone tracks your movements with its operating software, minorities, specifically blacks and Latinos are most vulnerable, since they use their cell phones more than whites according to a Nielsen study. “Alright, so one day after learning of a hidden iPhone feature that tracks your every single move, there’s new concern that tracking technology purchased by police can lead to racial profiling,” Roberts said. “You are looking at what’s called the ‘Universal Forensic Extraction...

When the state's hands-free cellphone law was enacted three years ago, the rules seemed so simple. Holding a phone in your hand to make a call would be illegal. Few ifs, buts or maybes. Then came a law against texting. Then came an explosion of phones that double as GPS devices, cameras, music players, voice recorders and email dispensers. And today, amid an unprecedented crackdown this month on cellphone scofflaws, what's legal and what's not has motorists and even some cops scratching their heads. "When you look for loopholes, the whole issue of cellphone use, texting or distracted driving becomes...

I don't know anything about this source but this sounds credible. ACLU seeks information on Michigan program that allows cops to download information from smart phones belonging to stopped motorists. The Michigan State Police have a high-tech mobile forensics device that can be used to extract information from cell phones belonging to motorists stopped for minor traffic violations. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Michigan last Wednesday demanded that state officials stop stonewalling freedom of information requests for information on the program. ACLU learned that the police had acquired the cell phone scanning devices and in August 2008 filed...

CNN) -- Sunday is the anniversary of something that undoubtedly has changed your life. Whether for good or for bad is a question only you can answer. On this day in 1973 -- on April 3 of that year -- a man did something no one had ever done before. You may bless him for it or curse him for it. At this juncture, it hardly matters. The impact of what he did is so enormous that judging it now is almost beside the point. The man's name was Martin Cooper. He was 44 at the time. He made a...

CNN) -- Sunday is the anniversary of something that undoubtedly has changed your life. Whether for good or for bad is a question only you can answer. On this day in 1973 -- on April 3 of that year -- a man did something no one had ever done before. You may bless him for it or curse him for it. At this juncture, it hardly matters. The impact of what he did is so enormous that judging it now is almost beside the point. The man's name was Martin Cooper. He was 44 at the time. He made a...

Last time we checked in with ComScore's report on smartphone platform market share among US subscribers three months ago, Android was doing a little happy dance as it overtook iOS for the number two spot overall. Well, the cuddly green bots have self-replicated yet again, enough to overtake RIM this time thanks in part to a 5.4 percent decline on BlackBerry's part (down to 30.4 percent in January) coupled with a 7.7 percent boost on the Android side, moving up to 31.2 percent. We imagine ComScore's next report -- covering the period through March -- will see a little boost...

Beijing to Track People's Movements via Their Mobile Phones By Michael Kan Mar 4, 2011 12:50 AM China plans on tracking the movements of people in Beijing using their mobile phones, a measure that while aimed at relieving traffic congestion, could set off concerns over misuse. China announced the plans in an article posted on a government website earlier this week. The system would work by tracking the movements of the 17 million users in Beijing currently signed on with the telecommunications carrier China Mobile. Once the users turned on their phone, the system could pinpoint their location and what...

We are thinking of getting rid of our landline. We no longer use our fax machine and our internet is a five spot. We have scaled down our one remaining phone line to just the dial tone. We called to cancel the line completely and at&t threw in free caller ID/call waiting for a year, so we still have the line.We are trying to cut costs everywhere we can, and we rarely use the phone. Not to mention that at&t is aligned with satan and always overcharges us (we keep changing companies to get away from them and then they...

A Fort Myers man is under investigation after he allegedly sent a pornographic picture to a 9-year-old boy's cell phone. The man claims it was a mistake. According to the Ty'Ge Davis' family, the X-rated text came in about a week ago. The third grader showed his grandmother, who was totally shocked even at her advanced age. The text message was a picture of a woman performing oral sex on a couch. "That was too old for me," Ty'Ge said. "I wasn't ready for that." He handed the phone to his grandmother, Dorothy Moore. "I am like let me see...

Criminal investigations "are being frustrated" because no law currently exists to force Internet providers to keep track of what their customers are doing, the U.S. Department of Justice will announce tomorrow. CNET obtained a copy of the department's position on mandatory data retention--saying Congress should strike a "more appropriate balance" between privacy and police concerns--that will be announced at a House of Representatives hearing tomorrow.

KIEV, Ukraine — The crocodile in "Peter Pan" happily went "tick-tock" after swallowing an alarm clock but a crocodile in Ukraine has been a little less fortunate. Gena, a 14-year-old crocodile at an aquarium in the eastern city of Dnipropetrovsk, has been refusing food and acting listless after eating a cell phone dropped by a woman as she tried to photograph him. Aquarium workers initially didn't believe Rimma Golovko, a new mother in her 20s, when she complained that the crocodile had swallowed her phone.

Four Stickney teenagers gang-raped a 14-year-old girl and recorded the attacks on a cell phone, police said this morning. Alex Picallo, 16, Majeed Khalifeh, 18, and Jonathan Leanos, 19, were charged Wednesday with two counts each of aggravated criminal sexual assault in the incident at Leanos’ Stickney home in the 3900 block of Wesley on Saturday, police said. Picallo was charged as an adult.

Brown's Countdown, Day 3: Governor tells state to slash cell phones Published Wednesday, Jan. 12, 2011 Turns out talk isn't cheap after all. New Gov. Jerry Brown ordered the state Tuesday to save about $20 million a year by collecting half of the cell phones it has issued to employees – starting with himself. "I have it in my desk, ready to turn in," Brown said. Brown, in his first executive order since taking office last week, ordered the return of 48,000 cell phones by June 1. State agencies will take an in-depth look at who currently has a state...

Do any Freepers have good advice on good cellphones? Ideally it would: * interface easily with my PC so I can do contact management on the PC. Otherwise it has to have a full keyboard to type in names * have a volume wheel on the side, with a central click position for standard volume, but easily changeable when needed * otherwise just be simple & do the job

I'm pleased to inform you that Consumer Reports has rated AT&T as the worst of all major cell phone carriers.  I can assure you that they deserve the honor, at least with regard to their customer service telephone line. A few months ago, I had some trouble with my broadband connection.  I was told to call the AT&T customer service number for technical support.  Half an hour later, I wearily hung up the phone after having endured something like this: (1) Welcome to the American Thinker! Si Usted lee sola en español, por favor vaya al (14).  If this...

The US government may require cars to include scrambling tech that would disable mobile-phone use by drivers, and perhaps passengers. "I think it will be done," US Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood said on Wednesday morning, according to The Daily Caller. "I think the technology is there and I think you're going to see the technology become adaptable in automobiles to disable these cell phones." LaHood is on a self-described "rampage" against distracted driving, and if making it impossible to use a mobile phone while in a car can save lives, he's all for it — although, according to TDC,...

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) states that distracted driving causes around 25 percent of the auto accidents in the U.S. each year. That's nearly 1.6 million accidents annually caused by many of the things we discussed above, most of which are so easily preventable. This video is a good example of an accident waiting to happen.  As Everyone knows, I am fed up with the millions of regulations and laws in America.  However, when I am driving down the freeway in a tin can at 65 miles an hour, the last thing I want to worry about is...

School bans on cell phones are dialing dollars for one savvy entrepreneur. Vernon Alcoser has cornered the mobile market at two Bronx schools, where students pay $1 a day to keep their cell phones in the trucks he parks nearby. "It's better than trying to sneak your phone in," said Tatyana James, a freshman at Herbert H. Lehman High School who pays Alcoser's company, Pure Loyalty Electronic Device Storage, to baby-sit her BlackBerry during class. As far as Alcoser knows, his phone storage trucks are the city's first. Parked across from Lehman on E. Tremont Ave. and DeWitt Clinton High...

British health officials are hard at work on a new app that will allow users to pee into their cell phones and find out within minutes if they have an STD."

"Vintage film shows woman holding what? Filmmaker says he's 'stumped' by image he calls 1928 cell phone Shades of the flux capacitor. Millions of people have watched a video by a Belfast filmmaker who thinks he has discovered a "time traveler" walking and talking on a cell phone in behind-the-scenes footage of the 1928 opening of a Charlie Chaplin film. "I was kind of stumped by what I saw," George Clarke says in his YouTube video, "I kept winding it back … and I couldn't explain this. Nobody can give me an explanation as to what it is." The video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Y6a4T2tJaSU[Edit:...

An Irish filmmaker has uncovered irrefutable evidence of the viability of time travel: a shot of a woman jabbering into a cellphone in a Charlie Chaplin silent film. George Clarke, the Belfast director of the independent zombie film, "Battle of the Bone," spotted the time traveler in the DVD extra footage of the 1928 Academy Award winning film, "The Circus." He uploaded the clip to YouTube on Oct. 19, and it has since been viewed 1.5 million times.

Perhaps she really is a time-traveller, sent back through the decades to make a jaw-dropping cameo appearance. Or maybe she was a maverick genius, secretly testing out advanced technology for the government and caught on camera at the wrong moment.

We must have solved all our other problems if the Obama administration is aiming at cell-phone use while driving. In his interview with Bloomberg, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says he may push for an all-out ban on the practice, even when conducted by “hands-free” technology, depending on the results of research LaHood is authorizing. Perhaps he should also research jurisdiction and enforcement as well (via The Week): LaHood, whose campaign against texting and making calls while driving has led to restrictions in 30 states, says his concerns extend to vehicle information and entertainment systems such as Ford Motor Co.’s Sync...

"... Kerfye Pierre, a 27-year-old Maryland woman, said she received a $30,000 bill from T-Mobile for texting and e-mailing in Haiti after the earthquake..."

It is big news everywhere. Did Brett Favre really hit on the hot news woman? Did he send things he should not have sent? Will the NFL investigation result in suspension? Here is a tasteful YouTube song about the event. BRETT FAVRE THROWS UNWANTED PASS

Yesterday, some T-Mobile stores began selling its newest mobile device, the G2, an Android-based smart phone originally slated for an October 6 release while AT&T is slated to release it later in the year. This device truly is representative of the next generation of mobile devices. The hardware capabilities surpass the abilities of most available netbook computers, including the ability to play High Definition video seamlessly. Unfortunately, the G2 also comes with built-in hardware that restricts what software a device owner might wish to install.Specifically, one of the microchips embedded into the G2 prevents device owners from making permanent changes...

The traffic version of Willard Scott and Al Roker will be coming soon to the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway. Motorists on the state’s two biggest highways will be provided high-tech traffic "forecasts" to alert them about potential bottlenecks before they happen. Using complex computer models that have been said to predict traffic flows with up to 93 percent accuracy, the Turnpike Authority plans to put its new "Traffic Prediction Tool" into use early next year. Drivers would see the forecasts on existing highway message signs or via e-mail or text. Motorists get real-time alerts now, but...

INDIANAPOLIS -- A former hospital worker is suing Clarian Health after she claims her supervisor made her complete Christian-based homework. Dana Wilson worked at Clarian Arnett Hospital in Lafayette in April 2009 as a phlebotomist, a technician that oversees blood draws...

News Corp. Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch is embarking on an ambitious plan for a new national digital newspaper to be distributed exclusively as paid content for tablet computers such as Apple Inc.'s iPad and mobile phones. The initiative, which would directly compete with the New York Times, USA Today and other national publications, is the latest attempt by a major media organization to harness sexy new devices to reach readers who increasingly consume their news on the go. The development underscores how the iPad is transforming the reading habits of consumers much like the iPod changed how people listen to...

A woman in Ohio using her cell phone to videotape police questioning her boyfriend caused deputies to fear for their lives because she could have easily been holding a “cell-phone gun.” After all, cell-phone guns have become the latest rage in the criminal underworld; everyday occurrences that threaten officers at every turn. At least according to Delaware County Sheriff Walter L. Davis III: "In a statement, Delaware County Sheriff Walter L. Davis III said that cell-phone guns are an example of everyday items that have been altered into deceptive weapons that endanger the safety of officers and the public." However,...

SNIPPET: "Police are working to figure out the origin of the rocket that was fired from the Gaza Strip Saturday evening and exploded near Kibbutz Nahal Oz, without causing damage or injures. A total of four rockets and two mortar shells were fired at Israel on Saturday, causing no injuries. An initial examination revealed that the rocket fired at Nahal Oz was manufactured using professional means, most likely outside of the borders of the Gaza Strip. The rocket had a diameter of 115 millimeters, and police sappers were working to locate fragments of it to be tested."

SNIPPET: "A gunman threatened to detonate a car bomb and claimed links to al-Qaida while robbing an American Express office on the Magnificent Mile this afternoon, police said. About 4:20 p.m., a man approached a female employee in the American Express travel service office at 605 N. Michigan Ave. at first trying to buy euros and showing her a gun in his waistband as he demanded money, said Near North District Captain Leo Crotty." SNIPPET: "The man, described as 6 feet tall, 200 pounds and possibly of Middle Eastern descent, went on to instruct all the office employees they had...