As you all know today is Earth Day. To celebrate Earth Day just about all the major cell phone manufacturers are providing a place for their customers to recycle their old cell phones. If you’re like me you probably have even more than one or two cell phones sitting around your house that are ready for recycling.
Even though recycling is the correct thing to do I’m sure there are plenty of people that just throw their old phones in the garbage. I’m interested to hear if you actually recycle your old cell phone(s) or just throw it in the garbage?
I remember when I was a kid I was into toys such as He-Man and GI Joe, boy have times changed. The kid in the video below is seriously addicted to his dad’s iPhone. So addicted in fact that he cries when he doesn’t have it in his hands. I wonder if the first words out of his mouth were iPhone? And you thought Joe the Camel was targeted to under age kids.
With the huge popularity of cell phones you find someone talking on their cell phone just about anywhere. There is a proper time and place to talk on your cell phone and there isn’t. Here’s a list of places you shouldn’t be talking on your cell phone.
Public Bathroom – why o why do people insist on talking on their cell phone while going to the bathroom in a public restroom? Don’t they realize that everyone can hear what they’re saying word for word? When I’m sitting on the pot the last thing I want to hear is somebody talking on the phone. Why not use your cell phone for what it is meant for when going to the bathroom, texting, email, IM, reading news and playing games.
Movie Theatres – move theatres have gone through steps to help stop the use of cell phones during movies, but you still get people that just don’t learn. When you see the message at the beginning of the movie that says don’t use your phone, don’t use it! Even more annoying then the person whispering on the phone is the distracting light coming from the phone. In a pitch black theatre the light coming from the cell phone almost lightens up the entire movie theatre. You people make me angry.
Airplane - if you’re going to use your phone on the airplane you should only be on it for a minute max (both before take-off and after landing). The only reason you should use it is to tell your friend/family that the flight is going to take off and that you arrived, that’s it! I don’t want to hear how you think you’re going to land a million dollar deal or that you’re going to get super drunk and do crazy things when you get off the plane. I’ve been sitting in a plane for 3 hours and the last thing I want to hear is your conversation. Pay attention to powering down your phone so we can leave on time and putting it away so everyone can get off the flight.
During Sex – I don’t care if it’s your mother, your father, your parole officer or anyone else, if you’re in the middle of having sex (or even just started following around a second ago) you do not pick up your cell phone. LET THE PHONE RING, it won’t kill you.
At the pool or beach – both places deal with the whole rest and relaxation idea. If I’m at a place where I’m relaxing I don’t want to hear someone elses phone conversation. I either want to hear the waves or the sounds of the pool, that’s it.
Bluetooth In the car - Bluetooth in the car is great, trust me, I’m the first one to admit it. However, it’s not cool when you have other people in your car that can listen to your conversation. You might think it’s cool, but it only makes it uncomfortable for the passengers. Warning: you might not know what the person who’s calling you is going to say, you don’t want to be embarrassed in front of everyone. Play it safe and pick up the call or use an earpiece.
Funeral – need I say more, I’ve seen it happen. We wouldn’t want to see a second funeral.
During a meeting – OK, this is more from a texting perspective. I just hate it when I’m at a meeting and people are using their cell phones. Can we have a little respect here. By you using your phone it’s telling me that you don’t give a damn what anyone is saying. Worst yet, when you should be answering the question or speaking up you don’t because you’re too busy using your phone. Every company should implement a cell phone drop box outside of the conference rooms. You can pick up your phones after the meeting, thank you very much.
Grocery store – if you’re suppose to use two hands when driving then why do you think it’s OK to use one hand while driving a shopping cart. People that use their phone while grocery shopping are truly indangering those around them. They take a year and a half to push their carts around and often run into other shoppers. Not to mention when checking out it takes FOREVER. Nothing like watching the person in front of you talking on their phone while unloading their cart one item at a time. Grocery stores are for getting in and getting out, not socializing.
Amusement park ride – the phone will instantly fly out of your hand when you finally get it out of your pocket or purse, I promise. Wait until the ride is over if you value your phone.
Did I miss anything? If there are any other places that you just wish people did not talk on their cell phones let me know by posting it in a comment.
As cell phones become more and more advanced users are flooded with more and more features. You can do everything from take a picture on your cell phone to talking via Bluetooth to listening to music. There are also thousands of apps you can download to your phone. Apps that allow you to Twitter, play games, discover what song you’re listening to even a leveler (to know if something is straight or not). With so many features and applications there isn’t enough time in the day to use them all. My question to you is, besides talking on the phone what are the 3 main things you use your cell phone for?
There are tons of different technologies and applications available for cell phones today, but there is still a long ways to go. Here is a list of technologies that I wish were available in my cell phone (in no particular order):
1. Ability to scan tickets directly from your cell phone – airplane tickets, concert tickets, move tickets, etc.
2. Flash light – I know there are applications that supposedly could do this, but why not put a high powered flashlight in a cell phone
3. A knife – not many people carry swiss army knives anymore so why not put a knife in a cell phone. There are tons of situations that car keys just don’t do the trick. With different companies getting into cell phones I think a Swiss Army cell phone should be in the works
4. Car key/starter – with more and more cars using push button starters who needs a physical key anymore. Why not have the ability to open and start your car with your cell phone
5. Tire gauge – this would be a combo of a new USB plug and application. Plug the phone into your tire with a special USB plug and have the tire pressure read out on your phone.
6. Scale -I’m not going to go into the practicality of this, but I’m just saying if you were into weighing things of an illegal nature this would be the perfect fit. (use your imagination)
7. Remote control – how many remote controls do you have? I’m sure a million. How great would it be if you could just use your cell phone to control all your electronics (TV, stereo, etc.)
8. Scan business cards – this would be a good addition to Blackberrys. How many times do you get business cards and have no idea what to do with. Sure they make business card scanners, but why not have it available as part of your phone. A small slot in the phone where you could quickly insert a card and a copy would be made and stored on your phone. Viola!
9. Mirror – this would be an application that turns your phone’s screen into a mirror.
10. Radar detector – just about every phone has a GPS built-in, why not add a radar detector.
If you have any others that I missed feel free to let me know in the comments section.
There is a Twitter app available for just about every cell phone. Below I’ve put together a list of Twitter applications for various phones and mobile operating system. If I’m missing any let me know and I’ll add them to the list. I’m curious to see what everyone is using out there. Comment and let everyone know what phone you have and what Twitter app you’re using.
I usually don’t talk about pop culture much, but I saw this picture and thought it would be fun to post. And you thought Blackberry’s were only for sending emails and texting. This is a picture of Jennifer Garner’s kid Violet Affleck having a little fun with mommies Blackberry.
With all the buzz around smartphones why not boil down the cell phone to it’s simplest form, a phone. I’m sure there are plenty of people out there that would love to simple have a "mobile phone". Forget about the camera, ability to surf the web, text, etc. Just a phone that could be used to make/receive calls. That got me thinking, why not make the worlds smallest phone.
How could this be accomplished you may ask? It would be a simple combination of three existing technologies, cell phone + headset + voice recognition software. The device would be a cell phone headset. To operate the phone all you would have to do is give voice commands similar to using a cell phone’s Bluetooth feature in a car. You could either push a button on the headset to activate the phone or do it via voice command. You would then simply have to say the number you wish to dial and the headset would dial the number. It would be that simple. When someone calls you the headset would either say who’s calling you (if you have the number stored) or would announce the number. At that point you could either push a button on the headset ot answer the phone or simply say, “answer”. Maybe a simple program could be written that would allow you to enter a phone book into the headset. All you would have to do is plug the headset into a docking station which could connect to your computer.
I have no idea if a headset phone has been invited yet, but if it hasn’t I think it would be an awesome idea. Anyone out there can feel free to use my idea. All I ask is for a little credit once it’s been built and released.
Twitter is growing by leaps and bounds every week. If you haven’t jumped on the Twitter bandwagon yet then I suggest you do. Everybody is talking about Twitter these days from television to print to blogs. There have been tons of mentions of Twitter on popular television programs like Access Hollywood and E!. I was even surprised when the moderator of “Meet The Press”, David Gregory, mentioned that you could follow him on Twitter after the show. When Twitter gets a mention on a serious Sunday morning political show then you know it’s made it.
The main stay of Twitter is the use of Twitter via your computer, but there are tons of free twitter applications that you can now download to your cell phone. I personally use Twidroid for my T-Mobile G1. I downloaded the application for free via the Android Marketplace. When someone I’m following writes a tweet I automatically receive a notification of my phone. It’s that simple! Some cell phones even have a Twitter application preinstalled. Since there are so many people using Twitter it’s inevitable that people will become addicted to sending tweets on their cell phone. My question is, what will be the term for a Twitter addict that uses Twitter all the time on their cell phone? Of course we have the term Crackberry for Blackberry users that can’t put down their Blackberrys. Here are some terms I though of, Twidict (twitter + addict), Tweetberry (someone who uses twitter on their blackberry), iTweeter (someone who uses Twitter on their iPhone). If you have any terms that describe a Twitter addict that uses Twitter on their cell phone post them in the comments section.
In case you haven’t noticed I’m been postless for about two weeks now. It all started two weeks ago with a headache and before I knew it I had a full blow flu. I went to the doctor and the only thing the doctor said was that I had to wait it out. Thanks doc! Well after two weeks, today is the first day I can look at a monitor without my head starting to spin.
A lot has gone on in the cell phone world over the past two weeks and I’m not about to rehash everything now. I’ll let the past be the past and continue on from here. There were a number of new phones announced so I’ll make sure to add them to the site. Well, I’m back and I look forward to getting back to writing posts. Have a great night everyone.
