cellphones

Wise question. I wish I had asked it before leaving my phone and two years worth of numbers in a taxi. Fortunately, backup systems abound. If you go through cellphones like toilet paper, try the Universal Pro kit ($80; datapilot.com). It includes cables that let you transfer data to your computer from just about any phone, and it syncs with Microsoft Outlook.

Last week, we reported on the good that can come from text-messaging in the context of NGOs using it to build community in developing nations. Now were seeing a story on SMS with a decidedly less altruistic bent. In the past two years, Sweden has seen the birth and rapid rise in popularity of SMS loans.

A group of independent software developers claims to be close to loosening Apples reins over the software that can run on the iPhone once and for all. Apple announced recently that it plans to start releasing software made by third party developers in June. First, though, those applications will be checked, and then sold or given away free (whichever the developer chooses) directly by Apple, either through iTunes or a virtual store on the phone itself.

But if the independent group, known as the iPhone Dev Team, has its way, that strict outline is going to be shaken up a bit.

To spend our precious time here together moaning about how royally screwed up our cellphone companies are here in the States would at this point be too easy. You know the drill: Half-assed handsets, crippled functionality, spotty signals, dumbfounding user interfaces, outrageously priced call plans, incomprehensible outsourced customer service reps from a far-off land, and lets not even talk about the indentured servitude contracts. No, the topic is cliché at this point, so today Id like to take a positive spin on things.

Most of us think of text-messaging (or SMS—for Short Message Service) as the medium of teenagers, which they use to gossip, pass wireless notes in class, and spread bad spelling habits. The people behind the nGOmobile competition see it differently. They see it as a simple and effective communications tool for the developing world. While most people in those areas do not have access to the Internet or to computers, the cellphone market is expanding there rapidly. And while they may not have the ability to watch YouTube on their phones, they are able to send messages to places previously unreachable.

The competition asked NGOs to think of ways SMS messaging could aid in their work.

Forgot your charger? No problem. Scientists have developed a microfiber fabric that can generate enough electricity to juice up a cell phone or a mini-music player. If turned into clothing, the fabric would get its power from the action of your daily movement. The material uses zinc-oxide nanowires that are arranged in pairs—one wire in each grouping is coated with gold, and serves as the electrode. When the fabric moves, the wires move and bend, and the fabric translates this mechanical energy into electricity.

Sure, there have been a few studies backing this idea before, but its one of those conclusions that you can never really hear enough: cell phones do not increase your risk of brain cancer.

A financial analyst announced yesterday that more than 25 percent of people who bought an iPhone have chosen to stay away from AT&T, and are enjoying their new gadgets through other wireless networks instead.

Nokia's timing couldn't have been any better when the revised and enhanced U.S. version of its flagship N95 smartphone (the N95-3) went on sale last week-just days after the iPhone's 1.1.1 firmware update officially shut down third-party apps and rendered useless many iPhones that had been unlocked.

Click here to launch the slideshow.

Few places are more materialistic than Las Vegas, with its grandiose hotels and stacks of cash. But at last week's CTIA (Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association) convention-which showcased several acres of upcoming cellphone and wireless technology-the focus was less on material goods than on what you can do with them. The exhibits boasted no gotta-get-it-now phone, but they did promise many ways to do more with the phone you already have. From file-sharing to postcard-making, the latest possibilities go far beyond mere talk.

Now that you can play live poker with friends in other cities, trawl for cyberfish, or woo virtual girlfriends—all on your cellphone—calling someone seems almost passé. Mobile gaming is booming. The typical carrier already offers hundreds of downloadable games, and sales are expected to jump from $72 million (last year) to $430 million by 2009. With more than 140 million U.S.

The next time someone asks who´s on the line, you can say it´s Bono, because 2005 is shaping up to be the year of the music phone. Previously, phones that played music had limited storage, and queuing up a song was cumbersome. But as carriers roll out MP3-friendly high-speed cellphone networks, phone manufacturers have been inspired to boost memory and design phones with dedicated play buttons, built-in speakers, FM transmitters and graphic equalizers. In other words, they´re functional MP3 players.

They fell for each other in grade school, in the sweetest of ways. In fifth-grade music class, she played saxophone; he played the snare drum. In high school biology, she held the frog while he wielded the scalpel. It was the sort of love story immortalized endlessly in romance novels and Top 40 long-distance dedications. “I thought when I married him it really would be ’till death do us part,’ ” she says now, still surprised that the marriage ended after 19 years. Ultimately, the romance had sputtered to a close, as so many love stories do.

My passenger in the Ford Taurus I'm driving suggests we skip through Bob Dylan's "Positively 4th Street." It's not my favorite song either. I start to fiddle with the CD player in the instrument panel. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I see that I'm running off the road into a ditch at 60 mph.