The “Death by Cellphone” series is heartbreaking. Accidents caused by driving while using a cellphone is a no brainer yet people still do it. I guess the emotional trauma is abstract to those who do not understand the loss of a loved one due to bring a victim of mobile phone carelessness. The Distracted Driving site aims to spread the awareness of cellphone hazards while driving, showcasing stories from the family members of car accident victims due to mobile phone distraction.

The fact sheet actually says it all. Here is an excerpt:

# Using cell phones while driving is a very high risk behavior with significant impact on crashes and society. More than 50 peer-reviewed scientific studies have identified the risks associated with cell phone use while driving.

# Drivers who use cell phones are four times more likely to be in a crash while using a cell phone. (1997 New England Journal of Medicine examination of hospital records and 2005 Insurance Institute for Highway Safety study linking crashes to cell phone records).

# There is no difference in the cognitive distraction between hand-held and hands-free devices. (Simulator studies at the U. of Utah.)

# Cell phone use contributes to an estimated 6 percent of all crashes, which equates to 636,000 crashes, 330,000 injuries, 12,000 serious injuries and 2,600 deaths each year. (Harvard Center of Risk Analysis).

[image c/o Distracted Driving]

Post from: Cellphone9

I want to believe that this is how it should work, but in practice, it could offer hassles. Let me give you an example.

Where I’m from, I’m able to purchase and download apps from my local iTunes store (Philippines). When I want to download and subscribe to new podcasts however, the system won’t allow me unless I login to the USA store. The problem arises when I do OTA downloads of apps once again from my iPod touch — I’ll get an error message saying that the feature is only limited to the PH store.

Hassle?

[image c/o Share on Ovi website]

Post from: Cellphone9

This rule was broken by teens and love bugs. And today, in a recent study, SMS for teeens in America is gaining ground to be jsut as, if not more popular than calls. No surprise here. Call me weird but …. for young adults, SMS provides a more mysterious and exciting way to interact with friends and crushes. In fact, teens are already affected with SMS replies that don’t end with a period or a smiley in the end. The entire meaning of a message can change if a smiley is omitted.

Post from: Cellphone9

Remember how Nokia revamped their user interface at the Go Play event? Well Sony Ericsson is doing the same thing with their experimental XPERIA X1. Using an iPhone-like touch screen interface, the XPERIA series is SE’s answer to the Nseries multimedia phones of Nokia. The main underlying difference is that the XPERIA, at least with the X1 is running on a modded version of Windows Mobile 6 (the same way the HTC Touch has a different home screen interface).

The home screen uses custom widgets on a grid so you can view all your personalized data on the fly in a rather elegant fashion. Specs below:

Features include:
Windows Mobile 6
3-inch wide VGA (800 x 480) touchscreen display
3.2 megapixel camera
A2DP Bluetooth
GPS
WiFi and HSDPA connectivity
microSD expansion with 400MB on board memory

The video preview of the user interface is Apple inspired, definitely. If they get this to work, there’s some serious competition – not just because of aesthetics but also due to the fact that it runs Windows Mobile.

Post from: Cellphone9

There are two types of phone users: those that buy phones based on pure aesthetics alone and those that buy based on features and benefits. The Samsung-Armani Phone is an affordable piece of elegant technology that was recently launched in Asia. The phone retails for PHP 26,000.00 or roughly US$600 to $700 (the dollar has recently weakened against Peso currency. The “old” price would have been $500.00). Still not bad for a luxury / fashion phone. The Armani P520 is a credit card sized touch screen phone that hails of iPhone inspiration. It is one of Samsung’s few touchscreen phones that actually, as a technophile – would buy if it had 802.11g wireless Internet capabilities. But it doesn’t Nonetheless, the phone is still pretty decent offering more fashion for less the price.

Read on for full specs and photos.

Technical Specs:
Tri-band(900, 1800, 1900 MHz)
EDGE GPRS 10
87.5 X 54.5 X 9.9 mm / 85g
Talk time : Up to 4 hours
Stand-by : Up to 180 hours
60MB with MicroSD support
Bluetooth technology v 2.0 + EDR
USB 2.0
260K 2.6” TFT
Full Touch Screen
3.2 Megapixel (4x Digital Zoom)
Video Recording & Play (MPEG4, 3GP, H.263)
MP3, MIDI, AAC, AAC+

Post from: Cellphone9

So you’ve always wanted to be Darth Vader. You’ve probably done this several times – walk up to a motion sensitive door and flick your hand as the glass door slides open. Well, Windows Mobile 7 does exactly that. No, not open doors – but the built in camera does more than take your photos. The camera is motion sensitive, allowing you to make simple hand gestures to execute a few basic commands.

This is rather interesting as the iPhone as well as other phone manufacturers are slowly taking the accelerometer route ala Nintendo Wii. Windows Mobile is begging to do something different. It’s too early to say anything now – remember the critics that put down the Wii’s motion sensitive concept – they may be eating their words.

Read more about this development here.

Post from: Cellphone9

With gaming becoming a core model in mobile phones (just look at the repackaged Nokia N-Gage platform), there is still an unadmitted obtrusion to the entire gaming experience turned miniature: phones aren’t really made to play games.

Zeeto’s Zeemote concept might change that as the Bluetooth enabled controller that resembles the Wii nunchuck finally received funding worth $6.9 million.

Post from: Cellphone9

I wrote about how Nokia now has a page with plugins for iSync. The list of phones is rather comprehensive but not complete. I happened to chance upon the Mactomster – a site that has released a series of iSync plugins for several phone brands and models. Here is the list from their website taken December 2007. These are brands ranging from Sony Ericsson, Samsung and Nokia. The site is a must visit for Mac users who need to make their phones work with iSync.

Here is the list:

Nokia iSync-PlugIns for 10.4 Tiger & 10.5 Leopard
N-Series: N75, N76, N77 , N81, N81 8GB, N82, N92, N93i, N95, N95 8GB
E-Series: E50, E51, E60, E61i, E65, E70, E90
Series40: 3109 Classic, 3110 Classic, 5200, 5300, 5310, 5610, 6085, 6125, 6151, 6233, 6234, 6288, 6300, 6301, 6500 Classic, 6500 Slide, 6555, 7373, 7390, 7500 Prism, 7900 Prism, 8600 Luna
Series60: 3250, 5500, 5700, 6110 Navigator, 6120 classic, 6290
Series80: 9300, 9500 Communicator

SonyEricsson iSync-PlugIns for 10.4 Tiger & 10.5 Leopard
K-Series: K320i, K510i, K530i, K550i, K630i, K770i, K810i, K850i
S-Series: S500i
T-Series: T650
V-Series: V630i, V640i
W-Series: W310i, W380i, W580i, W610i, W660i, W700i, W710i, W880i, W890i, W910i, W960i
Z-Series: Z310i, Z550i, Z710i

Samsung iSync-PlugIns for 10.4 Tiger & 10.5 Leopard
D-Serie: SGH-D520, SGH-D800, SGH-D820, SGH-D840, SGH-D900i
E-Serie: SGH-E250, SGH-E730, SGH-E900
F-Serie: SGH-F300
P-Serie: SGH-P300, SGH-P310,
X-Serie: SGH-X700, SGH-X830
Z-Serie: SGH-Z630

Price: €7,49 (including 19 % tax)

Post from: Cellphone9

Nowadays, a touch screen phone like the LG Viewty would necessitate certain features like wireless Internet. Unfortunately the nice big screen of this Viewty KU990 model is laid to waste as it doesn’t support WiFi.

Oh no. Did I just put the phone down in the first paragraph? Well, in fairness to aesthetics, LG has always been innovative with its real estate design, as seen with the LG Chocolate. The LG Viewty is supposed to be a phone that does not compete with such models like the iPhone or Nokia N series. It seems to be a fashion phone, primarily, with some neat features like photo editing and YouTube video viewing. It also has a nice 5MP camera. Xenon flash seems to be the new trend with camera phones as this is the same thing equipped on the Nokia N82. It’s so good, CNET has this to say:

Many camera phones take good pictures but don’t look that great themselves — fortunately the LG KU990 Viewty is not an ugly camera phone. In fact, we can go so far as to say it’s one of the best-looking camera phones we’ve seen so far. [CNET Review]

From the reviews online, the Viewty seems to be a good camera phone – if that’s all you’re looking for. I really suggest they improve on this model further by adding other productivity features such as wireless Internet and BlackBerry email. That would kill.

Photo courtesy of CNET.

Post from: Cellphone9

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Post from: Cellphone9