photo credit: Cloud Print from Cell Phones

Google launched Google Cloud Print for mobile phones on January 31st. It is a service that allows you to use your Gmail account on your cell phone to print to a cloud print enabled printer. Imagine how convenient that will be for commuters or business travelers.

“Let’s say you need to print an important email attachment on your way to work so that it’s waiting for you when you walk in the door. With Gmail for mobile and Google Cloud Print—a service that allows printing from any app on any device, OS or browser without the need to install drivers—you can,” Google wrote in its Official Gmail Blog. Read the rest of this entry »

photo credit: Top Virtuous Cell Phones

Wonder what impact your cell phone has on the environment? GoodGuide has just published a report rating the top 5 “virtuous” cell phones. The ratings are based upon not only environmentally safe practices, but also takes into consideration the social attributes as well? “Social attributes?” you may ask. This rating has to do with the safety and labor policies of the company manufacturing the cell phones. GoodGuide ranks individual models and manufacturers on 3 levels: health, environment, and social attributes. 576 phone models were rated.

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photo credit: Link-to-Cell Cordless Phones

Link-to-cell technology may bring new life back to your home phone system. Have you given up your land line phone? Are you a mobile phone only user? The latest technology for cordless phones may just change your mind. Let’s face it—sometimes your cell phone just doesn’t get the reception at home that your land line phone did. Would you like to have the best of both worlds? The link-to-cell cordless phones may be your answer. Read the rest of this entry »

photo credit: Southern California Storms Take Out Phone Service

100,000 customers throughout California lost land line phone service during severe storms. The state declared emergencies in numerous California counties, including Riverside and San Bernardino. During the storms between December 17 to January 4, storms soaked through to underground cables, disrupting service. AT&T had 70,000 complaints at the peak of the storm; Verizon had 32,000. Normally these outages are fixed within 24 hours, according to the PUC’s service quality standards. During this two and a half week storm period, AT&T and Verizon were unable to fix 90% of outages within that 24 hour window. Some customers were without phone service for as much as twelve days. Many of those people did not have cell phones. Read the rest of this entry »

photo credit: This Alert is Only a Test

The FCC has approved a presidential alert system. This means that starting fairly soon, the Emergency Alert System (EAS) will be testing an alert that may show President Obama coming on your TV screen or mobile phone to warn you about terrorist alert. It will be much like the testing we saw as kids, “This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. This is only a test.” And then the screen would go blank or wavy, and a buzzing would sound out for a few moments. Of course this will be a more sophisticated alert, with a broadcast message from President Obama.

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photo credit: Thermal Imaging Cell Phones

The US Department of Defense is soliciting developers for thermal vision in cell phone cameras and PDAs. According to an article posted by Tuan Mai, Wired, Darpa, the research and development office for the U.S. Department of Defense, sent out the solicitation request on January 24th, with the intention of filling a shortfall for a cheap and efficient, individualized and mobile form of heat vision to detect enemies in low visibility environments. For those of us who are not savvy about these kinds of things, it’s based on infrared camera technology. Firms have until March 9 to respond to DARPA’s RFP for the LCTI-M program. Read the rest of this entry »

photo credit: Pay-by-Smartphone

Rumor has it that Apple is planning to introduce pay-by-phone on the next generation of iPhones and iPads. The new technology would allow you to use your iPhone or iPad to pay for products or services just like using your credit card. This could effectively reduce the number of plastic credit cards you need to carry in your wallet. Read the rest of this entry »

photo credit: Google Body Map

Google is hosting the Google Android Event in Mountain View, California today. The announcement and demonstration of the Honeycomb Android 3.0 OS is one of the biggest highlights for the event. Andy Rubin started off the event with this to say, “We’re really excited to show off Android Honeycomb. We’ll have a demo of the Motorola Xoom running Honeycomb. Briefly, let me talk a bit about how excited I am. We consider ourselves to be the shepherd of it. With open source you don’t know what people are doing to do with it. The innovation is all around us. There’s a lot of excitement. When you see Hugo’s demo, you’ll witness how Google’s cloud services tie together all these different devices. The cloud makes all these things work. The cloud helps all these services share this information. I truly believe the Android team — the guys in Building 44 — I truly believe they’re the hardest working team in mobile.” Read the rest of this entry »

photo credit: Facebook Phone

In late January, FoxNews.com/Gadgets reported there would be a new HTC Facebook phone launched this month. FoxNews obviously didn’t do their homework. Not only did they announce that the new Facebook phone would be launched this month in Barcelona, but the photo they shared was a mock-up of an iPhone rather than the HTC phone they reported would be launched. (See photo.) After doing some more thorough research, FoxNews posted another story the very next day stating the Facebook phone rumors were false. (Guess they had a bit of egg on their face…) Read the rest of this entry »

photo credit: Use Smartphone to Pay

Do you want to pay for things through your mobile phone? You’re not alone. Mobile carriers, device manufacturers and point-of-sale (POS) vendors also want you to pay in this convenient way. After all, if it is convenient, you’ll possibly spend more money. Payment providers like Amex, Visa, and MasterCard are on top of the idea of mobile payments in a big way. Read the rest of this entry »