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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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: CHP Zero Tolerance Day

California Highway Patrol officers cited 216 motorists on February 8th for violating California cell phone laws. 52 verbal warnings were issued and two motorists were arrested for DUIs while being stopped for cell phone violations. February 8th was designated “Zero Tolerance Day” by the CHP. Last year the Zero Tolerance period was for 2 days, with 588 citations. That doesn’t seem like a lot if you consider how large the state of California is and how many drivers there are. Read the rest of this entry »

photo credit: Cell Phones Found in California Prisons

California prison inmates are keeping up with technology. According to an article by Leslie Horn, PCMagazine, California State Senator Padilla said that California prison officials confiscated 261 cell phones in 2006, a number that jumped to 6,995 in 2009 and 10,761 in 2010. And on January 6, 2011, Charles Manson was caught with a camera phone in his prison cell in California’s Corcoran State Prison. (Mansion is serving consecutive life sentences for the murder of actress Sharon Tate and six others in 1969.) Read the rest of this entry »

photo credit: California Takes Back Cell Phones

California Governor Jerry Brown has directed the Great Take-Back to start June 1, 2011. Currently there are over 96,000 cell phones used by California State workers and paid for by the State. According to Lynette Luna, FierceMobileIT, Governor Brown estimates that the confiscations will result in the state saving $20 million annually. In addition, Brown wants every state department and agency to examine and justify all cell phone usage. He reasons that even with a 50-percent reduction, one-fifth of all state employees will still have cell phones. And he thinks that is too much.

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

photo credit: Cell Phones in California Prison

California prison officials seized nearly 7,000 cell phones last year. This growing problem is being addressed by a bill sponsored by Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla of Los Angeles. The bill would impose a $5000 for smuggling a cell phone into a California prison. Read the rest of this entry »

photo credit: Got Charge?

Just 2 days after the earthquake of January 12, 2010 hit Haiti, the first ever EIR (Emergency Information Service) was set up and in place to help. The goal was to provide SMS messaging on cell phones to the disaster-torn country. Working with InSTEDD, the Haitians were able to sign up for a free subscription to the Digicel and Comcel networks to receive our free Creole-language alerts. Read the rest of this entry »

photo credit: No Texting

The U.S. DOT (Department of Transportation) clamps down on truckers and bus drivers. Commercial drivers now face a fine of up to $2,500 for texting or using hand held cell phones while driving. Read the rest of this entry »