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It's only a requirement in the US, and it doesn't use GPS.

It is a requirement in the US, but whether it is a requirement anyplace else I don't know, and don't care. For the latter, you're wrong.

GPS would be a waste of time for this, because it would either need to be on all the time

Sorry, wrong again. You can turn a GPS off and it will still find itself when you turn it on later. There is no need for it to be on all the time, just when you dial 911. It isn't the same GPS receiver that the apps use, it's a special chip that doesn't take as long to get a fix. You can read more about it here and here and here. Note that the last link is from 2002 -- 11 years ago.

or only enabled in response to an emergency call and need a good ten minutes to get a lock from cold.

Well, yes it is enabled when you dial 911, but it certainly doesn't require anything like ten minutes to get a fix. If your GPS takes ten minutes to get a fix, then you are using a very very very old GPS unit. The last time I turned my Garmin 60CSx on (two days ago) it had a fix in less than a minute and a good fix in two. That was after sitting idle for six months. Remember, the first part of the problem is getting the time, and cell phones get good time info from the cell system.

Although tantalum capacitors are used widely in PCs, they are not essential. Niobium (columbium) has no significant use in PCs AFAIK. Your broader point is correct.

I also said cell phones, and notice one of the links I provided is from cellular-news.com. What I didn't mention was all the other things we take for granted that use coltan and other rare earth mineral. Quite simple the US has little of the rare earth minerals and has to import most of it. I think given the tyme necessary the US can solve these problems, however even then it may be imported people (immigrants) who do it.

Falcon

In what way? I actually contend the opposite, international trade helps most people. The less paid for an item the more money people have. That money can be used to buy other items, pay down debt, or be invested. Of course, until recently, people here in the US lived beyond their means. They continuously borrowed money the buy more stuff.

As for Walmart/Sam's, Walmart now has stores in China. And Chinese make enough money to buy from Walmart, as well as upscale stores. I don't recall what newspaper it was but one reported the first week Apple's new iPhone was available in China more than 1 million were sold there. Seeing as Apple products are only affordable to the wealthy, there are a lot of wealthy people in China. And those people buy American products sending money to the US. Another American company making money in China is Caterpillar, which builds construction equipment in Indiana employing thousands of people. John Deere based in IL does business in Brazil, China, and around the world. There are many other US based multinational businesses who also are in Brazil, China, India, and Russia (BRIC) helping employ more American workers.

And without international trade you would not be using a PC, or a cell phone. The US does not have a ready supply of a number of metals used to make these products. A major source of Coltan, columbite–tantalite, is Congo. Unfortunately it's mining fuels the conflict there.

GE leads a call to develop rare earth minerals in the US to reduce our dependence on Chinese suppliers. If China wanted to it could shutdown a number of US businesses by stopping exporting these minerals ton the US.

So who's the jerk?

Falcon

Drink-driving is bad and must be placed under strict limits but it is by no means the only impairment to driving. The impairment from driving while using even a handsfree mobile is comparable to a 0.08 BAC. Having an alcohol limit 4 times lower that the limit which causes the same impairment as handsfree mobile use is inconsistent unless you ban them as well. So before getting on your high moral horse perhaps you could let us know why Norway has not banned handsfree mobiles? Perhaps because Norwegians would object strongly to that whereas, due to the massive taxes on alcohol, people are more willing to let that be banned because it affects them less?

Oh - and if you look at the stats you will see that Norway has a lower accident death rate than almost all the EU from all causes and does not report separate drink/driving stats. So the reason you have fewer road deaths has nothing to do with your drink-driving legislation and probably far more to do with population density.

I know that reading TFA flys in the face of /. reason. However, links to Twitter feeds, while verified as "subtel", are not really great story references.

Here is the English translation
"EYE From today cellular phones # # Chile must be sold unlocked. If stock is locked need to unlock your company at no cost"

Sadly, this is the best link I could find with a basic internet search.
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/52450.php

Any other sources out there on this topic?

Cellphone driving bans of one type or another are present in most developed countries. http://www.cellular-news.com/car_bans/.

You are right, although researchers in the USA were amongst the first to document the danger of cellphone usage whilst driving, the USA is a relative late-comer in banning its occurrence, no doubt due to the usual "my voters don't care what science says" attitude of US politicians.

Isn't it beating it by a handy margin now - even with iPads?

No. Only in the US.

Nope. They grew by well over 1,000% in the number of units sold in the last year (I believe back in Aug. it was ~880% from the prior year). They now clearly lead in the UK as well for smartphone OSs. In Australia and Italy iOS and Android are neck and neck (with Android steadily growing) and everywhere else listed on that page, Android is winning over iOS. Android isn't always the winner as Symbian and RIM sometimes take the cake, but I'm just pointing out the current trends. Hell, as of the time of that article it claims over 50% of the US market.

What'd you think would happen on an OS that can be had on any device and any carrier?

part 2.. the references:

77% of iphone 4 purchases were existing iphone users:

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/06/25/77-of-iphone-4-sales-were-upgrades/

Android selling 160,000 units per day:

http://www.cellular-news.com/story/44041.php

sorry forgot to include in previous post

EU, UK

Neither of these allow software patents (despite what the European Patent Office might tell you). Germany does unfornatually but they're not the EU in the same way the UK isn't.

Actually, the wording is closer to "software patents as such". I.e. "software which improves the operation of a computer, but does not necessarily have an external effect, is not excluded from patentability." (from http://www.cellular-news.com/story/35181.php )

That means you can argue that a patent that improves machine performance is legitimate. You could argue VP8 patent-ability hinges on whether its faster in area of application than H.264. Slower, and you can't argue machine performance versus peers, and you get no patent.

Plenty of room for an evil genius patent drafter to write a patent that narrows the domain of application to places where H.264 doesn't run or H.264 runs more slowly.

Of course, perhaps to Slashdot and the media they've "entered", because they seem to have some distorted idea that the mobile phone market consists of Apple in the lead, with the only competition being from Blackberry and Android. The reality is nothing of the sort. (E.g., this random page I found gives Nokia at 35%, Samsung 2nd at 31%, basically a whole load of companies who virtually never get Slashdot coverage - and Apple, who get Daily Iphone Slashvertisements, at 4% - and that's one of the higher estimates I've seen for Apple.)

Well,let's ignore that this page is about the European market, and instead mention that it is about all mobile phones, and not (as you put it) "most". Oh and it also mentions Apple's share amongst smartphones: 24%.

Indeed - Samsung are the 2nd largest phone company in terms of market share (second only to Nokia), and they have plenty of "smart"phones (especially if you use a definition broad enough to include the Iphone - that would include most phones).

Of course, perhaps to Slashdot and the media they've "entered", because they seem to have some distorted idea that the mobile phone market consists of Apple in the lead, with the only competition being from Blackberry and Android. The reality is nothing of the sort. (E.g., this random page I found gives Nokia at 35%, Samsung 2nd at 31%, basically a whole load of companies who virtually never get Slashdot coverage - and Apple, who get Daily Iphone Slashvertisements, at 4% - and that's one of the higher estimates I've seen for Apple.)

Presumably what the article meant to say is that they've entered the smartphone OS wars, in that I believe that previously they'd used off the shelf OSs like Windows Mobile and Android? Comparing to the Iphone or the Droid doesn't make sense, since this is a new OS, it should be compared to OSs such as Symbian and Android (and if they were going to compare to products rather than OS, please, at least pick some of the major sellers rather than ones with small market share).

Way too slow. And it does not account for those most prominent jaywalkers - children.

Instead - put sensors in the middle of the road - except in the areas designated for crossing.
Walk over a sensor - get a fine charged instantly to your mobile phone.

- It would also charge drivers? Not if they turn their phones off - they shouldn't be talking/texting and driving anyway.
- It wouldn't charge people with their phones off or with a protective layer around the phone? Well... If they are really willing to take that much preparation just to cross the street in a non-designated spot... they will probably pay enough attention so as not to be run over by an incoming truck. Which is what jaywalking fine is there to prevent anyway, right?
- It would only charge people with mobile phones? Sure... it might not work great in Myanmar but considering that there are about 3.5 billion users now, with predictions of about 4.5 billion by 2012...
- It would take years to implement? Exactly! By then EVERYONE will have a mobile phone. Or two. Or three.

 
What other minor infringements did you have in mind? Spit it out. Lets get a brainstorming session going.
This IS Slashdot after all. If anyone can cook-up a way to use technology in new and oppressive ways - it's us.

I seem to recall them selling off their PC business to a Chinese company a few years ago, calls itself "Lenovo." In 2007 IBM sold it's printing division to Ricoh; in 2002 it sold its chipset business... All that will be left are a bunch of smart people who tell you what to spend your money on, aside from their gold-plated advice. And those smart people will live and consume wherever it makes sense for them to do so.

But this ignores the constitutional requirement that it promote progress:

To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;

Teles AG says:

Do you have a citation for this (that it's "patent laws are only valid if they promote progress" rather than something silly like "patent laws are assumed to promote progress"), that could maybe be added to Wikipedia? It says

For example, the Court has determined that because the purpose of the clause is to stimulate development of the works it protects, its application cannot result in inhibiting such progress. However, there has been a countervailing strain in the courts that has promoted a varying view.

, but doesn't cite anything for either statement.

Hmm, I see a quote here from a "KSR International v. Teleflex Inc., 04-1350" that seems to agree with sanity, ""The results of ordinary innovation are not the subject of exclusive rights under the patent laws," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the court's opinion. "Were it otherwise patents might stifle rather than promote the progress of useful arts."". Do you know of any more, or where wikipedia might have gotten the "varying view" idea?

Not even close.

You are naive if you think Google is pure like the driven snow. I'm no lover of Microsoft, but I'm no lover of any large corporation. Google's not better than their competitors - they just haven't been big long enough to have done as much bad stuff.

What about patent trolling,

Overall, they're pretty good about this one, but remember - Google's a relatively young company. Their cry for patent reform is in their own interest, since they're much more likely to defend patent suits than prosecute them. They certainly aren't afraid to go after folks they feel have violated their patents. This air duct patent doesn't bode well.

bogus lawsuits,

How about suing Grupa Mlodych Artystow i Literatow for using gmail.pl? Or suing GMail, a pre-existing physical mail service in Europe? Then there's Android Data Services.

astroturfing using the names of dead people,

Oh yes they do. Google hired the very same company that sent letters from dead people.

bogus TCO studies,

They aren't afraid of misleading TCO studies, by counting unpatched, pirated IIS servers as affecting the TCO of Windows Server.

bogus benchmark studies,

They do that, too.

bribing public officials,

There've been allegations of this in China and of media bribery in the US. They're one of the top DNC contributors, as well, which in my view boils down to bribery.

outright lying to the US-DoJ,

Of course they do that.

and so much more.

Sharing board members with nominal competitors, swiping copyrighted work, the whole AdWord thing going on, and so much more.

when i said "the world", i meant outside of US, if only one country considers something a standard, its not much of one

Well, setting aside that the topic of discussion here is specifically North America, your statement depends on which part of the world you're going to. For instance, if you're going to Japan or South Korea your GSM phone isn't going to work. (You can rent a UTMS W-CDMA phone there to use your SIM card in).

Regardless, there are two incompatible standards in effect and it appears they're converging, so skip forward a decade and your 'global' will probably work everywhere.

when i said "the world", i meant outside of US, if only one country considers something a standard, its not much of one

Well, setting aside that the topic of discussion here is specifically North America, your statement depends on which part of the world you're going to. For instance, if you're going to Japan or South Korea your GSM phone isn't going to work. (You can rent a UTMS W-CDMA phone there to use your SIM card in).

Regardless, there are two incompatible standards in effect and it appears they're converging, so skip forward a decade and your 'global' will probably work everywhere.

...In only 3 years almost everybody discontinued their phone subscription - everybody has at least one mobile phone...

Here's the Power of Pee Just 1 example I found.

AT&T plans to help find alternative payphone operators for people who need them. The AT&T decision only applies to 13 states serviced by AT&T (SBC) payphones. AT&T only operates about 65,000 of the 1 million payphones in the US, while Verizon operates about 225,000. AT&T plans to sell as many of the phones and lines to independent operators as they can. They expect the majority of the phones to be bought by someone. They even expect to continue selling wholesale payphone service to payphone owners.

It sounds to me they just decided to let someone else field the equipment. There's a lot of exaggeration around this story, but the facts are all over the web. Death of the payphone, indeed. This reaction is kind of like saying IBM getting out of the consumer laptop and desktop PC market was the end of the Windows computer.

Your numbers are 7 years old, a long long time ago in the mobile world. Now I think that it is closer to 60% - 220 million mobiles

However, in market penetration term, it is pathetic compared to europe. A lot of European countries have above or close to 100% market penetration ( i.e. more than 1 mobile per inhabitant )

See the numbers here: http://www.cellular-news.com/story/21065.php

That said, even with a shitty market penetration, the US is one the biggest market for mobile phone in the world with China ( 400 millions subscribers )

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IPhone Becomes Leading U.S. Smart Phone Model in July
"Based on consumer demand, Apple's brand image, industry anticipation and iSuppli's estimates of volume shipments by manufacturers and the market segment, iSuppli is maintaining its projection that 4.5 million iPhones will ship in 2007, rising to more than 30 million units in 2011, as presented in the attached figure."

Ok, it appears that due to my unfamiliarity with GSM (I understand it broke 50% US market share a year ago, http://www.govtech.com/gt/articles/100821, although CDMA then took 50.3% of the North American market share, breaking 50%, for the first time in Q1 2007, to GSM's 38.5%, http://www.cellular-news.com/story/24950.php), I was not aware that unlocked phones can be used at will on GSM networks with appropriate SIM cards. Can one buy just the SIM card when subscribing to a GSM cellular provider?

And a *coughAmericancough* government was forced to make a specific law on the subject...

And so have a lot of other govt's.

It will be forbidden sooner or later everywhere, just like DUI.
http://www.cellular-news.com/car_bans/

It has too received major attention in the form of legislation in many countries and states. And several vehicle manufacturers have been offering factory-installed hands-free kits for some time now.

Right, keep dreaming. Even countries like Bulgaria have HSDPA (sometimes called G3.5). Note the date - Sept. 2005.

I just got an email from an Asperger group I am a part of here in Philly (my son has Asperger syndrome, which is a slight form of autism) in which they blame ipods and cell phone batteries for the the current rise in these problems. http://www.cellular-news.com/story/18342.php Ipods are evil I tell ya! Where is my 8-track player??!

An hot news story that makes the outrageous inducing claim that Cingular has just patented the Emoticon appears to be untrue, since the US Patent office shows no such listing for the claimed Cingular patent. But that's not to say it's not outrageous :-0 since in fact AT&T, some guy in kirkland WA, and a dozen others have patented the emoticon or aspects of it. Perhaps most galling is that the patents actually use the word "emoticon" to describe what they are patenting. They of course don't actually patent the emoticon itself but the act of entering an emoticon into multi-media, sort of like patenting the one-click patent versus patenting, say, commerce. Is this one of the whackiest patents ever :-p

A nuclear-powered battery, you say?

The last two paragraphs of this MSNBC article hints at the profit motive. As long as we keep including nifty new features on phones, we can keep consumers extending their phone contracts indefinitely into the future in exchange for phone upgrades.

Haven't you noticed the advertising for camera cell phones recently? It's time to upgrade! Last time it was color screens. Who knows what it will be next time -- this is just testing the waters.

FWIW, most people replace their phones because they lost the previous one, and need to get back up and talking in a jiffy.

Oh, come on, stop spreading that FUD. That was proved to be false long time ago. It's not Nokias that explode, it's the crappy 3rd party batteries that do.

Depends on where you live. In the U.S. and U.K., the answer is yes. There have even been cases in the U.K. of people using jammers that have been charged. Doesn't seem to stop people from continuing to sell them quietly though.

In other news, Siemens release a bunch of new phones, one of which has a 1.3 Megapixels camera.

Linky.

Read about it at. A few persons were actually injured.

Read and here a report from consumer organization in case you tend to take press releases from corporations with a grain of salt.

You would not try producing drugs yourself, will you? The high capacity cells are the same sophysticated chemistry these days.

It's not FUD at all.

Porn distributors exploit their customers in much the same way as drugs pushers, as well as exploiting the raw material. (No-one cares what happens to the opium poppy either as long as it makes heroin that sells well.)

I'm glad to see mobile phone companies taking such simple action to protect children from harm that other customers will inevitably use the network to distribute.

It WOULD NOT be practical to keep children from the streets because drugs pushers use the streets to, IT IS practical to take this step thanks to some of the features of modern digital processing.

So where's the FUD?

Its better than the mobile networks themselves teaming up to distribute the porn, I don't know how many are still planning to do this, but here's some news:

Playboy have teamed up with Virgin Mobile to plan a pornographic site for the 3G system in Europe. (and others, read the link)

Maybe they sawthe light

Or maybe just thinking again

Here's another page on the same "cellphone-like" product.

I don't agree with random people able to jam the phone signal. However, it makes sense for certain places, like movie theaters, banks, etc, although they should clearly have a sign saying "Warning: Cellphone signal jamming inside the building" or something.

While that is true, trends are looking grim for in-car cellphone users.

http://www.cellular-news.com/story/9142_print.shtm l

Big database that holds all customer information for the SS7 network. SS7 is the network landline telcos have been using for years.

[snip]
"The HLR is the heart of the network. It enables the delivery of all subscriber services," said Vivian Hudson, president and general manager, GSM/GPRS/EDGE, Nortel Networks. "This investment will support Cingular's migration from 2G to 3G, help drive reduced capital and operating costs, and position Cingular to more easily launch new, revenue-generating services."
[/snip]

Er...in the same day they (1) switched to Linux, and (2) the network went down. D'oh! :-) http://www.cellular-news.com/story/9637.shtml

Thousands of subscribers to the Australian cellular network, Telstra suffered crossed lines and access to the wrong voicemail servers following a major software failure on the network yesterday. The problems with the network started at 9am and were repaired at 5.15pm (local time) when the entire network was rebooted.

A spokesman, Michael Patterson, told the Sydney Morning Herald said Telstra still did not know what had caused the failure. "We're continuing to investigate," he said. There was no evidence to suggest the failure was related to the storm damage that caused havoc on its fixed-phone network on Sunday night, he said. "But we're not ruling it out."

you will find that most of the anomalies were produced in an uncommon frequency

Actually, one of the two frequencies used in the UK's cellular phone network (see details of networks). (Also used throughout Europe.) Not surprising that it's of concern to the UK CAA.

The issue with GSM was that Qualcomm 'sponsored' a senator to do its bidding. CDMA is Qualcomm's technology and they have been campaigning to get the US government to implement CDMA is Iraq. If this move does go ahead, it would be a clear indication that the US presence there is only about helping Iraq, if they happen to the US's interests. And in the case of CDMA, it would be only one company's interests. GSM is not owned by any company, but is an independent organisation establish the technology to be used for mobile communication. Also, given the larger world wide coverage of GSM, CDMA would not be Iraq's best interests. If there are only three companies in the US making GSM phones (, it because the rest opt not to. BTW GSM is a technology umbrella, not a single tecnology, there have already been discussions as to including W-CDMA as part of the package.

One interesting link worth visiting, with regards to Iraq, is here.

I know this is rant, though I am not sure its because I back GSM, or whether it is because politics seem to be deciding what the market place should be deciding for itself.

Uh, GPRS is a link protocol; it just gets the data in & out of the phone. You don't use it directly. Also, GPRS speeds will vary dramatically per phone, depending on how many 13.4 Kb/s download channels the phone uses (between 1 & 7, typically 2-4, or 26-53 Kb/s).

WAP is a browsing protocol for fetching stripped-down websites. It can use GRPS, or it can operate over a standard 9.6 Kb/s GSM data connection (or equivalent). It's a very different thing to GPRS - comparing them makes no sense.

Spectrum.

Telcos have only a limited amount of spectrum for their networks, both 2g and 3g. 3G is an overlay network, on top of the 2G network. So the telco has 2 networks using their allotted spectrum. This is why 3G phones are listed as 850/1900, 800/1800/1900 (trimode) capable.

I love reading about how everyone bitches about coverage, look at a coverage map before you ever buy wireless phone service.

Coverage Maps.

ATT Wirelesss CDPD http://www.attws.com/personal/buy/pop_coverage_map .jhtml?national=pn
ATT Wireless GPRS http://www.attws.com/general/coverage_maps/coverag emaps.jsp
and http://www.attws.com/press/GSMCoverage.jhtml
tmobile/voicestream - http://www.goamerica.net/coverage/tmobile.html
Verizon - http://verizonwireless.com/mobile_ip/coverage.html
Sprint - http://www.sprintyp.com/coveragemap.html
Qwest - http://www.qwestwireless.com/service/coverage.html

Heres a site with some coverage maps http://www.cellular-news.com/coverage/usa.shtml

Course, bandwidth problems come into play but imagine the possibilities...can you see me now?

3G phones currently support video playback and transfer. For example, he new J-Phone even has video capture. So the interesting bit is not that it has video, but that it's in Quicktime format.

From the article: Microsoft and Real incorporate Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology in their file format, giving companies an added feeling of security when publishing their content. This, Jones thinks, could be a disadvantage for Apple.

Two things: 1. Have you ever tried to pull data off a cell phone? Especially streaming data? Security through obscurity may not be a great method, but it sure is a pain in the ass. 2. Those people who have issues with DRM should take note. If Apple continues their No-DRM policy, these phones could become the Fair-Use-Geek's first choice.

From the article: Analysts see the adoption of QuickTime by DoCoMo as a way for Apple to broaden its customer base and to have customers associate the QuickTime brand when they buy content.

I don't see this as a very good thing. Video playback should be seemless to the user. I don't want or care about codec branding. What this probably really means is that there will be an annoying Quicktime splash screen every time I open up a video (in order to have me "associate the Quicktime brand") blah.

[...] but imagine the possibilities...can you see me now?

I don't have to imagine. When I get on the train and see twenty people in my car using camera phones, it creeps me out. It'll be worse when video is used everywhere. Who knows how many people are taking pictures of you, anywhere.

Ericsson's Hellstrom called it [3G and 802.11] a "complementary" technology. Bell Labs fellow Qi Bi said, "Incorporating Wi-Fi into the third-generation system is an important part of the system design. 3G can provide ubiquitous coverage and Wi-Fi can cover the hot spots."

Glad to hear that you're happy, but if you want to talk about coverage, use a coverage map, not some anecdote about how your phone worked in the bar, and your buddy's didn't.