Wireless Federation

FierceMobileContent writes…On March 23rd, MTV Tr3s launched MTV Tr3s Mobile in New York as the first bilingual mobile channel targeted at Latino youth. MTV Tr3s Mobile focus on music and features the TV channel’s playlist of popular artists, including American artists such as Fall Out Boy and Akon, at the same time a large percentage of Latino artists such as Paulina Rubi…

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FierceMobileContent writes…Amp’d Mobile, the pioneer of fully integrated mobile entertainment, unveiled Amp’d version Motorola phone MOTO Q last week. A MOTO Q is designed for experiencing mobile entertainment, and targeted at today’s youth market who thrive on social networking and entertainment. According to Bruce Brda, Corporate Vice President and General Manager, Mobi…

Wireless Mobile Telecom

 

FierceMobileContent writes…The US-based leader in Christian mobile content, Unity In Values (UIV), announced the launch of The Mobile Word Video Community, the world’s first mobile channel targeted at Christian youth. The main purpose of The Word Video is to give young consumers the opportunity to utilize technology to stay in touch with the community and share their spir…

Wireless Mobile Telecom

FierceMobileContent writes…With the launch of a new service that offers free calls and texts provided users are willing to receive adverts on their phones, Britain’s teenagers will no longer need to badger their parents for money to pay off their mobile phone bills. Blyk, a start-up run by the former president of Nokia, announced on March 26 it has signed deals with adver…

Wireless Mobile Telecom

FierceMobileContent writes…Just when we hear too many stories about the rise of multitasking, especially among the younger generation, the fact is that having grown up with multitasking, youth are just better at it. According to a New York Times article, people generally aren’t capable of handling multitasking very well. The author argues that although we see kids and young …

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FierceMobileContent writes…In February 2008, European mobile operators and content providers are introducing standards to safeguard children using mobile phones. These codes are part of a recent agreement brokered by the European Commission based on the fact that the use of mobile devices to connect to the Internet is rising. To adopt and implement the codes, operators…

Wireless Mobile Telecom

FierceMobileContent writes…Just when we are reading so much about the “end of the ‘album’ conceptâ€?, the latest news from The New York Times shows that even some major record labels are signing artists to only record a few songs. The fact is that only true fans are buying full albums, many music listeners don’t think in terms of albums any more, given the situation that they …

Wireless Mobile Telecom

AN OFFICIAL report into the safety of mobile phones will warn that adults’ and children’s use of the technology is in danger of “running out of control� despite previous warnings of possible health risks.
Sir William Stewart, chairman of the Health Protection Agency, is expected to say this week that new evidence of potential health problems reinforces the need for children to use the phones only for essential calls.

He issued similar advice five years ago and is known to be concerned that it has been largely ignored. The proportion of children with phones has doubled since then as companies have promoted their use to the young. Stewart, who has barred his own grandchildren from using the technology, accepts that although there is no proof that mobile phones damage health, children need to limit their use as a precaution.

His scientists believe that if there are as yet unknown risks from mobiles, children may be more vulnerable because of their developing nervous systems, the greater absorption of energy into the tissues of the head and a longer lifetime of exposure.

Stewart, chairman of the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB), was appointed by the government to monitor mobile phone safety. His guidance, to be published on Tuesday, is expected to call on mobile telecoms companies to stop targeting children.

Among the most controversial moves have been attempts to encourage their use among children at primary schools. The British firm Communic8 recently launched MyMo, a phone aimed at children aged from four to eight.

According to a report by Mobile Youth, a mobile telecoms consultancy, a quarter of primary school children now own a mobile. The figure rises to 90% among 11 to 16-year-olds, according to research by Sheffield Hallam University.

The industry has directly challenged the NRPB’s advice that children should limit their use of mobiles. The Motorola website states: “There is no scientific basis to restrict the use of mobile phones by children and this remains a matter open for parental choice.�

The Stewart report is, however, expected to advise children and adults to take a “more precautionary approach�.

It will question whether mobile phone use is in danger of getting “out of control� and say that, though the weight of evidence does not show that mobile phones are dangerous, they have only been in use for a relatively short time and the possibility of health risks remains.

Of particular concern to the NRPB is a report published by researchers at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute in October, which showed that people who had used mobile phones for 10 years or more had an increased risk of developing acoustic neuroma, a benign tumour regarded as serious because of its position next to brain tissue.

In December, EU-backed research found that mobile phones can potentially cause cancer. The £2.2m Reflex study did not prove that mobile phones represent a serious health risk but provided worrying results in laboratory tests.

Human tissue was exposed to mobile phone radiation and the results showed that the radiation was able to damage DNA in human cells.

A spokeswoman for the Mobile Operators Association, which represents the five UK network operators, said: “It is up to parents whether they give their children phones. They must weigh up the possibility of future unknown health risks with the security benefits to children of carrying a mobile.�

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1 As mobile phone users get younger and younger, concerns about the consequences for their health are growing. Today, Sir William Stewart, chairman of the National Radiological Protection Board, issues fresh guidance advising parents to restrict their children’s use of mobile phones to “essential calls only” because of the potential long-term health effects.
2 Children may be more vulnerable to any effects from the radiofrequency transmissions in mobile phones because of their developing nervous systems and a longer lifetime of exposure. According to telecoms consultants Mobile Youth, 690,000 five- to nine-year-olds had mobile phones last year; a further 3.66 million 10- to 14-year-olds also had them. By the end of this year, says Mobile Youth, these will increase to 750,000 and 3.69 million respectively.

3 The health evidence is not conclusive. Studies have found that using mobile phones can heat up body tissue, change brain activity, reaction times and sleep patterns, but these are not thought to be significant. In January 2004, a British independent advisory group reviewed the evidence for health effects from radiofrequency transmissions and found that while there is no conclusive biological or epidemiological evidence to suggest that mobile phone use causes cancer, more research is necessary.
4 Our kids are big business. Worldwide spending by young people on mobile phone-related products and services is worth $1.1 trillion. In the UK our kids spend $5.4bn a year on mobile technology. The dollar signs are flashing for phone companies: take Mymo (”it’s a little peace of mind”), an easy-to-use phone for four- to eight-year-olds, billed by its creators as “the latest security device” for parents.

5 It should be possible to choose a phone for your child with a low “specific energy absorption” rate (ie, a phone which gives out less energy) but currently phone manufacturers don’t clearly advertise these. Ultimately, you need to balance the unknowns: possible child predator versus unknown health effects? The choice is yours.

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Ok, so enough about my bickering towards the carriers. Time to get into what I want this site to be about: the mobile youth and what it is we want to see. I hope for enough comments to shed light on what the masses think but I’ll start off by describing what I hope the market to offer in the next year or less.

First off I love my iPod and the digital music revolution that is has started. Most people don’t know that their phone can play mp3’s (if you’ve bought a phone in the last year it most likely does) but the problem here is memory. It’s great that my RAZR plays MP3’s and I can use that ability for ring tones but I’m looking for a full library of most of my music. Although I now have over 100 Gigabytes (GB) of music I really only need about 40GB, but 60 would be nice. Everyone in the mobile press has been rumoring about the iPhone for over a year now and it’s about time for it to come around. I’ll expect that by summer ‘07 we’ll see a 20GB (and hopefully 40GB) iPhone.

I also touched on my preference for digital photography in a previous post. People always talk to me about how 3 Mega Pixel (MP) is their minimum quality because that’s the quality you need to create good physical photos. I’ll agree with that if print was what you were taking pictures for. I used Ofoto (to create physical prints) a couple times because I was also attached to that medium of sharing pictures. Now I’ve moved onto a combination of mobile devices (a little bit) and (mostly) viewing them and sharing them on my laptop. My laptop has a nice GeForce graphics card which scales up to 1600×1200. To support these sizes I’ve found that a really good lens at 4MP or a decent 5MP camera does the trick.

We’re currently at the 2MP quality in high end phones, with 3MP cropping up here and there. By the end of the year most the VCAST phones will have 3MP quality and (hopefully) the very specialized camera centric phones will have 4MP by the summer of ‘07.

The last requirement for my perfect device is a decent network connection. The standard GPRS connections of late have been virtually unacceptable for any kind of real data traffic. The recent 3G service offered by Verizon’s VCAST is decent but certainly not enough for full web integration. I keep reading about the exciting combination of HSPDA (a high bandwidth, cell reach network) and city wide WiFi (San Francisco is coming…) If a phone is capable of one or both of these technologies, then we’ll finally be able to have the internet while mobile! This is extremely exciting and I’m not even going to try and guess the implications. Even Google, who is a partner in the SF deal, has said they would rather get the technology up, look at the traffic where possible and figure out how this is used.

If a device like this existed by next summer I’m sure it would run into the several hundreds, if not $1,000. Would I buy it? Probably not. But in reality I would expect that a device with at least two of the above and a part of the third to exist at a reasonable price by the Christmas of next year. Please feel free to use the comments page and tell me what I’m missing from your perfect device.

Wireless Mobile Telecom