Iphone app to lead the way towards free calling

Budding heads directly with the traditional dollars for minutes routine that most service providers offer, Line2 creates another line on your Iphone with contacts and more, used either over of the existing 3G network or through WiFi hotspots.

This appeals to a lot of people, because if they spend most of their time surrounded by WiFi, they can have all the free phone calls they want and save money. It's a brilliant application for Apple and opens the doors to free calls over the internet everywhere.

You can now turn your ipod touch into a phone when you're within reach of WiFi signals. Better yet, the sound quality is increased from the normal voice calls.

Perhaps cellphones are moving away from having 'data' plans and towards an ever-connected internet device that can meet all your needs at once.

Either way, keep recycling those old phones and be ready for the next jump in technology to arrive.

Would you remember to recycle your phone for a lottery ticket?

Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) recently launched a nationwide cell phone recycling campaign incentivized by essentially, a lottery. When you buy another new phone and recycle your old one, you’ll receive a “gift voucher” potentially worth $540, $54, or $11.

What’s really smart about this program is that the Japan’s METI has essentially found a way to provide a significant ‘potential’ value for the consumer by recycling their cell phone instead of trying to offer a complicated buy back’ program which provides a specific value for each phone, many of which would be worth $.25 to $2. The vast majority of cell phones not in use today are worth very little when turning them into a recycler or buyback program due to all of the logistics, processing and labor it takes to turn that phone around into a usable refurbished unit.

How many people do you know that would remember to dig out their old cell phone from the closet, and turn it in for a quarter? Not worth it right?

Well what if you could get a lottery ticket worth over $500? The bottom line is people are much more likely to do something if you turn it into a game or ‘lottery’ in this case. I absolutely love this idea and can’t wait to see if it garners any success in Japan.

Cell Phone Radiation - Does the test still make sense?

It seems every year a study comes out revealing the radiation levels of the newest phones to hit the market. This year, Motorola had 6 of the top 20, while Blackberries made up 4 of the top SAR models.

Measured in SAR (specific absorption rate levels) which is the amount of radio energy absorbed by your body, the tests that measure the SAR levels specifically measure the human head using a model filled with a fluid which represents the same absorption properties of a human head. Although, its interesting that they perform these tests on a model of a large male head with small ears according to sarvalues.com. As a large head is more likely to absorb more radiation.

Whats interesting is how the culture of cell phones has started to make the test seem outdated and a poor representation of how we use our cell phones today. What about the SAR measurement when your texting or browsing the web? Now, with your hands being smaller than your head, there's a pretty good chance that the SAR rating wouldn't be any higher and, in fact could be lower. But, what about when you have your smart phone updating your e-mails every hour in your pocket? Seems like your whole midsection has a little more mass than your head, and therefore could absorb more radiation.

Why hasn't the FCC updated the test to include the 'in pocket' SAR when your phone is busy keeping you connected to the digital world of facebook, twitter, & e-mail updates that we can't live without?

For a list of the SAR ratings on some of the phones you grew up check out http://www.sarvalues.com/usa-complete.html

Sprint to release the first Wi-Max cellphone

Spring has announced its soon to be released SuperSonic cellphone made by HTC. This phone will run on the ultra-speed Wi-Max network. Most other U.S. carriers have chosen instead to focus their attention and dollars on the up and coming 4G L.T.E. ( long term evolution) network. Spring will be the first service to offer a cellphone with such super high-speed internet and data capabilities.

What this means to us? 3G and wi-fi enabled phones will become history before we know it. Possibly within a year, everyone will be converting to wi-max or 4G phones. Data and internet are steadily rising in popularity, thus the importance of this move by Sprint.

We can expect to see an influx of seemingly new phones vanish into the past as high speed internet connections become the standard. This will mean good things for places like Cellular Recycler and other similarly minded companies.

Is Apple's new iPad environmentally friend?

Well... they say it is.
A few years ago there were many controversy's over Apple products being shipped overseas and discarded in extremely hazardous ways.

The company is, "now in last place among the 14 largest electronics firms in committing to phase out harmful and toxic substances and instituting recycling programs of products that have reached the end of their lifecycles," according to Greenpeace in 2006.

Their most recent Macbook and iPad are supposed free of harmful toxins and will recycled safely within the United States alone... or so we hope.

Greenpeace even created their own blog over the concept GreenMyApple.org
Finally their products are being created without the harmful ingredients.
Way to go Apple, keep it up. This will keep us environmentally-minded folks still stoked on Apple's products.

Why recycling your electronics is so important.

We've all heard the stories about children in developing countries getting poisoned by the toxins in electronics. If not, the horror stories are definitely out there. With the ever-increasing technological demands of developed countries, the legal and often-times illegal export of e-waste is on the rise.

New international laws have been developed to curb these immediate problems. However, the current trend indicates that establishing proper recycling facilities will be extremely difficult in countries like China and India.

"Moreover, most e-waste in China is improperly handled, much of it incinerated by backyard recyclers to recover valuable metals like gold--practices that release steady plumes of far-reaching toxic pollution and yield very low metal recovery rates compared to state-of-the-art industrial facilities."

What can you do?

Recycle properly. Learn more. Buy from environmentally conscious companies.

It is a growing market in this day and age. Find your local recyclery and spread the word.