Texting madness and revolution

Remember the days when you just used your phone to talk to people?

Those days are long gone, and now, simply history.

A recent study showed that 'texting' amongst teenagers has risen over %20 in the past 3 years.

Talking on their phones less and less, the next generation has fully embraced sending text and pictures messages over more traditional forms of communication.

Minority groups seem to be in the lead when it comes to paying for Internet access on their children's phones.

Our retail store has a higher demand for full keyboard (QWERTY) phones than any other type of cellphone. This appears to be a rather abrupt and recent phenomenon. Once you have the computer-esq keyboard in your hands, there is no going back. All new phones will incorporate full keyboards and push the innovative trail further for discovering more and better ways to 'text'.

For electronics recyclers like us, it is hard to keep up with the shift of interest. What are we to do with all the 'old fashioned' phones that just have numbers?

Well, there are still quite a few of us from the 'older' generation still quite content with how our phones work.

Brain Cancer and Cellphone Use Study Completed

A study funded by the European Union and the cellphone industry has just completed it's 13-country study on whether cellphone use can be linked to increased risk for brain tumors.

The report called Interphone, concluded with researchers claiming they found no substantial evidence to link the two together.

However, many critics and scientists agree; with increased use among the younger generation, more studies will need to be conducted.

The question comes to mind how much influence the 'cellphone industry' had over how the scientists were supposed 'interpret' the data. If the study came to definitively show that cellphone use is linked to the development of brain cancer, I believe there would be an uproar from the public and we would see a noticeable drop in the amount of cellphone use.

It is scary to think sometimes how little we actually know about the technologies we use and their ultimate effects on our lives.

Hopefully a new innovation for communication will lead to less radiation exposure.

Federal Communications Commission to create bill to warn of high cellphone bills

A common symptom of the American cellphone 'contract' is what we like to call ' bill shock '. You sign up for what you think is a good deal with companies like Verizon, T-mobile, AT&T in hopes of saving money. But once you're locked into your contract, crazy things can happen... Like excessive roaming or data charges that you were unaware of; sometimes in the hundreds of dollars.

BUT, alas, the F.C.C. is seeking to create a bill that will require these cellphone companies to warn customers before enacting outrageous roaming charges.

Perhaps this will revive some of the growing population that is fed up with contracts and the companies that are selling them. Either way it is time for these companies to be more responsible and sensible in how they treat their customers.

Top Cell Phone by Carrier

Ginny Miles from PC World has given us an in depth look at the top 5 phones from the top 4 US Carriers.
"Shopping for a cell phone can be overwhelming; after all, these devices do a whole lot more than just make phone calls. So which Carrier has the best selection of phones"?

Top 5 Verizon Phones

Top 5 T-Mobile Phones

Top 5 AT&T phones

Top 5 Sprint Phones

You have to pay attention to these phone models as they will pave the way in two to three years for the phones that Cellular Recycler will be recycling and re selling all over the world. What was yesterdays RAZR is today's Droid and iPhone.

Credit Card Transactions via CellPhones

You're at your local Farmer's market and see that beautiful sweet corn you'd like to grill tonight. But... you don't have any cash? Instead of asking around to find the nearest ATM, chances are you can run your credit card through the farmer's cellphone.

Companies are sprouting up daily that have easy to use plug-ins or software that allow credit card transactions on cellphones. How many times have you split the bill with your friend, but don't have the cash on the spot and end up forgetting about it? Now you can just run your credit card effortlessly between phones.

Square, PayPal and GoPayment all offer services now, usually with a monthly fee and per-transaction fee to mobilize your credit card payments.

The move away from cash has been steady and still has its resistors, but with the increase of smartphone use we can see this transition gain momentum and push us into the paper free future. The next generation will hardly know who's on the dollar bill anymore.

Cellphones have been rising in status for the past few decades and are approaching their zenith as the all-in-one device. This is a plus for recycling companies like us, whose role in society will increase with cellphone acceptance.

PREPAY vs. CONTRACT

A paradigm shift for cellphone service is occurring this year. The pre-dominant method of buying cellphone service in America has been to go to your local Verizon, AT&T, T-mobile or Sprint store and buy a phone at an extremely discounted price with an attached 2-year contract with that company (that has the actual price of the phone built in).

With the recent downturn of the economy, more people have been looking to get out of that contract and hop on a monthly service that they can easily change and end at will.

"This week, both AT&T and Verizon Wireless reported steep declines in the number of customers who signed up for contracts during the first quarter of 2010."

Will these largest corporations start to incorporate prepaid more into their plans? Either way, this opens a lot of doors for selling used phones, as people are also seeking cheaper phones that are not subsidized by their service provider.

We expect this change of how American cellphone companies operate will bring about great things in years to come, especially for us, the customer.

HTC EVO to be the first 4G phone

This summer, Sprint will release its first ever 4G android phone.
Long awaited, the next step in cellphone internet connections has arrived. What excites me is the HD video capabilities and the 8megapixel camera. Up until now, video on phones has been slow, and uploading high quality video instantly impossible.

Now you can stream your video straight to the internet/facebook/myspace/whatever as you're doing it and do it in High definition. Now that's cool. Who would have thought the day would come where you could have a high def camera and video camera in your phone and have it instantly connected to the internet?
"With built-in mobile hotspot functionality, HTC EVO 4G allows up to eight Wi-Fi enabled devices to share the 4G experience. Users can easily share an Internet connection on the go with a laptop, camera, music player, game unit, video player, or any other Wi-Fi enabled device.

With integrated HD video capture and 4G speeds, HTC EVO 4G makes slow uploads and grainy video a thing of the past. Now, it is possible to post high-quality video to YouTube™ or Facebook, or share moments in real time over the Internet live, via Qik"


The data capability of phones is accelerating and it will soon be true that you can do just about anything you want on your phone.
So, I would hold off before buying that iphone or Nexus One and see what kind of surprises the cellphone industry has for this summer.

Target to begin Cellphone recycling!

The massive corporation and everything store Target has begun collecting cellphones and old ipods in celebration of this years upcoming Earth Day!











This is exciting news, as millions of Americans regularly shop at Target stores across the country and will be exposed to simple, accessible and free electronics recycling. Up until now, finding a local source for recycling electronics has been difficult. However, with Target now reaching a majority of this country, recycling should be easy.

If you feel you could earn money from your old phones, then try selling them on craigslist, or shipping them to a recycling company like Cellular Recycler to get some money for them.

This is exciting progress for nationwide recycling efforts and corporate involvement.

iPad is out, and Apple's OS 4 is revealed

iPad's are out on the loose all over the country. For those lucky 300,000 or so people who received their iPad's on the first day, the life-altering technology is starting to transform them. Hundreds of online reviews and blogs are out covering the initial experiences with iPad. My favorite thus far is GIZMODO's personal exploration.

There are many skeptics still out there, wondering if they really need another device. Truth is, you don't. But the iPad certainly is a fun toy.


What else is new to the cellphone/apple world? OS4. Apple recently unveiled their new software for iphone 3GS, ipod touch and ipad. Not to be released until later in the summer, OS4 will allow multi-tasking (the main complaint on the ipad), personal backgrounds, and folders.


You should probably hold out for the next generation of iphone or late summer for the iPad before unnecessarily upgrading. But if you do, be sure to recycle or resell your old phone or computer. We can expect 2G's to be obsolete within a year, and the 3G shortly thereafter.

More companies, bigger market, more money

Cash for old electronics has become a popularized form of recycling. A dream for many of us 'die-hard environmentalists' has always been to create a reward system to encourage recycling behavior.

The (EPA) has announced a dramatic increase in companies that are making this dream come true. Today, there are more opportunities to recycle those electronics than ever before... and make some cash at it.

Not even 5 years ago there were no avenues to dispose of electronics, let alone recycle them without sending them to the landfill grave.

Now there is a flourishing market with numerous companies out there waiting to help you and keep our electronics out of the landfills.

Check out some of these websites for more info.

Earth 911

BuyMyTronics

Gazelle

YouRenew

CellularRecycler

National Recycling Week to begin!

2nd annual National Cell Phone Recycling Week begins April 5 – 11, 2010.

" Last year, Americans turned in approximately 11.7 million cell phones for reuse and recycling."

However, there are still an estimated 150 million phones still out there in drawers across the nation. So come on people, help spread the good word, and let's give all those phones new lives and help raise money for your favorite non-profits.

Let's make this the best cellphone recycling year ever! Tell your friends and family to participate, gather the phones up and send them to your local recycling facility.

Thanks to the United States Environmental Protection Agency for putting together this wonderful week celebrating e-cycling and cellphone revival.

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.

'Unlocked' vs. 'Subsidized' cellphones

$400 $49.99
At our retail store, we emphasize to our customers the value of buying an unlocked or 'unsubsidized' phone. It has always occurred to me that when companies like Verizon or T-mobile offer these awesome new toys at prices like $49.99; it must be too good to be true. And it is...

They simply build the rest of the price of the phone ($400) into your 2 year contract that you must sign. In the long run, (2 years) you end up paying around $200 extra through your jacked up monthly bills.

"Let’s say that you buy a MyTouch 3G, one of T-Mobile’s most popular smartphones, for $400, and sign up for its unlimited voice, text and data plan for $60 a month. The total cost of the phone over two years would be $1,840.

If, instead, you buy the phone subsidized by T-Mobile for $150, that same plan will cost $80 monthly — bringing your two-year total to $2,070.

If you reject the subsidy, you’ll actually have $230 to spend two years from now, and $20 every month you keep the phone beyond that.

So... conventional wisdom tells us you should buy the phone upfront at full price and pay less monthly or; get a used phone from a cellphone recyclery and save even more money.

Check out this New York Times article for more info.

Puma's Solar Cell Phone

I have to admit that I am a bit of a fashion hound and I personally can’t get enough Puma for my kick around gear and computer bag. I know this is a cell phone recycling blog but I have to say that they make a quality product for those of us who bike to work.

My interest in this article is because I have seen electronics manufactures that make washers and dryers get into the cell phone game but now we have a brand that is synonymous for making shoes. The German sportswear company has partnered with French telecommunications company Sagem and developed a solar-powered phone. It has a touch screen, a camera, a pedometer, a stopwatch, a GPS tracker, and built-in mapping software designed for runners and cyclists.

I am excited that we have a new fresh idea in the industry. We should all follow the progress of this idea not just because it is solar powered but because if they succeed we could all be carrying a phone that looks like it was purchased out of a foot locker from the mall.

New ways to experience your cellphone

Microvisions Pico Production is leading the way towards evolving technology. Now you can project movies, pictures and text messages directly from your cellphone. This feature would be great for giving presentations on the go.
Another new product is Motorola's Golden -I that sports a 15-inch virtual PC display.
One thing is for sure, cellphone manufacturers are looking to the future for innovative technology and the coolest gadgets.
One hope from this burgeoning market is that we should see an influx of diversity in the cellphone market.