No need to adjust your set -- the United Nations communications chief has boldly predicted that half of planet Earth's population will be hooked on some sort of mobile phone before 2009 dawns. Granted, the numbers he's talking about do look strictly at subscriptions, so a small percentage will be skewed by those with multiple accounts (and thus, multiple numbers), but really, the forecast isn't all that outlandish. After all, we already hit 3.3 billion mobile phone subscriptions back in November of last year (and 4 billion lines overall). As predicted, it's growth in developing regions such as Africa and the Middle East which will boost the overall figure the most, with yearly increases in those areas expected to hit 27% and 25%, respectively. So, what are the chances a post eerily similar to this pops up in 2012 or so saying the entire world has a cellphone? Our trusty Magic 8-ball says "Signs Point to Yes."

[Via Core77, image courtesy of Road and Travel]

MobiTV has been around for quite awhile, and although it has seen its fair share of ups and downs, today's a day for celebration in the offices that remain. After hitting the 3 million mark in February, the company is now claiming that its benefiting from some 4 million subscriptions. Charlie Nooney, MobiTV's CEO, was quoted as saying that the firm was "thrilled to be on the cusp of mass market acceptance for mobile entertainment in North America." We don't know if we'd go that far just yet, but here's a tip of the hat to you anyway.

[Via RCRWireless, image courtesy of PDAsNews]

Just think -- this time next year, we'll all look back at this milestone and wonder how on Earth we thought it was impressive. For now, however, we wouldn't blame you for high-fiving everyone around, as NTT DoCoMo has stretched the boundaries again with a recent Super 3G field test. Reportedly, the outfit was able to record "a downlink transmission rate of 250Mbps over a high-speed wireless network in an outdoor test of an experimental Super 3G system," and while it's not quite the 300Mbps we'd heard about before, you won't find us kvetching. If all goes to plan, the firm is hoping to "complete development of the technologies required for the eventual launch of a Super 3G network" by 2009, but who knows how long we Americans will have to wait to indulge after that.