We had a sneaking suspicion that the world hadn't really come to strapping pads around lampposts in order to keep walking texters safe, and sure enough, the whole shebang was more of a stunt and less of a bona fide trial. Reportedly, only a few pads were put in place and photographed for around 36 hours -- afterwards, the PR firm responsible for putting them up simply took them back down. It seems as if the scheme was meant to "test out [the idea] and gauge people's opinions," according to a 118 118 spokesman, and safe to say it certainly accomplished that.

[Via textually]

According to a recent report, human beings are becoming so incredibly stupid that they require cushioned lamppost bases so that when they run into them they don't mess up their idiotic faces. Apparently, a study in the UK found that one in ten people actually managed to hurt themselves by walking into a post while peering down at their mobile phone screen. The mishaps -- called "walking and texting" injuries -- have spurred the charity Living Streets to launch the padded-post-pilot scheme in Brick Lane, London. It seems that if all goes well, there are plans to roll out the idiot-proof system in Birmingham, Manchester, and Stupidton.

[Image courtesy Yahoo! News]

If you've been losing sleep over not knowing precisely what was going to happen to all that spectrum space that will be freed up when the imminent analog-to-digital cutover takes place, your insomnia is about to be (at least partially) cured. The US of A apparently pushed hard for a worldwide consensus on spectrum use -- suggesting that a common approach was more reasonable than each nation choosing separate frequencies for next-generation services -- and sure enough, it ended up getting exactly what it wanted. Apparently, the 700MHz band will now be reserved for a mobile broadband standard accessible throughout much of the globe, including most of North America, Central America, South America, Europe, China, India, South Korea and Japan. Of note, Europe was able to land a concession that enables it to offer up "about half of the bandwidth available for mobile services in their region" compared to what is offered elsewhere, but the agreement definitely makes the forthcoming auction that much more interesting.

[Via RCRNews, image courtesy of toddemslie]

IDEA-IN presents the YUENTO branded calculator that is shaped and has a similar key layout as a mobile. Clever, huh? The idea behind this molded bit-o-madness is that most human's fingers are rather adept at tapping away on mobile phone keys, so taking that insight a step further produced the "Mobile Calculator". Available in pink, white, yellow, and black. This, ahhh, interesting concept should set you back about $20 bucks if you can find one.

[Via Akihabara News]

Continuing along Opera's silent, yet somewhat noticeable pursuit of conquering the mobile browser realm, the firm has sealed a deal with Samsung "to provide Internet browsers for its advance mobile telephones." Similar to the renditions already found on Windows Mobile Pocket PC, Blackberry / Treo, and basically every other handset out there, the browser will reformat pages for optimized mobile viewing and give Samsung owners one less thing to download when setting up their phone. Interestingly, the licensing deal is "per phone sold," but there's no information on just how much coinage will be changing hands when all this goes down.

If you've been waiting ever so patiently for YouTube to make an official debut on the mobile side, and can't get TinyTube to work out just right, help is on the way. While Verizon is hoping to land an exclusive deal regarding YouTube content and its V CAST services, Orb Networks is releasing software which lets cellphone users "view, search, and create media channels from the internet" and direct it onto handhelds / laptops" from sites like YouTube or Google Video." While Orb's PC-accessing software has been available for some time now, this newly-unveiled program will put the zany clips of YouTube (and other online video resources) into the palm of you hand way before any of the other guys. While a list of compatible mobiles wasn't disclosed, it was stated that the software would "only operate on sophisticated smartphones" such as Nokia's N80 and Motorola's Q -- so, do your duty and hit the read link for your free download, cool?

[Via Yahoo News]

Sure, we're guessing the belt holster is a bit unwieldy, but the decades-old chassis on Spark Fun's "portable" rotary phone is probably every bit as sturdy as the Symbol MC70's for one-quarter the cash. We'll take ours in beige, please.

[Via The Raw Feed]

In an effort to get hip to the times (read: stop hemorrhaging cash on unprofitable landlines), some colleges are now submitting to the reality that virtually all students prefer mobile phones as their primary form of contact by decommissioning or reducing reliance on campus and dorm phone systems in favor of wireless. Several are going so far as to provide their students with custom plans and mobile apps connected to campus systems. As we initially reported last year, one of the more ambitious projects is coming together at New Jersey's Montclair State University where incoming freshmen now receive obligatory LBS-enabled cellphones loaded with school software and services co-developed with Rave Wireless. The LBS aspect has apparently been a hangup for some students, though, weirded out by the concept of being tracked by their deans and professors until they're assured that the GPS tracking functionality of the phone is strictly opt-in only, which can be activated by individuals in an emergency to assist police. Morrisville State in New York even buddied up with Nextel Partners (yeah, that Nextel Partners) to beef up campus coverage in exchange for bundling wireless plans with students' room and board bills. It's always refreshing to see stodgy institutions wising up to these sorts of trends -- albeit late -- but as the AP points out, many students are likely to be coming in with existing phones and family plans that end up cheaper than what the schools are able to offer. Of course, if Montclair offers real-time tracking of every pizza delivery driver in town, well, there's your killer app right there.

Why does this not surprise us? According to a report published by Japan's government this week, more of its citizens hit the Net via phone -- 69.2 million, to be exact -- than by personal computer (66 million). Mobile users are also more likely than PC users to log on at least once a day by about 11%, not surprising considering the relative likelihood of having your mobile on your person when you just absolutely must check your email. Of course, if our country was completely blanketed in glorious FOMA, we might be able to put up similar statistics, but in the meantime, we'll take an EDGE-ready UX, thankey.

[Via MocoNews]

Another day, another mobile RSS reader, this one coming from San Jose-based startup Plusmo. To be fair, Plusmo does appear to offer a few more features than the average RSS reader, most notably what they call Plusmo Gadgets -- which is just a clever name for a whole raft of widget-like utilities including things like a Starbucks locator, a Flickr browser, a cheapest gas locator, as well as tools for MySpace, LiveJournal, and other sites. They also have something called Plusmo Channels, which basically just combines a bunch of related RSS feeds into one "channel" for easier browsing. Still, it's free, and it runs on just about anything, including Java MIDP 2.0 and MIDP 1.0 enabled cellphones, BlackBerrys, and Windows Mobile devices. Plusmo says a BREW version and a native Symbian version are also coming soon.

Jumping on the mobile TV bandwagon, kid's channel Nick Jr. has debuted three new "mini pilots" on wireless carriers, ahead of launching them on Nick Jr.'s broadband video service and the channel itself. The three pilots include Pass the Pinha, Jinny Starfly and All Aboard, all developed by Nick Jr.'s Institute of Applied Play, and run between one to three minutes each. Unfortunately, Nick Jr. wasn't kind enough to say which carriers would actually be carrying the pilots.

[Via MocoNews]

The recently released Tiggdo service promises to be a personalized home page for your phone, although it looks to basically be nothing more than a glorified RSS reader. But since that's something most of us need, that's not necessairly a bad thing.Tiggdo will work on any WAP 2.0 compatible phone and give you pre-loaded feeds from the BBC, as well as weather reports, maps, traffic reports, stock quotes, horoscopes, and all the other usual stuff you'd expect from a service like this. It will, of course, also let you add your own RSS feeds. Seems like pretty standard fare, but it's free, so we're not complaining.

[Via Red Ferret]

We've never really been into Pooh. But if the Tao of the honey bear has you or your youngin' by the throat then perhaps the Dmobo P700 is the phone for you. Built in cahoots with Disney, the P700 sports many of the same features as big-girl phones: digital camera with flash, MP3 and MPEG-4 media player, and of course, a healthy slathering of Winnie the Pooh themes, wallpapers, ringtones, and accessories sure to make the $332 price-tag plus airfare to Hong Kong or Macau (where this is available) all seem worthwhile. Right, princess?

The Samsung SGH-T509 we expect to hit T-Mobile anyday now just nabbed a "very good" rating over at c|net. While that uber-thin, 0.39-inch shell might draw in the eye, in the hand it "feels fragile" (though it emerged from a couple of drop tests without any damage) and suffers from "mixed call quality." However, those good looks, a "bright vibrant" 1.8-inch TFT display, solid feature set, EDGE support, and tested 4.5 hours of talk time resulted in a 7/10 rating from the reviewer who calls the T509 "a step above" that other slim candybar, the Moto SLVR L6.

Update: Thanks to tipster Alex for pointing out that T-Mo is now offering-up the T509 -- giddy up.