Palm Pre, iPhone 3GS owners' satisfaction polled, compared in new study
by Laura June 
posted Aug 14th 2009 @ 7:12PM
Read - Apple's iPhone 3GS has 99 percent satisfaction rate
Read - iPhone vs. Palm Pre: Satisfaction bakeoff
studies posts
Read - Apple's iPhone 3GS has 99 percent satisfaction rate
Read - iPhone vs. Palm Pre: Satisfaction bakeoff
RIM leads US smartphone sales, Apple ousts HTC for second
by Sean Cooper posted Sep 9th 2008 @ 11:35PM
Well here's a Shift, according to an NPD Group study, RIM sits atop the sales charts in the smartphone world and HTC doesn't even make the top five. During the period from January until July of 2008, 9 million sets were sold in the US for a cool $1.7 billion. Behind the mighty BlackBerry comes Apple's --the iPhone launch is being touted as the magic that helped ease them into second place -- followed by Palm, Samsung , and Motorola. The NPD Group goes on to mention that smartphone sales are up ten percent over the same period last year to 19 percent of all phones sold and that pricing is down seven percent to an average price of $185 per handset. Follow the read link for more tasty bits of number crunchery.
[Via Moconews]
[Via Moconews]
Cellphones are dangerous/not dangerous, hearing loss edition
by Michael Caputo posted Sep 28th 2007 @ 4:13PM
Apparently, talking on a cellphone for 60 minutes or more per day can result in a partial loss of hearing -- at least that's what some researchers in India are saying. The scientists conducted an experiment to test the correlation of hearing loss to the average use of a cellphone call. The experiment covered 100 participants with cellphone usage ranging from four years and over to just started using a cellphone. The results? Long-time users seemed to suffer some high-frequency hearing loss, usually in their right ears -- the ear most commonly used for chatting on the celly. There also seemed to be some correlation between warm, full, or ringing sensations in the ear, so if you're experiencing any of those, enjoy the stealth ringtone while you still can.[Via textually.org]
Cellphones are dangerous/not dangerous, just a hint edition
by Michael Caputo posted Sep 18th 2007 @ 11:53PM
Researchers across the pond at the UK Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research Programme (MTHRP) are without a conclusive answer on the short term effects on the brain from mobile phones. After a six year study on the effects of mobile phones on brain and cell functions, researchers found what's to be described as a hint of a cancer risk when exposed. Does anyone else feel a little nervous with non-scientific words being used to describe negative consequences of something most of us do on a daily basis? Leave a comment if you can break the medical jargon![Via textually.org]
Mobile batteries linked to autism
by Darren Murph posted Jul 24th 2006 @ 4:33AM
With cellphones being connected (or not) to things like cancer, ear tumors, and other sorts of disturbing illnesses, it's not surprising to find yet another issue linked to the seemingly debilitating devices. Dr. Richard Lathe, a molecular biologist in the UK, has proposed that the increasing autism rate in Europe is probably linked to old cell phone batteries not being properly disposed of. Studies he participated in point to an environmental factor causing the spike in autism, which he correlates to heavy metals that seep from old batteries. Autistic children have shown a difficulty in "ridding their bodies of toxic heavy metals" and over half of the autistic subjects he tested had substantially high amounts in their bodies. A similar study in Texas found a link between heightened mercury in the environment and autism, which Lathe feels further substantiates his findings. So are we all doomed to malfunction if we continue to use our mobile? It's unlikely (we hope), and Dr. Lathe even points out some good news by stating that "Chelation therapy, which removes the metals, can significantly improve behavior in autistic children." So before you flip your panic switch, there's probably not too much to worry over here, and if history continues to repeat itself you'll probably find a more soothing report in the near future.
Women do the lion's share of mobile gaming, sez study
by Chris Ziegler posted Jul 1st 2006 @ 4:51PM
Cellphones seem to have a way of busting gender stereotypes. First we hear that men are more likely than women to buy a phone as a fashion accessory (Nokia probably wishes they'd caught wind of that before showing the decidedly feminine L'Amour Collection), and now we're being told that some 59% of all mobile gamers represent the fairer sex -- at least that's what research firm Parks Associates has concluded in surveying some 2,000 Internet-connected gamers. "Women are the foundation of the gaming market, and as an industry, we need to cater to their preferences," says Parks Associates' director of research John Barrett. Of course, if this means more games like Spore dropping on our phones, us boys say, "bring it on."
Does depression lead to cellphone addiction, or vice versa?
by Evan Blass posted May 24th 2006 @ 9:00PM
In another classic "chicken-or-the-egg" type of conundrum, a newly released study is claiming that instead of a so-called "cellphone addiction" causing people depression and lower self-esteem, as we'd previously heard, the supposed addiction may actually be triggered by those very same negative feelings. In a study of school-aged South Korean children, Dr. Jee Hyan Ha found that those students who used their phones the most (90 or more times a day, including SMS) also tended to score higher on a psychological test intended to measure a person's level of depression. Although none of the students' scores reached the level of clinical depression, the heaviest users were observed to have significantly more self-identity issues than average, suggesting to researchers that communicating via cellphone made the "addicts" feel popular. So which is it: does heavy cellphone use lead to depression, or does depression lead to heavy cellphone use -- or is it just a vicious cycle with no end and no beginning?[Via textually]
Cellphone towers beat radar at detecting rain, say researchers
by Evan Blass posted May 7th 2006 @ 4:00PM
Proving once again that wireless technology isn't all bad, researchers from the University of Tel Aviv have determined that cellphone towers are as good as, if not better than, traditional meteorological techniques at measuring rainfall patterns. The team took data already documented by the carriers about each tower's signal strength over time and compared it to information that had been collected by radar and rain gauges, and found that not only did the towers accurately detect the electromagnetic disturbances inherent to storms, but that the degree of change in signal strength was directly proportional to actual rainfall. While widespread utilization of this data could probably have an immediate effect on forecasting if combined with current methodology, the researchers have an even more ambitious goal of detecting signal variations from the end-user -- that is, on consumers' handsets -- for aggregation into even more precise and localized reports once weather-related changes can be teased out from among the many other signal strength variants.[Via Slashdot]
