Call us cynical, but we just can't see this one working out it. A team of researchers from Umeå University in Sweden are reportedly looking to sync up events on a soccer field to vibrations in a cellphone, essentially enabling you to keep track of the action without having to focus your eyes / ears on the handset. The proposed system could send vibrations to the phone that would act as a way of communicating possession, ball placement and (of course) gooooooooaaallllls, but obviously a few obstacles still stand in the way. For starters, buzzing your mobile through an entire tilt would do a number on the battery life, and even though you could "feel" the action, it would still require a great deal of attention. In all honesty, we'd say this whole system probably has more promise off the pitch than on, but then again, we call football soccer, so what do we know?

[Via UnwiredView]

Telus clearly knows what's up. College kids aren't much on talking this day and age, but they sure love to text and surf. A pair of Student Plans (good 'til September 30th) have just emerged, one for phones ($35 per month) and the other for smartphones ($50 per month). Both rate plans offer up just 200 minutes of talk time but include nationwide unlimited talk, text, picture and video messaging with your Fave 10, unlimited nights and weekends starting at 6:00PM and unlimited web browsing. If you're hemming and hawing, maybe the $50 GAP gift card you get when purchasing the $35 plan with an LG KEYBO will be the deciding factor. No? Okay.

[Via mobilesyrup]

Never heard of Abilene Christian University? We're guessing a wide majority of the general public hasn't either, but the institution is definitely getting its name out there by promising each incoming freshman this fall an iPhone or iPod touch. Granted, these aren't being explicitly marked as "free," but similar to Duke's efforts in years past, ACU plans on using these devices for educational enrichment. Reportedly, the handhelds will enable students to "receive homework alerts, answer in-class surveys and quizzes, get directions to their professors' offices, and check their meal and account balances" -- and that's just for starters. Interestingly, we aren't told whether or not the folks already enrolled will be left out -- nor what determines which Apple you get -- but we do know that the entity is hoping to "expand the program in the future."

[Thanks, Byzil]

For what it's worth, marketing firms have been encouraging folks to interact with billboards and the like with their cellphones for some time now, but prototype software developed by gurus in the UK has enabled a cameraphone to control a desktop computer. As expected, the application enables users to "move and manipulate onscreen items simply by waving a handset around in front of a [display]," but giving mobile owners a second-rate 3D mouse is just the beginning. There is promise for it (or something similar) to one day be used in more public settings, but while it's still locked inside the house, we'll probably just continue using our entirely more comfortable Wiimote for any atypical mousing exercises. Hit up the read link for a video demonstration.

[Via NewScientist]

We've heard of firms tinkering with the idea of converting excess heat directly to energy, and apparently, a team of scientists from the US Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley have done just that. Oddly enough, the researchers admit that they're still unclear on how their findings actually work, but they've nevertheless discovered how to increase the conversion efficiency of converting waste heat to energy "by a factor of 100." The authors of the report suggest that clothing constructed of material embedded with thermoelectric modules could one day "recharge mobile electronic devices off the heat of one's body," and while we're certainly stoked about the idea, we're already conjuring up awful images in our minds about what this garb will actually look like.

[Via textually, image courtesy of FourEyesJokeShop]

Nearly six months after Slippery Rock University introduced a RFID payment system for mobiles at its campus, we've learned that Montclair State University is requiring that all full-time undergraduates carry a school-issued mobile for their own safety. The handsets, which cost some $210 per semester, are already being carried by about 6,000 students, and feature a GPS function that can be activated to ensure campus police are alerted of their location if something goes awry. Aside from being able to send a request for help immediately, the phone will also call for assistance should the feature remain on for longer than a preset length of time. As it stands, the university has yet to see the Rave Guardian technology used in situations other than false alarms, but a 32-member police force is kept on staff in case any future calls prove legitimate.

[Image courtesy of WCBSTV]

If you're ready for a healthy dose of unconventional wisdom, you've come to the right place, as a couple of confident graduate student economists at UC-Berkeley are purporting that there is "no match in the evening cellphone use spike and crash data." Basically, the duo is suggesting that although we've been on the mobile horn a lot more these days, the number of fatal vehicular accidents over the past 18 years have not experienced the same leap. Weird logic, we know, so take it for whatever it is (or isn't) worth.

[Via Wired]

Granted, we've already seen what wild colors can hide behind a shutter, but now a team of Scottish researchers are hoping to "bridge the virtual and real worlds" by applying invisible artwork to buildings around Edinburgh. Put simply, users who snap pictures of landmarks and MMS them back to the database can receive "an image with extras added to it." Dubbed Spellbinder, the invisible graffiti project uses image-matching algorithms to analyze the image and send back tagged snapshots of the location a user just photographed. Additionally, location projects and "virtual games" are also being looked into, which should thoroughly please both the social networking fanboys and hide-and-seek lovers alike.

[Via mocoNews]

Granted, the original report suggesting that swarms of iPhones actually broke Duke's WiFi network did seem a bit bizarre, and now it appears that the university is freeing Apple's handset from blame. Interestingly, the actual culprit still seems somewhat veiled in secrecy, as we're only informed that "a particular set of conditions made the Duke wireless network experience some minor and temporary disruptions in service," but never do they exaggerate on exactly what caused the hiccups. Still, Duke also stated that it worked in conjunction with Cisco and Apple in order to "identify the network issue that was causing the problem," and since Cisco stepped in and provided a fix, the prpblem has yet to repeat itself. Looks like you're off the hook on this one, iPhone.

While the Blue Devils may have their basketball program running like a well-oiled machine, apparently its wireless LAN structure is in dire need of an upgrade. Reportedly, so many Dukies have snatched up iPhones and began using the campus WiFi network to surf on the go that the hordes of requests have been "temporarily knocking out anywhere from a dozen to 30 wireless access points at a time." Cisco, the university's main WLAN provider, has been called in to find out exactly why the overload has brought the network to its proverbial knees, and we'd say they better resolve the problem pronto -- after all, this issue could be magnified immensely with the commencement of the fall semester.

[Via Fox News]

Dropped calls have admittedly become less of a problem as carriers became more reliable in more locales, but it sounds like we finally have somewhat of a celestial answer as to why they happen in the first place. Thanks to research by David Thomson and colleagues at Queen's University in Canada (pictured above), they have discovered that when a "solar radio flare occurs and cell-site antennae are facing the sun, the number of dropped calls that go away for no apparent reason increases dramatically." In one particular case, it was noted that "20-percent of calls" were dropped during flares, and while some may be satisfied with cranking out these results and darting away, the team is still interested in finding out the reasons why calls still drop in the absence of flares. And to think, all this time we were having way too much fun blaming the carriers.

[Via Textually]

And you thought going away to college was the first step to freedom. Au contraire, students (and faculty, no less) entering Pennsylvania's Slippery Rock University will actually be faced with an RFID tag made for their handset, which will "allow them to pay for everything from laundry and copier services to movies and groceries in the surrounding town of Slippery Rock." The 13.56MHz tags were developed by Heartland Payment Systems and utilize NFC to make spending their parents' cash all the more simple. Of course, high rollers should be aware that their guardians can log in at any time and view their purchasing habits, so we'd be careful before pulling out the long face and car trouble story. The cards will reportedly cost around $1 apiece, but will be "available for free" to all of the SU students.

[Via Textually]

While the Smellophone will certainly get you one step closer to joining the social via your mobile, students at the University of Dundee are taking social activation to new heights with its lineup of prototype phones. Similar to sensor-laden gear that sends out a variety of feedbacks when a specified event occurs nearby, the six phones that were created by second year students from the College of Art, Science and Engineering's product design course actually supported "intimacy and sensuality" along with collaborative music making. Two particularly moving devices were the Aware (pictured), which reportedly "sends a tingle down your back if a friend is nearby," and the Boom Tube, which "allows people to make music together." Who knew customized ringtones would lead us to this?

Giving an animal a phone to tote around and monitor pollution is one thing, but hooking up a critter to your cellphone sans wires sounds like a much more viable solution to keeping track of filthy surroundings. UC San Diego's Squirrel -- which sounds an awful lot like a project UC Berkeley was working on -- is a Bluetooth-enabled, palm-sized sensor that currently measures carbon monoxide and ozone, but eventually will be able to "sample nitrogen oxide and sulphur dioxide in the air, as well as temperature, barometric pressure, and humidity." After sampling, the device then utilizes a software application dubbed Acorn to allow the user to "see the current pollution alerts through a screensaver on the cellphone's display." Furthermore, the program can periodically upload the captured data to a public database operated by the "California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2), which is funding Squirrel's development." Of course, cleaning up the mess that these monitors will inevitably find is an entirely different matter.

[Via MedGadget]

Sure, texting has taken the entire world by storm and is likely to remain the next best option to actually speaking to someone for quite some time, but for those who feel that keying in paragraphs of information takes a bit too much time, they're looking for alternatives. Designed to assist the mute and deaf (or those who just love the limelight) who rely on cellphones, the MobileASL video compression project seeks to enable sign language over video telephony, even on less-than-speedy data networks. Developed at the University of Washington, the specialized skin detection algorithms are able to key in on critical moving parts (read: hands and fingers) and utilize the limited bandwidth to broadcast the most important vectors first. The ASL encoders are compatible with the H.264 / AVC compression standard, and while it wasn't directly stated just how viable this option was for those stuck on a 1xRTT connection, you can hit the read link to get in on the user studies if you're down with signing.

[Via Slashdot]