Almost two-thirds of the world population to have a mobile September 30, 2008
Hamadoun Touré, secretary general of the International Telecom Union (ITU), said he expects the number of mobile phone users to exceed 4bn, or 61pc of the world’s 6.7bn inhabitants, in December.
Soaring demand in developing countries has seen year-on-year growth average 24pc between 2000 and 2008. At the turn of the century just 12pc of the world’s population had a mobile phone, by early this year the figure exceeded 50pc.
Speaking at the UN’s session on the Millennium Development Goals in New York, Dr Touré said the huge uptake shows it is “technically feasible to connect the world” to the benefits of …
Email This PostVisa Unveils Massive Mobile Payment Plans September 28, 2008
Visa unveiled several partnerships on Thursday to move payment processing from the PC to the mobile phone.
The world’s largest credit-card organization said a partnership with Nokia would allow consumers to make payments with next year’s Nokia 6212 Classic and other next-generation Nokia phones. Visa will also develop an application with Google’s Android platform that will allow mobile payments, as well as deliver financial information to Android-based phone owners who also hold Chase Visa cards.
Visa also said that it would launch a trial with U.S. Bank and up to 6,000 cardholders to allow secure funds transfers to other Visa cardholders via …
Email This PostText messaging lowers your IQ by 10 points September 22, 2008
In an article on the dangers of being distracted while texting messaging when engaged in other activities, like walking or driving, The New York Times has a quote from aul Saffo, a technology trend forecaster in Silicon Valley who claims that sending an SMS lowers your IQ.
“The act of texting automatically removes 10 I.Q. points. “The truth of the matter is there are hobbies that are incompatible. You don’t want to do mushroom-hunting and bird-watching at the same time, and it is the same with texting and other activities. We have all seen people walk into parking …
Email This PostSend a quick txt to the pigeons September 18, 2008
From next month, you can watch your words go up in smoke as part of an art installation in London’s Trafalgar Square. Called Memory Cloud, the work by architects/designers Stephen and Theodore Spyropoulos will, over three evenings in October, create a huge cloud of smoke on to which the artists will project messages sent by members of the public via text message. Those of a sensitive disposition may need to look away - all the messages will be projected uncensored.
“We form an artistic platform which people can actually speak through and use to interact with each other,” said Theodore Spyropoulos. …
Email This PostWells Fargo CEO MobileSM Service Adds New Features for Corporate Customers September 13, 2008
Wells Fargo & Company — the only major U.S. financial services company offering browser-based mobile banking for corporate banking customers — has again expanded wires and self administration features of its CEO MobileSM service. Authorized CEO Mobile users can now initiate and approve federal tax wires and see which self administration dual control …
Email This PostUN Calls for SMS Campaign on the International Day of Peace September 8, 2008
The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has issued a call for a worldwide SMS campaign to mark the International Day of Peace, to be observed on 21 September. This year, the International Day of Peace takes on special meaning, as it is also the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The Secretary-General said “We know that human rights are essential to peace. Yet too many people around the world still have their rights violated — especially during and after armed conflict. That is why we must ensure that the rights in the Declaration are a living reality — that …
Email This PostRepublicans, Obama ask supporters to text hurricane relief September 6, 2008
Republican National Convention leaders have asked convention attendees to pledge donations to hurricane relief funds via text to the code 2HELP, using the keyword GIVE.
… Barack Obama’s campaign could not leave it up to the Republican camp to harness technology for the betterment of the Gulf Coast. The Democratic presidential candidate contacted his cadre of supporters who receive text messages from the campaign, with a text that read, “Barack asks that you give to the Red Cross: give 5 dollars by texting GIVE to 24357 or give more by calling 1-800-435-7669 or at redcross.org/donate. Please fwd.”
[via News.com]
Email This PostBeyond the Mobile Hype In Election ‘08 September 4, 2008
Following the hoopla about the “first ever VP announcement by SMS” launched by the Democratic party, here’s an interesting and thoughtful article by Justin Oberman for techPresident reminding us how mobile phones have been used politically before with a far greater viral reach and, in the end, impact.
Oberman begins with text book case of “the Second People Power Revolution” that occurred in the Philippines in 2001 - whereby the people’s text messaging toppled a a government - and follows up with other examples from around the world. And you can find even more examples in this blog’s ” …
