He picked up a prototype version of the Motorola DynaTAC and he called up the folks at Bell Labs, which was a division of AT&T at the time. Apparently, he just said, “I’m ringing you just to see if my call sounds good at your end.” It must have sounded good enough, because that prototype was developed into the Motorola DynaTAC 8000x.

The nearly $4,000 phone weighed 2.5 pounds and had a single text-only LED display line. It went on to spawn a whole generation of cell phone users, from the “Zack Morris” of Saved by the Bell fame to the DynaTAC used by Gordon Gekko in Wall Street. I remember when my parents got their first cell phone in the early 1990s. Even then, there was a certain air of exclusivity to having a mobile phone.

What is your earliest cell phone memory? Were you around when Marty Cooper made that historic phone call?

[Source]

The post First Mobile Phone Call Ever Made 40 Years Ago Today appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

A research team from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario has teamed up with scientists from the Medical University of Graz in Austria. In their study, they found that cell phone use is linked to lower sperm quality and a decrease in fertility. Ironically, cell phone usage seems to also increase the overall level of testosterone in the body. And ya, it’s killing bees too.

“Our findings were a little bit puzzling,” says Rany Shamloul, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at Queen’s University in Canada and a co-author of the study. “We were expecting to find different results, but the results we did find suggest that there could be some intriguing mechanisms at work.”

So, your Android and iPhones could be making you puff out your chest, but your little soldiers are getting injured as a result. And it’s not like you’re producing too many reinforcements either. While there is more circulating testosterone, there is a lower level of luteinizing hormone. LH plays a big role in the reproductive system. The lesson for today is, if you have any plans to reproduce, it may be a good idea to limit your cell phone use and perhaps not keep it so close to the family jewels.

The post Sperm Killer? Cell Phones Harm Your Little Swimming Soldiers appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

A simulation of an iPhone paying for a restaurant bill.

Leaders from DocuSign, BilltoMobile, Billing Revolution, and ViVOtech met in a panel discussion at the 8th AlwaysOn & STVP Summit at Stanford to discuss the newest wave of payment since the credit card.  The discussion, titled Transactions 2.0, was hosted by Randy V. Sabbet J.D., CISSP, Partner, Internet & Data Protection, Sonnenschein.  The group covered topics regarding the safety and use of electronic signatures, using a cell phone to pay bills, online payments made by entering a cell phone number instead of a credit card, and a single-click check out process for credit cards using our mobile phones.

Tom Gonser is the Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of DocuSign, the largest electronic signature platform in the world.  Gonser argues that electronic signatures are just as safe and much more efficient than paper.  For example, most financial transactions require at least two forms of authentication, including email and knowledge based authentication.  For the highest level of security, a consumer is required to enter his phone number, receive a phone call, and read a code from his computer screen.  His voice is recorded and stored with the signature.  In terms of efficiency, electronic signatures allow contracts to be instantaneously routed to all players involved.  Therefore, processes like loan applications can be completed faster and with higher closing rates when administered without the use of paper.

Mohammad Khan, President of ViVOtech describes a method of payment that involves marrying our phones to our finances.  He explains how cell phone users can download banking information through a secure channel into their calling devices.  Information is stored on what he calls the “new plastic” or contactless cards.  When it is time to make a payment, users enter a password and tap one side of the card with participating merchants like Home Depot or McDonalds.  Every tap is unique so no one can capture and reuse the signal.

NFC-enabled Nokia 6212 Mobile Phone making a contactless transaction.

Khan’s device can also be used to gain more information about a product.  For example, if a customer has a question about an item in Home Depot she can tap her cell phone to a product on the shelf and receive information about it.  She can also allow the phone to create a customer profile in order to gain relevant coupons and specials.  Although the card is attached to Khan’s iPhod with a sticker, he believes by next year most smart phones will have the device built in.  Currently, there are half a million in existence and by 2014, Khan predicts there will be more than 100 million in the US alone.

Jim Greenwell, CEO of BilltoMobile, a public company in Korea, described a similar method of payment called direct mobile billing.  This allows people to make transactions with selected merchants on the Web by using their cell phone number instead of a credit card.  During checkout, a consumer types in his mobile phone number, receives a security code via text, and inputs that code to finalize the payment.  The amount will then be added to his cell phone bill. Greenwell points out that wireless carriers already have accurate and timely billing systems that reach millions of people, so why not utilize these systems.  In Korea 75% of the population already uses direct mobile billing.

Embracing the credit card, Andy Kleitsch, CEO of Billing Revolution described a single-click check out process for Visa and others using our mobile phones.  With this method, a consumer enters her credit card information into her phone, which then remembers it for all participating merchants.  According to Kleitsch, consumers want to be remembered and not bothered with a username or password.  According to Kleitsch, the single-click checkout is currently being utilized to buy ringtones, games, virtual currency, and even pizza.  This method is also becoming increasingly popular for making donations such as to the Obama campaign and Humane Society.

Gonser, Khan, Greenwell, and Kleitsch all seem to agree that although the Visa card is probably not going anywhere, its role is definitely changing.  This change may dramatically affect our relationship with our cell phones and how we view convenience and security.  Would you like to use your phone to pay your bill at a restaurant?

[Stanford, Transaction 2.0 (Video coverage)]

The post Transactions 2.0: Using a mobile phone to pay your restaurant bill appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Photo: Pong Research

After one of the most expensive and extensive studies of its kind ever conducted, we are left in much the same situation as when we started. We wanted to know if the radiation emitted from cell phones can have damaging health effects. What did we learn from Interphone?  Well, it seems that “no clear conclusions” were drawn from the Interphone study. Christopher Wild is the director of the International Agency for Research on Cancer, which coordinated the study, and he said that “an increased risk of brain cancer” was not established.

That’s to say that the study revealed nothing, though. They did say that there are “suggestions of an increased risk [at] the highest exposure levels.” In this way, they haven’t found the fire, but they found some “smoke” worth investigating.  However, other people are saying that the “data were dirty,” citing the way that the data was collected. There is going to be bias — recall bias, selection bias, participation bias — and this can skew the results.  For my part, these cell phone studies are starting to sound a little like the studies that try to link cancer to smoking. It’s hard to prove a causal relationship; you can only imply a correlational one.

The post Interphone: Cell phones might or might not cause cancer appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

These days almost everyone has a mobile phone or some other type of wireless device. A study by MRI shows that twenty percent of American children ages 6-11 currently own a cell phone, up from 11.9% in 2005. The most shocking increase has been among 10-11 year olds (+80.5%).

The study was done on a group of 5000 participants, and talked about the feature-rich, kid friendly phones like Disney Mobile’s LG Phone and the FlyPhone. Some more information is discussed on how boys and girls use their phones differently. While girls make more calls and send text messages, boys are more interested in instant messaging, downloads, games, music and videos.

It’s interesting that the MRI study did not mention any health concerns, it was more focused on what the different child groups were interested in for what seemed to be a market summary for businesses. We are talking about a large population of developing children being subject to electromagnetic fields and radio frequency radiation, but I guess big business tends to avoid these issues.

A study released just last January showed mobile phone use before the age of 20 will increase chances of malignant brain tumors by five times. The international group of scientists studied these effects at two university hospitals in Sweden, they concluded that current standards for exposure to microwaves during mobile phone use is not safe for long-term exposure and needs to be revised.

It is also known (PDF: Summary Findings ) that calls lasting a mere two minutes can open the blood-brain barrier in children, as well as adults. This allows toxins in the bloodstream to cross the blood vessel gateway into the skull and attack brain cells. The same two-minutes of cell phone exposure can also disrupt the natural electrical activity of a child’s brain for up to an hour after. Now get to school kids and try to learn.

Chart provided by Silicon Alley Insider.

The post Concern: 10-11 year olds cell phone use grows by 80% appeared first on Mobile Magazine.