A couple weeks ago I wrote an article titled “Could Your Cell Phone End Up Killing You?,” which resulted in a flooded inbox, consisting mostly of folks telling me stories of what they believe is anecdotal proof that cell phone use had caused tumors, both malignant and benign. And there were, of course, a couple who believe the research I cited was much ado about nothing. (A former boss told me cell phone radiation had reversed Alzheimer’s in mice.)
My piece mentioned that electromagnetic pollution surround us all the time. Cell phones are a major purveyor of particularly dangerous levels of radiation, due to their being so close to our heads and bodies most of the time, but electromagnetic radiation comes from all sources — wi-fi, satellites, GPS, microwaves, and more. As a result, I felt it was necessary to point out a few recommendations that might lower your  exposure:

Global demand for mobile telephones remains strong, despite the economic crisis, with the number of individual mobile cellular subscriptions likely to top 5 billion this year, the head of the United Nations telecoms agency said today.

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If you own a cell phone, you should care about the outcome of a case scheduled to be argued in federal appeals court in Philadelphia tomorrow. It could well decide whether the government can use your cell phone to track you -- even if it hasn't shown probable cause to believe it will turn up evidence of a crime.

The American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Center for Democracy and Technology will ask the court to require that the government at least show probable cause before it can track your whereabouts.

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Technology Review - An Indian telecom company is deploying simple cell phone base stations that need as little as 50 watts of solar-provided power. It will soon announce plans to sell the equipment in Africa, expanding cell phone access to new ranks of rural villagers who live far from electricity supplies. This system will enable mobile phone service to be provided to 1.5 billion of the worlds rural poor. No electrical grid, no problem. In a few years, this could complete the penetration of the mobile to everyone and help alleviate poverty.

Besides enabling basic communication, cell phones can provide enormous financial opportunities for rural people, especially if those people adopt services that provide banking and lending via cell phone. More than half of India's 1.1 billion people lack any access to basic financial services, and instead pay usurious rates to local loan sharks....



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Solar-powered base stations can link up remote rural areas.

An Indian telecom company is deploying simple cell phone base stations that need as little as 50 watts of solar-provided power. It will soon announce plans to sell the equipment in Africa, expanding cell phone access to new ranks of rural villagers who live far from electricity supplies.

Photo: Flickr, CC

I Feel a Great Disturbance in the Force
Finding new uses for equipment that you already have is always satisfying (at least to engineers). One very cool example of this is the use of cell phone towers to measure rainfall in real-time; the rain interferes with the radio signals, and this interference can be measured with "greater spatial resolution than traditional point measurements provided by rain gauges." How is this green? Well, in general it could provide better data about our planet and cha... Read the full story on TreeHugger

The study of reciprocity between mobile phone users reveals surprising insights about the flow of information in society

What do your mobile phone habits say about you? Probably more than you might imagine.