Penny Mobiles – Mobile phone news, reviews & information

One might think that with human society considering the concept of democracy, free speech and free will as ideals, that thinking outside of the hive mentality is an admired trait. Well, it is, but actually following one’s own personal tastes is a completely different matter.

According to a recent research regarding the behavioral and preferential patterns that teenagers have according to the type of music that they listen to, there is plenty of influence to be found in the general accepted opinion of the public.

Subjects were asked to rate and select songs that they liked –during which, their brain activities were being monitored. After being able to choose, these same subjects were later informed regarding which songs were popular favorites and which were not. A re-test with the same subjects revealed that upon realizing which songs were popular favorites, many chose to change their selections in order to conform more to the popular opinion.

Many experts believe that this mentality is brought about by the need for people to prevent themselves from being rejected or teased about having a different opinion than what is considered to be the standard or the norm. This practice is also most prevalent among teenagers where peer acceptance is a valuable social luxury to attain.

For the music industry, this goes to show how much song ratings can actually go towards making a track more famous or not. Subjects have shown that upon knowing which songs had ratings of 4 to 5 stars (out of five) would start to lean towards the higher rated songs than their originally selected tracks. Many would exhibit signs of fear and anxiety when listening to tracks that are not popular.

Find out more about the how conformity is changing the way teenagers choose their music at Times Online UK.

It comes as to no surprise that when people are asked to give an example of effective use of telecommunications technology, many point out the recently coordinated efforts to help out the victims of the earthquake in Haiti. Thanks to SMS, Twitter, blogs and the internet, many people found themselves able to easily take part and contribute to the relief efforts.

The nature of the internet is that it provides real time, near-instantaneous updates of information. Combined with mobile phone technology, this can prove to be a very powerful tool in coordinating the efforts of thousands all over the world towards a single point of interest. This is what happened with Haiti and in many other events prior.

Back in 2007, Kenya had a very eventful election that saw many reports of violence. These reports would have been forgotten in time if not for the efforts of a certain Ory Okolloh who used her blog, the Kenyan Pundit, to keep track of all the reports. However, her blog alone was not able to sustain the task at hand; thanks to the combined efforts of developers and other bloggers in Kenya, they were able to establish the Ushahidi, a web based crisis information hub.

When used as a tool for coordinating efforts, the Ushahidi proved to be invaluable as it allowed people to instantly see when and where trouble spots would appear. Emergency response personnel are able to coordinate their efforts more efficiently, saving them precious time and effort in getting to the people who need help the most.

The site also tracks wildlife in Kenya, crime rates in Atlanta, various elections in many countries as well as major conflicts such as wars and xenophobic attacks.

Learn more about the impact of the internet and modern technology in major human events at the Guardian UK.

Outright, Facebook is a great service. It single handedly changed the way we see social networking tools, in fact, it actually managed to do what other social networking applications failed to accomplish: bring almost everyone together.

With thousands of apps, millions of users and an easy to use system, Facebook stands as one of the most often used and influential internet services we have today. But as with all things, Facebook has its downsides. Though not inherent to the actual service itself, it is hard to deny that Facebook’s impact on society is also causing some unwanted side effects.

Here’s a quick list of the things that the world now blames Facebook for:

The big news of the past two days was that Facebook is being blamed for the rise in syphilis. It may seem far-fetched, but Facebook does make it easier for people to find casual sexual partners and as such, would also contribute to the growing rise in sexually transmitted diseases. While this may be an effect of a social networking tool, it is still up to the people involved to practice precautions when engaging in any form of sexual activity.

Divorces are also on the rise thanks to Facebook –again, the social networking tool makes it easy for anyone to meet new people and thus increases the possibilities of cheating. Of course, there is also the fact that people should know how to handle relationships better.

There is one major concern that should really get people acting upon, and it is that Facebook now provides a new alternative to social growth among children. Kids would now prefer to have online contacts than real friends and while this may seem more convenient, it also prevents them from being able to have deeper friendships. Later in life, this lack of social connections could prove to be very debilitating.

Get to know more about the new things we are blaming Facebook with at the Telegraph UK.

Constant vigilance would be the key word here as another major event is coming and many malicious netizens are on the prowl for unwary victims to the latest phishing scams.

Now, if you are totally new to the internet and has never been introduced to the term before, here’s the simple lowdown on phishing: it is when an online scammer utilizes various methods in order to obtain credit card, banking and other similar information in order to steal money from you.

It may sound like a simple thing, but if you are the type to make use of your credit card online in order to make purchases, or if you engage in electronic banking, then you are without a doubt, a suitable target for these scams.

Anyway, the latest batch of scam emails are now focusing on luring people with the upcoming World Cup. Various promotions for free tickets, lodging, hotel accommodations, premium seats and more are just part of the many promises that these emails will have. When confronted with these emails, do not hesitate to mark these messages as spam and have them reported to your email provider. If you have never joined a raffle, then there is no way for you to have won anything out of the blue.

Of course, it is also common sense to never give out your identification information, credit card details and other similar info.

Now, if you intend to go online to make purchases, use PayPal and a secure browser. There are plenty of tutorials that will teach you how to check the verification signature on websites. It would also be prudent to invest in antivirus, antimalware and firewall software. When browsing on your phone, be sure to check authentication of the sites you are in.

Find out more about World Cup scam warnings at the Times Online UK.

EcoCharge may just stomp on AT&T’s Zero Charger. The economical charger claims to almost completely eliminate vampire draw while there are no connected devices. Vampire draw (or standby power, phantom load, vampire power or leaking electricity) is a term for the electric power that is used by electronic devices or gadgets when they are on standby or switched off.

The asset that EcoCharge has over AT&T’s Zero Charger is that it has one port for a mini USB and one port for an additional full-sized USB that would allow two devices to charge at the same time. The company also claims to minimize the leaking electricity more efficiently than the AT&T charger. Jeff Lime, VP of Ventev, had this to day about their charger:

“The EcoCharge is a game changer in the mobile device charger market, both on the energy conservation and innovation fronts. In addition to being Energy Star certified and exceeding the 5-Star efficiency rating, the EcoCharge charges two devices at one time, is packed with user friendly features like our power strip friendly design, and gives our customers the confidence to leave it plugged in by eliminating the Vampire Power draw concern when no device is connected, or when the device is fully charged.”

The slim, portable charger also has a vertical plug position option that will help it squeeze in with other sockets. Just like in other chargers and electrical devices, the EcoCharge has an LED light that indicates when the charger is sucking up electricity and when it is idle. An iPhone/iPod version of EcoCharge will be on sale this April. The bottom plug for the Apple version is, of course, going to be a dock connector but the USB port will remain behind the flip cover. Currently on sale is the micro/mini USB version.

Check Engadget for additional details about the EcoCharge.

Many critics are already opposing the upcoming Digital Economy Bill, with such a rushed process, many believe that the bill will be passed without adequate debate and study –something that the lobbyists are avoiding since the Bill’s part about preventing piracy by controlling the internet is a very flawed assumption.

The Bill would actually cause a lot of trouble if it pushes through. First off, owners of internet cafes and locations with free WiFi would close down by themselves. As the government will now hold owners of networks as responsible for anything that goes on in their connections, giving free WiFi services would be too risky and difficult to manage.

Even worse is the fact that it will open up data packets sent to the government. These bits of data contain chunks of information including content for emails and other private correspondences –it will potentially undermine the rights to privacy in terms of home and communication.

So far, the section about preventing piracy is still sketchy, most of the details simply dictate how much control officials will have in terms of monitoring activities and in filtering internet accessibility.

There are some positive aspects to the Bill that we would still like to see on April; biggest of these is the proposed tax break for game developers. As many are already aware, the video game industry is pretty big and highly competitive –games now cost as much as a movie to produce, and with almost the same degree of talent and manpower required.

BAFTA already recognizes the creative effort that is needed to make a game and it is about time that the government does too. If this pushes through, then many UK based award winning developers like Media Molecule would be able to rise.

Read more about the new Digital Bill at TechWatch UK.

Social networking has certainly blurred up a lot of lines on the internet.

Technically, the internet is media. But since everyone and anyone can publish information on the internet, control of content is not as well sanctioned as what we will find on TV or on printed material. Back then, when people had personal opinions, jokes, rumors and hearsay, they were all free to post it on their personal websites, blogs, forums and bulletin boards.

With the advent of social networking sites, people were able to string one personal update after another. Now, the micro blogging tool Twitter has shown how powerful hearsay on the internet can be.

Despite Twitter being a place of personal accounts, many people cannot help but take Tweets for canonical truth. Defining news updates from jokes is something that some people are not able to do properly, and when you have over a thousand followers, it only takes a handful few of those to misunderstand your Tweet before things get ugly.

Take the case of Aude Baron, a well noted online French Journalist. While users of the internet lose all markings such as military rank, press badges, doctorates and more in the cloak of anonymity, there are those who, intentionally or not, still retain their real life identity online. Baron has over a thousand followers who follow her Tweets –so when she jokingly retweeted a comment about the French President and his wife, many took the news to heart.

Some news blog sites even took the information to heart. In a matter of hours, rumors turned into assumed fact and President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife found themselves the target of a very ugly rumor that has reached even the tabloids.

Get to know more about how one single Twitter “joke” has caused uproar for the French media at the Times Online UK.

A week or so ago, Apple filed a lawsuit against HTC. The Taiwanese manufacturer was accused of stealing patented technology with a patent infringement case that covers up to 20 different patents from Apple.

Obviously, with 20 patents being put on trial at once, it is obvious that Apple has been preparing this case for quite some time. No doubts about Apple’s ownership of the patents obviously, but they will still have a long way to prove that HTC did infringe on those patents knowingly or before the patents were approved.

HTC has already been in the mobile industry for a long time, something that the CEO of the company has brought into spotlight when giving a statement about the lawsuit. With their reputation and credibility as a manufacturer on the line, HTC is reminding us that they are innovators in their own right and would not ‘steal technology’.

The full quote from CEO Peter Chou is as follows: “HTC disagrees with Apple’s actions and will fully defend itself. HTC strongly advocates intellectual property protection and will continue to respect other innovators and their technologies as we have always done, but we will continue to embrace competition through our own innovation as a healthy way for consumers to get the best mobile experience possible.”

“From day one, HTC has focused on creating cutting-edge innovations that deliver unique value for people looking for a smartphone. In 1999 we started designing the XDA and T-Mobile Pocket PC Phone Edition, our first touch-screen smartphones, and they both shipped in 2002 with more than 50 additional HTC smartphone models shipping since then.”

Google has taken a stand on this matter and declared that they will be supporting their industry partner HTC.

Get to know more about the HTC’s reaction to the Apple lawsuit at GSM Arena.

There has been a lot of controversy surrounding the Windows Phone 7 at the Microsoft MIX10 conference. The missing copy and paste functionality is one of the most controversial topics as well as the final word regarding Windows Phone 7 multitasking. For a while, app developers and fans alike were holding their breath for the final word, which was difficult to get out of Microsoft considering the fact that the OS is not launching any time soon, the emulator behaves differently from Microsoft’s descriptions and no one has the list of final hardware specs.

The thing is, Microsoft has delivered the final blow on the issue and has confirmed that there will indeed be no system for multitasking in Windows Phone 7 mobile phones. Or at least very limited support for it. This is a direct confirmation and was brought up several times during the conference so it is a hundred percent accurate.

Microsoft has even specified that developers can expect their apps to crash or close if they integrate any sort of feature that requires a multitask function. Seeing as they have announced this to all the initial developers present at the conference, then it means it is really not possible to see multitasking launch with Windows Phone 7 devices. Or at the very least it cannot be expected to be seen working in the traditional sense.

The system is highly capable of multitasking however and it will have some sort of limited first party support for it. For example, Internet Explorer and the Zune player can still run in the background and if the system is not using up resources,  third party apps will be in a “dehydrated” (translation: suspended) state until additional resources are needed by the system. If that happens then the app is automatically closed.

There is hope however, seeing as how Android and Windows Mobile 6 have managed to work while complemented by additional task managers. Just don’t expect the Windows Phone 7 to run Pandora while you play a new mobile game anytime soon.

Jump to Engadget for more about the missing multitasking function in Windows Phone 7.

Microsoft has dropped one of the biggest bomb shells about their Windows Phone 7 Platform: They will not be including a copy and paste function to it.

This comes as a big surprise because surely Microsoft studies their competition and they are aware of the fact that iPhone users have rallied to actually get a copy and paste functionality for their iPhones. And they did actually get it with the release of the iPhone 3.0 operating system. So what is up with Microsoft? According to Todd Brix, an executive of the Windows Phone team:

“We don’t enable copy and paste and we do that very intentionally. It’s actually an intentional design decision. We try to anticipate what the user wants so copy and paste isn’t necessary.”

That does not really coincide with the number of fan comments pointing towards the other direction. Considering the fact that the previous Windows Phone devices have the functionality, it is very strange that Windows Phone 7 would lack it. It is especially weird because Windows Phone 7 is going to highlight the use of traditional Windows Office apps which would obviously calls for a copy and paste function.

In the place of a traditional copy and paste function, Windows Phone 7 devices will instead be able to make use of a system called “smart linking”. Smart linking allows the phone to detect information such as phone numbers or addresses and will be able to transfer them via double clicking. However, this is a very limiting function that cannot really replace the traditional function.

Although this is only one of aspects of Windows Phone 7, this could still potentially damage their reputation as an overall business device. Many applications rely on the function and document editing really relies on it. Microsoft insists that clipboard functionality is not a necessity. We’ll see the results once Windows Phone 7 rolls out.

Read more about Microsoft’s decision at Geek.