One of the trends that I’ve been following lately is the development of solar power technology for cell phones. I recently wrote an article about this for DialAPhone which reviews all of the different solar cell phone options that I’m aware of. It covers the following ten options:

1. Solar cell phones. These are handsets themselves that are solar-powered.
2. Solar cell phone sleeves. These chargers go around the cell phone.
3. Solar backpacks. These gather energy to power many small devices including cell phones.
4. Solar USB panels. This is one of the newer options out there.
5. Solar clothing. Swimsuits are particularly popular although I don’t know how practical this is.
6. Solar straps. These wrap around your wrist and gather the sun’s energy for your phone.
7. Solar cell phone accessories. Solar-powered phone speakers are an example.
8. Solar panels for buildings. This offers power for phones indoors.
9. Solar cell towers. This is a big-scale project for solar cell phone power.

If this topic interests you then I hope you’ll read the full article that I did on each of these options by followign the DialAPhone link above. If you know of any other solar cell phone options that I’ve missed then please let me know in the comments here!

Tags: cell phones, mobile technology, solar cell phones, solar power, solar power cell phones

I love to write top ten articles. Coming up with creative ideas for top ten articles guides my research and allows me to focus on interesting aspects of an industry. One industry that I particularly love doing top ten posts about is the cell phone industry. (In fact, you can see a list of my top ten articles in the top ten style for this topic right here.)

The most recent article that I did for this industry in that particular style was an article on 10 Great Jobs for Mobile Phone Lovers. This is a terrific example of a top ten article that’s fun to research. Off the top of my head, I was able to think of a few jobs that fit the bill (testing cell phones, designing handsets, etc.). However, I didn’t know of ten jobs so I got to spend some fun time researching the different positions that might come about that would be mostly cell-phone-focused. I learned about some interesting ones (like answering questions as an expert using text messaging – what a cool at-home job!)

I think that this is the best part of being a freelance writer / blogger if you take your research seriously. You get the opportunity to explore many different topics of interest. You get to research them completely and learn new things. It’s the perfect job for someone who really just wants to be a perpetual student!

Tags: cell phone jobs, cell phones, mobile phones, research, writing

I frequently write articles about mobile phones. These articles touch on a number of topics. I do reviews. I write news. I do in-depth feature articles about various issues. And I also do a lot of “top ten” style articles.

If mobile phones interest you and you like “Top Ten” articles then you might be interested in my Top 10 top tens on this topic:

1. 10 Health Problems People Claim are Caused by Cell Phones
2. 10 Companies to Help You Make Mobile Payments
3. 10 Celebrities Who Don’t Bother with Cell Phones
4. 10 Reasons a Person Might not Get a Smartphone
5. 10 Best Applications for Mobile Facebook Users
6. 10 Ridiculous Mobile Phone Apps
7. 10 Signs that It’s Really Time to Ditch your Landline
8. 10 Sites for Free Mobile VoIP
9. 10 Best Movies About Mobile Phones
10. 10 Rude Things People do on their Cell Phones

Cast your vote - Which is your favorite of these articles?

Tags: cell phones, kathryn vercillo, mobile news, mobile phones, top ten

Parents today have to worry about how their teens and tweens are going to be using modern technology. Learning to monitor their kids’ social networking sites and to make sure that they don’t get addicted to computer games is all a part of being a parent in modern society. Mobile phones are another thing that parents have to monitor and worry about.

The most common problems that parents face when it comes to kids and cell phones are:

• The fight over when to get one. A lot of kids start to want their own cell phone when they’re still in elementary school. Parents have to decide when they think it’s best to make this move.
• Excessive use of the cell phone. Parents may be upset by huge cell phone bills caused by kids who go over their minutes. Alternatively, they may just not want their kids on the phone as much as they are.
• Text message threats. Bullying via text message is an increasing problem among teens and tweens. Parents have to worry about their kids bullying others or becoming a victim of this type of bullying.
• Teen sexting. Kids who engage in teen sexting may not only be putting themselves at risk in their relationships but may actually be breaking the law.

What is interesting to note about these common problems is that they aren’t that different from what parents and their kids have been battling over for ages. Parents have to figure out how to set limits, monitor their kids’ behavior towards others and allow their kids to grow into sexual adults. The technology may be different from the past but the battles are the same.

Tags: cell phones, kathryn vercillo, most common cell phone problems for parents, Parenting, Technology, teens and cell phones

T-mobile is working the green angle with a set of products and services called Mobilize Initiative. This is a way for the company to put all of its green efforts under one umbrella. This might make it easier for mobile customers to go green.

3 of the features of the Mobilize Initiative program so far are:

• Green phones. T-mobile is trying to make its mark with offering eco-friendly handsets. This is probably going to be increasingly popular as time goes on.
• Green perks. There’s a new program called Green Perks which allows T-mobile customers to shop from their phones using coupons for green products.
• Green accounts. You can choose to go green with paperless billing and other eco-friendly features by selecting a green account from the company.

Green is popular right now so this could be something that helps set T-mobile apart from other cell phone carriers. What do you think – would you switch to T-mobile if it meant you were being greener?

Tags: cell phones, green, green coupons, green perks, kathryn vercillo, mobile phones, mobilize initiative, Technology, tmobile

I recently had the opportunity to do an in-depth review of the Samsung s8000 Jet. This is a new mobile phone that received more pre-orders than the iPhone did in its early days. That says something about the kind of attention that it’s getting.

While doing my research for the review, I kept coming across four main reasons that this new phone is so popular:

1. Speed. It’s one of the fastest phones available on the market today.
2. Display. It also has one of the most impressive screen resolutions out of any mobile phone line.
3. Advanced web browsing. The new web browser allows you to easily open multiple web pages and perform other fairly advanced mobile web functions.
4. Cool user interface. The main reason people love this new phone is that it has a user interface with lots of neat features. This includes fun shortcuts, transition effects and a neat “smart unlock” system that lets you program each letter key to simultaneously do its own function whil unlocking the phone.

It seems like a cool new phone. I think it’s worth taking a look at if you’re into smartphones (although it’s technically not a smartphone, I suppose). Also, if you’re interested in new mobile phones, you might want to follow these 20 mobile phone Twitterers.

Tags: cell phones, kathryn vercillo, mobile phones, news, reviews, samsung features, samsung jet, Technology, Wireless

I recently did some research into a really interesting topic. The topic was how to become a cell phone tester so that you can try out mobile phones before they get released to the public. I didn’t know much about this before I started doing my research and found it all really fascinating.

What I learned is that there are five ways to become a cell phone tester:

1. Get a job with a mobile phone company and volunteer to do their testing.
2. Look for announcements from cell phone companies on their blogs where they sometimes ask for testers.
3. Look for these jobs on technology job boards where they’re occasionally advertised.
4. Become a mobile phone review writer or blogger. If you work for a good site, you can sometimes get items to test.
5. Network with people in the industry. It’s mostly who you know in this case.

It seems like a fun job or hobby if you can get it doesn’t it?!

Tags: cell phone tester, cell phones, how to test cell phones, hubpages, kathryn vercillo, mobile phones, weird jobs

I recently did research into the relationship between movies and mobile phones. What I learned from this research is that there are three main ways in which movies and cell phones are linked:

1. People watch movies on their cell phones. More and more phones are getting advanced enough to be capable of watching streaming or downloaded movies. There have been a lot of recent announcements about this link between movies and mobile phones.
2. People film movies on their cell phones. This is just cool. Lots of people use their phone’s video camera to film movies. There are film festivals specifically for these phone-made films. I love the creativity of it!
3. The movie industry markets on phones. There are tons of different marketing ploys used by movie promoters that involve mobile phones include interactive mobile advertising.

Are there other links between cell phones and movies that I’m forgetting?

Tags: art, cell phones, entertainment, kathryn vercillo, mobile phones, movies, society, Technology, Wireless

There’s a reason that they call them smartphones. Today’s advanced mobile phones serve as mini-computers that can take a lot of things off of your mind. You hardly have to remember anything on your own because you can program your phone to remember things for you.

The most obvious example of this is phone numbers. It used to be that people memorized the phone numbers that they called most often. Most people today memorize one or two numbers in case of an emergency and simply let their phones remember the rest.

The fact that we rely on our phones to remember things could mean that we’re thinking less than we used to. We simply don’t have to stretch our brain muscles so much anymore because we’ve got a world of helpful information at our fingertips.

If we’re not thinking as much as before then we run the chance that we’re losing our ability to utilize common sense. A lot of people are lost without their phones – they can’t calculate tips or find their way around a strange location without mobile applications to guide them.

Is your cell phone doing your thinking for you?

Tags: cell phones, kathryn vercillo, mobile phones, society, Technology

There are a lot of changes taking place in cell phone design today. Most people now have touchscreen phones in either slider style or candybar style. It’s not too common to see clamshell designs and the old 0-9 numbered keyboard anymore.

Another change that we’re seeing is the increasing use of OLED screens to replace LCD screens on these new phones. Although these new OLED screens are only in a handful of mobile phones at this time, it is believed by experts in the industry that over 50% of mobile phones will have them in the next few years.

There are many benefits to OLED screens. They are more vibrant and offer a better user experience. They are more energy-efficient which means that they produce less drain on the battery of your cell phone and are kinder to the environment. They are faster, thinner and more durable.

Not everything is good about the new screens, of course, but designers are trying to work out any kinks to make sure that we see rapid adoption of this technology in the mobile phone industry in the near future. Samsung seems to be the company leading the way in this area and is one to watch if this interests you.

Tags: cell phones, design, kathryn vercillo, mobile phones, oled, touchscreen