Coke to Power Cell Phones?

January 13, 2010 by SmartChick | 2 Comments

One of the things that I really love to learn about is what might happen with technology in the future. I like finding out about concepts that may or may not become real products but that do point to the potential for technological changes.

So I have to admit that I was excited this morning to learn about a concept phone that might use Coke (yes, the soda) for its power.

The info:

The phone uses fuel cell technology based on sugary water. There’s not much water more sugary than Coke!
It’s eco-friendly. Much better than batteries and totally biodegradable.
It’s useful in parts of the world where other eco-friendly technology isn’t going to work. For example, solar powered phones aren’t viable everywhere.
The phone is just a prototype right now. It’s not actually on the market but it could be something we’ll see developed in the future

Interesting stuff. What do you think?

Researching Jobs for a Cell Phone Lover

August 13, 2009 by SmartChick | Leave a comment

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!

My Top Ten Top Ten Cell Phone Articles

August 5, 2009 by SmartChick | 2 Comments

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:

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

Women Are Pickier About Smartphones

July 14, 2009 by SmartChick | Leave a comment

I used to be really opposed to stereotyping anything based on gender. However, over the years, I’ve learned that a lot of the stereotypes that we make provide interesting insight into the differences between men and women. I don’t necessarily think that the stereotypes are all true but they offer generalizations that can lead us to draw some conclusions about different things. This is most true about relationships but it’s also true about other things. For example, there are some stereotypes about shopping habits that are based on gender.

One area of this that interests me is the difference in how men and women shop for consumer electronics. The way that they shop for smartphones, for example, is quite different. Surveys indicate that men are more likely to buy these devices than women are. However, women are more likely to take into account all of the different factors that go into the phone in order to make the best selection.

Women are more interested in all of the different features of these phones. They want a phone that has a good camera, a great text message plan and tons of multimedia features. For this reason, they tend to be pickier about smartphones than men are. It takes them longer to make a decision about these phones and it may mean that they get more confused or frustrated when buying one. As a result, more men have smartphones than women at the current time.

Looking around at the people I know, I’d have to say that these things seem to be true. Most of the women I know either don’t have a smartphone or they took a really long time to choose one. Most of the men that I know do have a smartphone (and frequently upgrade to new ones) but they don’t actually use tons of the features that the phone offers. Hm, interesting.

Going Green T-Mobile’s Mobile Initiative

July 6, 2009 by SmartChick | 1 Comment

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?

4 Reasons People Like Samsung Jet

June 30, 2009 by SmartChick | Leave a comment

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:

Speed. It’s one of the fastest phones available on the market today.
Display. It also has one of the most impressive screen resolutions out of any mobile phone line.
Advanced web browsing. The new web browser allows you to easily open multiple web pages and perform other fairly advanced mobile web functions.
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.

Mobile Phones on Twitter

June 22, 2009 by SmartChick | Leave a comment

I used to have a love/hate relationship with Twitter. Over time, that has changed. I lean a lot more towards the love side now. I suppose that’s because I’ve learned how to use Twitter in ways that make it fun for me. I meet people and share information there.

I actually do a lot of my research through Twitter, using it as a starting point to find news and articles about the topics that interest me. For example, I stay on top of the latest information and thoughts about mobile phones by following people on Twitter who write about these things.

There are so many people writing about this topic that it would be impossible to follow them all. I’ve found about 20 mobile phone Twitterers that really interest me a lot. These are what I would suggest as a starting place for people interested in researching that topic on Twitter.

Of course, you can make a list like this for any interest that you may have. I also follow people on Twitter who are interested in personal finance, simple living and creativity since those are topics that also interest me a lot. I think it’s worthwhile to take the time to find the people who are networking on these topics and to follow their activities online.

My Twitter account is at http://twitter.com/KathrynVercillo.

5 Ways to Become a Cell Phone Tester

June 18, 2009 by SmartChick | 1 Comment

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:

Get a job with a mobile phone company and volunteer to do their testing.
Look for announcements from cell phone companies on their blogs where they sometimes ask for testers.
Look for these jobs on technology job boards where they’re occasionally advertised.
Become a mobile phone review writer or blogger. If you work for a good site, you can sometimes get items to test.
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?!

3 Links Between Movies and Cell Phones

June 9, 2009 by SmartChick | Leave a comment

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:

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.
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!
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?

Does Your Phone Do Your Thinking For You?

May 14, 2009 by SmartChick | Leave a comment

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?

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