Stories tagged cell phones
A conceptual mock-up of the new phone: by the author. (Original image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)A new cell phone uses bone conduction to transmit sound to your inner-ear. So, now, instead of having to lift the thing all the way up to your ear, you can just press it to your jaw instead.
The conduction of sound through bone is part of the reason we all think our recorded voices sound so weird – they’re missing the resonance of our skull and jawbones. Using bone conduction for something like a cell phone should allow for the operator to hear and be heard better making calls in noisy environments.
Some potential issues occur to me. What about people who, like me, have beards insulating their jawbones? Are we to be left behind? Or what if we don’t want to look like this person? Some of us have enough social concerns with having to be seen holding a remote control to our heads every time we make a call (which may not be all that often, but still).
No doubt this has all already been considered by scientists.
Tags : Here are some of the most interesting perspectives on the 35W bridge collapse that I have run across in the last few days:
Cell phone network sends ominous signals - Engineers at T-Mobile were alerted that something had gone wrong right after the bridge collapse. They hadn't heard the new yet but saw a sharp change in cell phone activity on their network.
Government spending collapsed as well - A graph of US government spending on infrastructure over the last 55 years.
Historians and engineers have a thing or two to learn from each other - An editorial from 2006 of the history of engineering disasters.
Bridges made from glass - A prescient report from the National Science Foundation on poor infrastructure and the future of bridge technology.
Not according to this study. Patients who claimed to suffer nausea, fatigue and other symptoms due to cell phone towers showed no change in their conditions, whether the towers were on or off.
The heat generated by cell phones and the frequent handling of these mobile devices makes them an ideal environment for bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus. Because cell phones are kept in our bags or pockets, as well as held up against our faces, they come in contact with a wide range of bacteria. They actually come into contact with more bacteria than toilet seats do, making cell phones dirtier than toilet seats.
Dialing and Driving: Photo courtesy of eyebo
Do you talk on your cell phone when you drive? I do, all the time. Did you ever think about how dangerous this really was?
A recent study found that drivers who talked on their cell phones were just as impaired as drunk drivers and were more likely to get into accidents. These results were consistent for both handheld cell phones and hands free devices.
Researchers at the University of Utah had 40 participants using a driving simulator four times. The drivers drove while undistracted, talking on a handheld cell phone, talking on a hands free cell phone and drunk with a 0.08 blood-alcohol level. The simulation car followed another car that braked at random intervals.
Even Handsfree Cell Phones Are Dangerous: Photo courtesy of zara 1.0
When compared with undistracted drivers, cell phone drivers drove slightly more slowly, were 9 percent slower to brake, displayed a 24 percent greater variation in their distances from the car in front of them, were 19 percent slower to resume speed after braking and were more likely to crash.
The drunk drivers drove more slowly and more aggressively than both undistracted and cell phone drivers.
In this study, the only drivers to rear-end the car in front of them were the cell phone drivers. None of the drunk drivers got into accidents.
Think twice about dialing and driving. And look out for those cell phone drivers.
What do you think? Do you think driving with cell phones should be illegal?
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