A survey of 16 to 21 year olds across the United States by Consumer Reports has revealed that 48 per cent of them have witnessed one of their parents using their cell phones while driving a motor vehicle, while 15 per cent claim to have seen their mother or father texting while behind the wheel.

The Knowledge Networks 1049 surveyed young adults between 23 November and 13 December last year. Consumer Reports notes that although 63 percent of young drivers concur that accessing the internet, using smart-phone apps or texting while behind the wheel of a car is extremely dangerous, 29 percent still admitted to having texted while driving over the last month, with 47 percent admitting to have made a telephone call without the use of a hands-free headset. Almost 20 percent of respondents acknowledged that they knew someone who had been involved in an accident due to distracted driving.

On the plus side, the survey found that young drivers having peers in the vehicle actually discouraged them from using their new or old cell phones while driving. Almost 50 percent said that they were less likely to text or talk on a cell phone when they had friends as passengers, with 50 percent having been a passenger and asked the driver to stop using a cell phone while behind the wheel out of fear for their safety.

The NAB has been excited by the results of a new Harris Interactive poll that shows the support for new and old cell phones to become capable of receiving terrestrial radio is on the rise.  As much as 81 percent of people responding to the poll said that they would be prepared to pay a small fee to have a chip fitted to cell phones that would make them capable of receiving the radio.

“The results of this survey demonstrate again a significant and growing demand for radio capable cell phones in the US,” says Dennis Wharton, the executive vice president of communications for the NAB.  “We’re hopeful that as demand for this capability becomes more apparent, wireless carriers will voluntarily offer this feature or activate radio chips already in their devices.  Radio enabled cell phones are a standard feature in much of Europe and Asia.  From a public safety perspective alone, there is a strong case to be made for wireless carriers to also voluntarily activate radio chips in cell phones in the US.”

The NAB also drew attention to the comments made by former FCC Michael Copps last year, who following a series of weather emergencies suggested the use of FM chips in cell phones as a way of arming consumers with other ways to stay in touch during disasters.

The top two reasons people want to be able to listen to radio stations on their cell phones are local weather and music.

Cell phones have become more and more technologically advanced over the course of the passing years, with the great majority of people using their new and old cell phones for far more tasks than just talking to someone including surfing the web, taking photographs, checking email, texting and even playing games.

Many people however are not interested in the latest fancy gadgets with all of their whistles and bells. Senior citizens in particular would rather just have a simple to use cellular device which allows them to make calls and which has large, easily visible buttons.

Mobal Freedom is one company which understands this situation and has just recently put up for sale the Just5 J509 Senior Cell Phone, a device which makes it simpler for older people to have the safety features and convenience of a cell phone but without the costly additional features that they usually do not require. The cell phone for seniors, also known as the Just 5 Easy Phone, comes equipped with large buttons which are simple to see and push, and also has a personal emergency response system which can be programmed with up to as many as five numbers.

The company’s website calls the new phone “the antidote to overly complex cell phones today” and adds that the phone “is designed for optimal ease of use, reliability and emergency response, offering basic features for people who love things to be simple”.

Flight 93 National Memorial visitors will now be able to make use of their new and old cell phones in order to tour the site in southwestern Pennsylvania, according to officials. They say that being able to use cell phones to tour the site is appropriate given the role that such cellular devices played in the revolt of the passengers of the doomed aircraft during the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks.

Officials with the National Park Service say that the number of visitors to the Memorial is on track to triple during 2012, meaning the tour will also ease the burden for volunteers and staff members when it comes to providing information for everyone. “We wanted to make the site more self-guided,” says the western Pennsylvania park service superintendant, Jeff Reinbold. “Folks are increasingly hungry to learn more about the story and the memorial.”

Barbara Black, who is an analyst with the Park Service, says that visitors will be able to use their cell phones to be able to orient themselves at the memorial as well to hear the tale of Flight 93 plus a description about the design of the memorial. “They will be able to go into as many layers as they wish,” Black notes. “They will be able to access the website and see videos, charts, photographs and copies of documents.”

It is possible that future recordings will include witness and relative accounts.

New and old cell phones, particularly smart-phones that have access to the internet, are now not so much as communication devices as full-blown problem solvers, according to the new report from the Internet & American Life project of the Pew Research Center.

The most recent survey from Pew about our online life says that 70 percent of cell phone owners and as much as 86 percent of smart-phone owners say that they have made use of the devices in order to arrange meetings with associates and friends, settle an argument, solve a problem, and find traffic or transport information.  The study, which was conducted by phone between 15 March and 3 April this year, saw 2254 people over the age of 18 across the nation asked about their use of the devices.

Of the respondents, 41 percent said they had used cell phones to arrange get-togethers or meetings, with 35 percent having used them to solve an unexpected problem either for themselves or for someone else.  Twenty-seven percent had used them to settle a dispute, 20 percent having used them to find out public transit or traffic information, 23 percent have looked up a sports score using the devices and 19 percent have used them to get help in an emergency.

“Smart-phones are changing basic patterns of human communication because they allow people to get real-time information to help them solve problems,” says the coauthor of the report, Susannah Fox.

Electronic waste is not a bad thing if handled in the proper manner, as evidence of such waste in a nation is indicative of growth, according to Ulze van Wyk, the managing director of Africa e-waste.  Wyk notes that another positive to the growing level of electronic waste is that it creates more job opportunities in order to deal with the problem.

“More PCs means more households have access to the internet and (are) educating themselves,” Wyk says.  “Growth is good and in Africa we need growth and education of our nation.” Wyk does point out however that while electronic equipment such as new and old cell phones is valuable and important, they also contain toxic parts that can result in harm to the environment if they are not handled in the correct way.  “The quicker the equipment is collected after being replaced, the more value the equipment has when reused.  Cost of ownership increases with every month the equipment is in storage.”

The E-Waste Survey, which was undertaken by Africa e-waste in partnership with ITWeb to find out how local organizations are going about managing their electronic waste, was released this week.  It follows a similar survey last year that discovered that around 50 percent of organizations in South Africa are ignorant of the country’s legislation in regards to the criminalization of electronic waste dumping.

“I believe a lot has been done for e-waste awareness in SA and I am interested to know by how much,” Wyk adds.

A new Harris Poll, which was commissioned by Placecast, has shown that Americans are eagerly adopting new and old cell phones for the purpose of shopping rather than making calls or texting.  The poll shows that 20 percent of all adult cell phone users in the United States have used their phones to make a purchase via the internet at some point during the last 12 months, with consumers also becoming increasingly interested in marketing via text messages.

Purchase rates with the owners of smart-phones are higher than with those who own standard cell phones, with 34 percent of smart-phone owners having used the device to buy online in the last year, against 20 percent of standard cell phone owners.

Overall interest in using cell phones to make purchases has increased by eight percent in the last two years, with 38 percent of all cell phone owners acknowledging that it is at least somewhat important.  Once more, this feeling is more strongly felt by the owners of smart-phones, with 59 percent believing it is somewhat important for them to be able to shop via their cellular device.

Adults in the United States have also shown a greater receptiveness to the idea of marketing via text messages, with over three in ten cell phone owners who do not already receive such messages from companies admitting to an interest in receiving such texts from brands, so long as it was optional.

Damning cell phone images have emerged of a female student being brutally assaulted by another girl with a combination lock at Thurgood Marshall High School.  The images of the incident show one girl, armed with a sock containing a combination lock in the toe, viciously assaulting an unarmed girl until the latter fell to the floor, bleeding from her head.  The girl ended up in hospital and had to receive staples on her head.

The cell phone video also shows a number of other students standing around doing nothing to help the girl who was assaulted, many of them recording the attack on their new and old cell phones.  “Where are the adults? The teachers?” one parent has demanded to know.  “There is no supervision there.  That is too many kids for no adults to be around.” Another parent points out that from the crowd “It looks like a great deal of the student body knew this was going to take place and nobody reported it.”

Needless to say, no parent was more enraged than Pamela Flowers, the mother of the girl who was so viciously assaulted.  Flowers says she had warned the 10^th grade assistant principal that her daughter has been threatened hours in advance of the attack, yet nothing was done.  After the assault, the principal allegedly told Flowers that her warning had slipped his mind.  “I don’t understand how you allow something life-threatening to slip your mind,” Flowers says angrily.

The incident is now under investigation.

Electronic waste handling rules in India, which came into effect from this Tuesday, will make little difference at a ground level because there is no guideline or monitoring mechanism in place, according to environmental group Toxics Link.

The group says that the rules, which put the responsibility for the management of electronic waste such as the likes of old cell phones onto brands and manufacturers via the principle of Extended Producer Responsibility, are likely to be meaningless due to the fact that there are no targets or accountability checks.  Because of this, the results will probably change little as many firms may simply decide to indulge in ‘tokenism’ rather than serious efforts to take responsibility.

The Associate Director of Toxics Link, Satish Sanhal, says that a company could get away with merely implementing a purely symbolic collection system because the rules fail to specify the amount of collection or number of collection points required.  “Companies like Samsung, LG, Nokia, HCL, HP, Videocon and many more have to ensure that they have a proper take-back system and provide the opportunity to consumers to recycle,” Sanhal notes.  “The new rules also look at the life cycle approach, and restrict the use of hazardous substances in electronics, though the mechanism for effective implementation and monitoring of such substances has not been clearly articulated and informed.”

Toxic Links also says that there is a need to raise awareness of the issue amongst consumers.

Rules intended to reduce the use of hazardous materials in electronic and electrical equipment by placing the onus of the management of electronic waste onto manufacturers came into force in India yesterday with guidelines being issued by the Central Pollution Board.

There is a necessity to encourage recycling, as stated by the Hazardous Waste Management Division of the Central Pollution Board’s guidelines, which is an arm of the Union Environment Ministry; so that the country’s rapidly dwindling natural resources are conserved by reusing all valuable and useful material from electronic waste, including old cell phones.

By placing the responsibility for the environmentally safe disposal of electronic waste on the producers, the Board says that producers will have to go about “setting up collection centers or take back (electronic) systems either individually or collectively”.  The individual producer can make the decision as to the mechanism for collection in accordance with the policy of its own company.  Such details will however have to be specified in order to obtain authorization from the State Pollution Control Boards.

The new e-waste (Management and Handling) Rules 2011 were notified a year in advance in the May of last year in order to allow the various stakeholders to have adequate time to be able to prepare themselves and to put into place the infrastructure which will be necessary for effective implementation.  “These rules shall apply to every producer, consumer or bulk consumer, collection centre and dismantler and recycler of e-waste,” the guidelines state.