38 years ago, on April 3, 1973, Martin Cooper, and engineer for Motorola made the first public cellular phone call. The purpose of the call was to show the FCC the new and amazing technology they had developed; a technology that would need FCC approval and an allocated frequency band to see it put into practical application.
Advocates of recycling in Illinois in the United States say that the law is not doing enough to force manufacturers to get with the program when it comes to the recycling of electronic goods, including old cell phones. While the state passed a law during 2010 that forces them to recycle their electronic goods, including used cell phones, those companies have fallen well short of the target amount and have been ‘rewarded’ by having the target lowered for this year.
Clark Gardens Botanical Park in Texas in the United States recently came up with a novel way to try to entice people into cell phone recycling. Every time someone donates an old cellular phone, they will be given a tree sapling. The idea, which was used for a limited time only at a festival, which was held over the weekend, saw forty-eight old cell phones being donated for recycling, with tree saplings of such species as Bur Oak, Chinkapin Oak, Green Ash and Shumard Oak (all Texas natives) given to those that participated. There are still a few tree saplings left and the program will continue for a brief period until they are all gone.
The Los Angeles Police Department are adopting a ‘zero tolerance’ to all forms of distracted driving, including drivers who are caught talking or texting on their cell phones whilst operating a motor vehicle, throughout the month of April. Distracted Driving Awareness Month kicked off in the state of California in the United States at six o’clock this morning, with the Los Angeles Police Department teaming up with more than two hundred and twenty-five other agencies, including the California Highway Patrol, to clamp down on distracted driving offenders.
In ‘s-Hertogenbosch, North Brabant, Netherlands at St. John’s Cathedral, a 12-year restoration project has come to an end. Among the many restored and cleaned statues sits an angel holding a cell phone to her ear. The phone has only one button; after all, the artist says, she only needs to phone God.
Residents of New York in the United States will now be able to recycle their old cell phones and other electrical goods free of charge. A new law, the Electronic Recycling and Reuse Act goes into effect today, according to the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) which not only sets in motion the biggest e-waste program in the whole of the United States, but also forces manufacturers to recycle at least some of their own equipment all over the state to meet a predetermined goal.
San Gabriel Valley in California in the United States is set to embark on a new scheme to make it easier for people to recycle their household batteries, including ones from their old cell phones. The San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments (SGVCOOG) decided to create a way to increase support for the recycling of old batteries from items such as used cell phones by increasing the number of drop off outlets at business and retail outlets throughout the community in the wake of research that suggested more people would recycle if there were more convenient ways for them to be able to do so.
Note to prospective thieves – never hide a stolen cell phone in your underpants. That’s the embarrassing lesson learned by a would be thief in Rondebosch in South Africa on Tuesday night when he attempted to make off with a cell phone stolen from a restaurant owner, only to expose himself as the culprit in humiliating fashion.
All HTC fans will be beside themselves with excitement at the news that the company has just sent out invites to an exclusive event scheduled for Tuesday April 12th in London. That’s next week for those who can’t read calendars, by the way. The Taiwanese company is, as yet however, giving no indications as to precisely what will be going on at the event, but we’re presuming it will be something exciting anyway.
Sick of the battery going dead in your cell phone? Worried by the environmental impact of batteries? Both concerns could soon be a thing of the past thanks to a radical device that uses nanotechnology to allow you to power your cell phone and other electrical devices with your own body. The Georgia Institute of Technology has come up with a way to charge up cell phones with a flick of your own finger.
