Tag: cell phones

Another day, another phone…

Ever since I lost my phone in July, I’ve been putting off buying a new one because of a financial crunch (thanks to crappy employers under-paying me and the bloody malaria!) I kept using my 3-year old LG with it’s scratched body, non-functioning buttons and annoying interface!

Well, that LG finally breathed its last. It just switched itself off quietly and refused to come on again one morning. Typical. I was not ready to buy a new phone as yet but I had to spend on one now.

I had been lusting after the Sony Ericsson K810i. Mostly for its looks, but also for the decent 3.2MP camera it packed. It was more expensive than I wanted to spend, but I went ahead and bought it anyway. And I’ve never been happier about my phone!

It didn’t take me long to install a few games, Opera Mini and the GMail app. Not to mention SSH! Bliss!

Lost phone

Earlier this week, I lost my phone. Yep, the same one I just bought a few months ago. πŸ™

Which made me think, since all phones have a unique IMEI number, why isn’t there some sort of national registry where I can lodge my IMEI number (after proving that I indeed purchased that phone.)

The purpose? All service providers in the country will be required to constantly check with this registry and search their networks for the phone with that IMEI number

They could then track the user of that phone and thus return the lost/stolen phone to its rightful owner!

Wishful thinking…

New Phone!

Sony Ericsson K750i

After complaining about my old LG phone that never seemed to do what I wanted it to do, not even make or receive calls well, I finally went and bought a new phone.

While I had been planning to get one for a while, it was a mostly impulse buy as I had already decided on getting a Sony phone and did zero research beyond that. Well, not really, I actually decided what features I wanted and picked a phone that I could afford to buy and was quite happy with it. Except, when I went to the store, that model was not available anymore!

So I looked at other phones and while the shopkeeper kept trying to sell me a Nokia phone, I saw this nice looking K750i and decided I wanted it.

It had a MemoryStick Duo slot so I could increase the storage on it, it came with FM Radio, a media player and a 2 megapixel camera. Perfect. Or whatever. I wanted a new phone!

And that’s how I ended up with my new phone.

Of course, I spent the next couple of hours ignoring my girlfriend and transferring numbers from the old phone via the SIM and then playing with settings, clicking photos. Even at dinner!

Ghost phone!

I got this message from a friend online:

9885195629 This is a girl’s phone number who comitted suicide 6 months back. God knows who recieves her calls even today. If u try this number before midnight it says that this number is busy. and after mid night it starts ringing and u can hear female voice crying for help. Beleive me try it out…….But at your own risk……Take care. Weak hearts dont try…………..

I am not willing to try so do let me know what happens.

Weird, huh? Well, I’m going to wait until midnight to call that number. In case you never see me blog here again, you know what happened! πŸ˜›

Follow up on “Cell phones and lightning”

I’ve done some more Googling and I can’t find any news articles online which talk about the cell phones in that story. Even the newspaper I read it in originally doesn’t have it on their website.

Also, the professor from IIT, Bombay giving his “expert” opinion is actually a professor at the Industrial Design Centre and specialises in Ergonomics. I’m not sure how this makes him an expert in lightning strikes, but I could be wrong?

I have grumbled in the past about crap journalism. πŸ™‚

Cell phones and lightning

A girl walking on the beach with her friends was struck by lightning and killed yesterday.

Apparently she was carrying the mobile phones of most of her friends in her bag and the newspaper I read said that this might have been why the lightning struck her.

As it was raining, the Bhavans College students had given their cell phones, wrapped in plastic, to Sakori, who had placed them in her purse. The group were walking along the beach in the rain when they were struck.

Investigating officer Santosh Sawant and sub-inspector Salim Sheikh, who gave the group first aid, say the mobiles may have acted as some kind of a magnet for the lightning bolt.

An expert in the field did not rule out the possibility. Professor Gaur G Ray of IIT Bombay said, “Β“The metal casings of the mobiles could have acted as an antenna and attracted the lightning bolt. Mobile phones do emit electro-magnetic waves but it will have to be ascertained if that could have also precipitated the strike.”

This just doesn’t make sense to me. A quick Google search pulls up enough pages that explains this is just an urban legend.

What’s a likelier explanation, according to me, is that she must have been the tallest person in the group and was probably walking barefoot.

Sorry, I’m a bit tied up at the moment…

Hands free sets (wired and wireless) for cell phones are really popular with the population in Bombay. Mostly because the Nokia phones which everyone (except me) owns allows you to listen to FM radio through them.

So there’s everyone walking around with wires dangling from their ears or with the Jabra-type headsets looking like agents from the Matrix (or the Secret Service?) And its very disconcerting to see a person in a car apparently talking to thin air animatedly or a person strolling down a street yelling at no one. But I don’t really have anything against it, since back in the US I made a lot of use of a hands-free headset too. (Although not because I was all busy and working, but because I was usually chatting on the ‘net simultaneously and so needed both my hands free to type!)

Among the funnier things I see with headsets is how they hold up the microphone (which is dangling from a wire) to their mouths to speak. Thus defeating the purpose of “hands free!” Today though, I saw something that really made me guffaw. There was this guy with his handsfree head set wrapped around his face (honest!) so that the microphone was held tightly against his upper lip and he was talking through it! What an idea! *snicker*