Hellaphone was founded in 2006, when we first launched the Cell Phone Wallpaper Maker. In the past three years, users all over the world have used the Wallpaper Maker to create over 400,000 wallpapers for their mobile phones, and we’ve received dozens upon dozens of emails praising the utility of this free service.
We hope to offer even more services to cell phone users in the near future — so stay tuned!
This interesting article in the New York Times asserts that cell phones are even more important a technology in many third-world and developing countries than they are in many heavily industrialized countries like the United States. Many countries are building cell phone towers in areas that never even had wired networks, spreading telecommunications for the first time by way of cellular technology. By some counts, more people have access to a cell phone today than to a toilet.
Photo: Cells phones at an electronics market in Lagos, Nigeria (Associated Press)
The federal government of Mexico is requiring all cell phone lines in the country to be registered in a central database with identifications of their users. Most cell phones in Mexico are not operated on contracts with carriers, so the government has no means to identify the user of a particular number. This is proclaimed as an attempt to fight crime syndicates. From AFP:
Tens of thousands of Mexico residents could have their cell phones cut off this weekend for failing to register their numbers under a government scheme to tackle organized crime.
Congress voted in the move last year in a bid to reduce widespread crimes, particularly extortion and ransom demands, carried out via untraceable cell phones.
If cell phone users fail to register by Saturday midnight, “their line will be suspended with no responsibility from their service provider,” the Federal Telecommunications Commission said on its Internet site.
Out of around 79 million registered lines, just under 55 million had been registered by Thursday, or 66 percent, according to the commission.
Thousands rushed to register by SMS or on the Internet as the deadline loomed, but bottlenecks slowed down the process and some — including Mexicans without birth certificates and foreigners without Mexican identity numbers — were unable to comply.
The United States Department of Homeland Security is reportedly developing poison gas sniffing capabilities for embedding into cell phones. This of course raises privacy concerns about future mandates requiring cellphones to “phone home” to government intelligence agencies, but the DHS claims that such a capability would be optional. From PCMag:
…all manufacturers would need to do is embed a small chip into the phones–costing a little less than a dollar–that would detect toxic chemicals in the air while a user goes about his or her normal activities. Depending on the nature of the gas detected, the phone could alert a user with a vibration or a noise to indicate that unsafe activities are amiss and, “getting the heck out” should commence.
For more potent chemical activities–like a toxic gas attack–the phone would anonymously send a message back to a centralized service to report its findings. But here’s the fun part. Rather than raise the alarm and force authorities to take action, which would prove costly should numerous phones glitch and fire up an occasional false alarm, said reporting service would take into account the reports of phones across a larger geographic area.
For example, suppose a poisonous gas was released at a shopping mall. Instead of relying on one phone’s report of a problem–which may or may not be a true indication of what’s really going on–the service would look for correlated reports across a number of devices in a particular location. According to Physorg.com, the entire process of detection, reporting, and notification could take place in less than 60 seconds. And since all users equipped with chemical-sensing phones would be serving as their own walking sensors of-sorts, emergency responders could use the more comprehensive analysis to pinpoint exactly where they need to concentrate their efforts.
The privacy implications of having a phone that’s always in touch with a centralized reporting service–likely run through Homeland Security–might put some at bay. However, officials insist that the service would run on an opt-in basis and provide anonymity for submitting devices. That’s a pretty wide concession given how antithetical it is for a distributed reporting service to rely on users “opting in,” especially since said service relies on a wide range of submissions from its user base to operate.
The recent success of the Avatar in the theaters has proven it: 3D is going big. With technologies in rapid development allowing 3D home theater and 3D television viewing at home, 3-dimensional content is sure to hit big by the end of 2010.
As a homebase for early adopters and 3D enthusiasts, we’ve just launched 3DTVUG — The 3D TV Users Group. Here’s a place to discuss the ins and outs, the hopes and the hype surrounding the developing world of 3D home viewing.
Another cell phone fraud alert, this time from the phone number 714-916-3051. If you receive any calls or text messages from this number, I recommend that you disregard and delete them.
Here is the message they sent, likely trying to take advantage of the recent news on changes in federal credit card policy:
If you are $10,000 or more in Credit Card Debt, you qualify for our Debt Settlement Program. Reply “YES” to be contacted today with info.
At best they are trying to recruit people for some exploitative refinancing program, but more likely they’re phishing for personal information to commit identity theft. Do not reply.
Update (March 3, 2010): Looks like this scammer is operating from multiple phone numbers. Received a similar message today from 714-861-9714.
If you are $10,000 or more in credit card debt, you can qualify for our Debt Settlement program. Text “YES” to learn more.
If they’re yet showing up on your radar, they soon will be. Portaprojectors (aka pico-projectors, pocket projectors) are pocket-sized video projectors that can be hooked up to a camera, a laptop, or yes, even a cell phone. Imagine their uses: travelling business presentations, portable movie theaters, video games in bed, etc. Some upcoming cell phones should even be released soon with micro-projectors built in. Who said 2010 wasn’t the future?
The Motorola Droid is a new Android platform phone released by Verizon, and possible the best Android phone yet. Those who’ve snagged this device can turn any images they like into free Motorola Droid wallpapers using the Hellaphone Wallpaper Maker.
Be sure to submit some of your favorite wallpapers to the Motorola Droid wallpaper gallery.
Acer has come out with a line of classy touchscreen phones called the neoTouch and the beTouch. You can make your own wallpapers for these phone models from any photograph or image using the Hellaphone Wallpaper Maker. We also have galleries of free wallpapers for the Acer neoTouch F1, beTouch E100, beTouch E101, and beTouch E200 shared by other Hellaphone community members.
Apparently phishing has escaped the bounds of the web, and is now also targeting people through mobile phones. I received a somewhat suspicious phone call and an unusual text message over the last two days that lead me to believe that scammers are right now trying to steal from Verizon customers, and likely from people on other networks too, by deceptively getting them to hand over personal information.
Phishing is a scamming technique employed by crooks to extract personal information and credit card numbers for purposes of identity theft. They do this by impersonating a company that people already have a trusting relationship with. We’ve all seen those fake emails from banks asking us to reset our password.
The other day I received this text message:
From:900-070-004665 Free VZW msg. UR on track 2 incur overage charges for Minute, Data, or Message usage. Dial #MIN & #DATA to check usage or review usage at MyVerizon.com CB:888-453-1922
I didn’t think much of it at the time, and in fact I did check #MIN (a Verizon service that I know to be legitimate) and found out that I in fact had plenty of minutes left for the month. Phishers will put in legit contact info like #MIN, #DATA and MyVerizon.com in order to make their message seem more trustworthy. What they’re counting on, though, is for a small percentage of recipients to call the 888 phone number, where they likely answer the phone still claiming to be Verizon. Forgive me for not calling to find out.
Anyway, I ignored the text at the time, and didn’t think of it again until I got a missed call (no voicemail) yesterday from the number 888-453-1918, a similar 888 number. A web search revealed that numerous people have gotten calls from this number over the last week, and apparently if you call back, they pick up claiming to be Verizon Wireless request your account information. They are not Verizon Wireless.
I hope that by sharing my story and the operating methods of phishers, I can prevent someone from falling for this scam. Here’s the general rule to follow in order to not be a phishing victim: Be wary of all communications from companies, and doubly suspicious if they ask for personal, account, or credit card information. If you’re not sure if a communication is legitimate or fake, you can find out by going to the company’s real website (not through some link in a fraudulent email) and calling their real support number.
If anybody believes they are being phished from other phone numbers, please contact me so I can post a warning here on Hellaphone.
A contest for early members of the n900 community forum has just begun. More details at n900talk.com.