According to Cellular-News, six people have been arrested in Mozambique for sending cell phone messages calling for protests over high food, water and electricity prices.

Monday's state radio report says they were arrested a day earlier in Nampula for trying to spread the protests to that northern province.

Read full article.

Two US marketers ave started an ad campaign calling for Yom Kippur to be a “No-Device Day” for people of all faiths. The Jerusalem Post reports.

“You don’t have to be Jewish...to atone for your texts on Yom Kippur,” one ad reads, featuring a picture of shamed golfer Tiger Woods.

Another ad, accompanied by a picture of Mel Gibson, reads, “You don’t have to be Jewish to give up drunk dialing for Yom Kippur.”

Since starting their initiative in June, more than 10,000 people have signed the pledge on the Web site, http://offlining.com, to have 10 device-free dinners with their families.

Read full article.

An interesting analysis from the San Francisco Chronicle on how Twitter is not as mainstream as you think.

Our own experience, in other words, suggests that Twitter is still mainly a tech phenomenon, albeit a profoundly powerful one, while Facebook has totally gone mainstream.

But that's ridiculous, you say. Of course Twitter has "gone mainstream." Look how many followers Britney Spears has. Look how many Lady Gaga has. Look how many Ashton Kutcher has. These are mainstream celebrities, and Twitter users are NUTS about them.

But compared to the number of global citizens who are desperate to follow Lady Gaga's every twitch, it's actually a relatively small number. (To put the number in context, according to Wikipedia, Lady Gaga has sold 15 million albums and 51 million singles as of August 2010). And the same goes for Britney Spears, Ashton Kutcher, and most of the other Twitter bigs.)

Read full article.

A former Pakistani Test cricketer has alleged that a national player had hidden a mobile phone inside the right earpiece of his helmet while waiting to bat during an international match. NOTV Cricket reports.

Under ICC's regulations, players are not allowed to use cell phones on the ground during international matches, a move designed to prevent communication between match-fixers and players during matches.

The annonymous player has passed on the information to the International Cricket Council's Anti-Corruption and Security Unit.

Read full article.

A clever use of Foursquare.

MTV is partnering with Foursquare to offer check-ins as part of its "GYT: Get Yourself Tested" campaign. Users can get badges by checking in to health clinics to get tested for sexually transmitted diseases.

The goal of the campaign, MTV has said, is to make STD testing as common as going to the dentist or getting a check-up. Users who unlock the GYT badge-it is Foursquare's first cause-related badge-will be eligible to win backstage passes and a trip to New York.

Read full press release.

After training carrier pigeons to carry cell phones in pouches on their backs, Brazilian mobsters taught a 17 year old boy how to use a bow and arrow to smuggle cell phones into a prison in southern Brazil. He was caught because one of the arrows struck a guard in the back.

According to the AP, the teen was able to shoot at least four cell phones into the prison before he was caught late Wednesday.

PewResearchCenter on adults, cell phones and texting:

Texting by adults has increased over the past nine months from 65% of adults sending and receiving texts in September 2009 to 72% texting in May 2010.

Adults who text typically send and receive a median of 10 texts a day; teens who text send and receive a median of 50 texts per day.

5% of all adult texters send more than 200 text messages a day or more than 6,000 texts a month.

Heavy adult texters -- those who send and receive more than 50 texts a day -- also tend to be heavy users of voice calling.

Read more.

Spotted on Switched, Textees. Though you would think otherwise, apparently they make texting easier.

According to the Ottawa Citizen, a Nova Scotia church is offering its congregation a chance to have members' cellphones, laptops and mobile technology blessed -- but Rev. Lisa Vaughn isn't promising the power of God will rid the gadgets of viruses and other kinks.

While Vaughn is not aware of similar blessings elsewhere in Canada, she said a pastor in London's business district conducted a similar blessing recently based on the old tradition of Plough Monday; parishioners brought in their farm equipment for a blessing. Sunday's service is the same concept, but with a much more modern touch.

Watch video of Rev. Lisa Vaughan blessing tech gadgets

Related:

-- UK Vicar blesses mobile phones and laptops

-- Japanese Shrine Blesses our Gadgets

As hundreds of thousands of pilgrims throng the Grand Mosque in pursuit of blessings in the last 10 days of Ramadan, the growing phenomenon of irritating mobile phones is disturbing the worshippers. Arab News reports.

Ringtones from thousands of mobile phones have reached the level of spoiling the pious and spiritual air at the holy mosque. It has almost killed the tranquility of worshippers. Moreover, on a tour of any nook and corner of the holiest shrine in Islam, worshippers are also encountering the flashes of cameras, Al-Riyadh Arabic daily reported.

The moment when the obligatory prayers are over, a tsunami of ringtones from tens of thousands of mobile phones seem to befall on the ears of the faithful. Various musical ringtones compete with the chanting and supplication of the faithful. The most unfortunate aspect of this phenomenon is that a large number of Umrah pilgrims are using mobile phones while performing the lesser pilgrimage. It seems that some pilgrims cannot finish the ritual without making mobile phone calls. There are some others, who are not at all concerned about the extent of annoyance and inconvenience they are causing to other pilgrims.

Related:

-- Kenyan Mosque jams mobile calls

-- Turkish imam to fine owners of ringing mobile phones during prayers

-- Links to Fatwa Against Ringtones articles

A coalition of law enforcement agencies has arrested four Nuestra Familia gang leaders and 30 gang members. Several of those caught were allegedly given orders to commit murder and other violent crimes by imprisoned gang leaders who were serving time in Pelican Bay State prison, which is near the Oregon border. The imprisoned leaders of Nuestra Familia sent them encrypted messages via cell phones.

[via The San Francisco Chronicle]

In cities across Africa, being an entrepreneur requires no office, business card or investors. All it takes is a cell phone. Chris Stein reports for allAfrica.com. Adele Botha, a researcher at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in South Africa detaila how phone access can be used as a money-making tool.

In Lusaka, Zambia, Botha said she encountered a taxi driver who would make money by researching and diagnosing people's diseases using his phone's internet browser.

And in rural Kenya, Botha said she interviewed an orphanage worker who used to make money by hiring out her phone for use, until other people in town got their own mobiles. Now she makes money by charging other people's phone batteries," Botha said.

Read full article.

Mobile games, music and video are fueling a growing market for mobile content - revenues from which will reach an estimated $1.54 billion in the USA this year, according to a new report from eMarketer.

[via Cellular News]

The Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology says residents buying numbers for mobile phones must now show their ID cards, and foreigners must produce their passports, with buyers limited to a maximum of 18 numbers. Reuters reports.

The China Daily newspaper said the move was "the latest campaign by the government to curb the global scourge of spam, pornographic messages and fraud on cellular phones."

Unsolicited text messages sent from mobile numbers offering cheap real estate, fake sales receipts, and miracle health products are a headache for many residents.

But the long-discussed move, similar to rules in some countries in the West, is opposed by critics who see it as another intrusion into privacy, making it easier for authorities to snoop. Others fear the information will be illicitly sold to spammers and other unscrupulous businesses. Also from Wednesday, street newspaper stands will be banned from selling SIM cards, the Beijing Evening News reported.

Read full article.

Is the hotel-room telephone obsolete? Apparently not. USA Today reports.

According to Jon Inge, an independent hotel technology consultant who discussed hotel telephones' future in a blog post earlier this year, says they won't disappear just yet.

The biggest sticking point has to do with safety, he says. Hotels face a legal requirement that if a guest calls 911 for help, the hotel must be able to tell which room she or he is calling from and right now a traditional phone is the cheapest, most reliable way to go, he says.

Read full article.

Related: - Some hotels serve up free phone calls

So many health related cell phone applications today. Here's yet another one. Invisible Bracelet (iB) is a virtual medical ID that allows its members to share important health information during emergencies with first responders.

The Invisible Bracelet can notify up to 10 emergency contacts of medical transport.

Read full press release

Sometimes going green comes with a price. Green buildings on the University of Colorado campus in Boulder may be good for the environment, but they're bad for cell phone reception. Students say many buildings are dead zones. DenverChannel reports.

The university did an analysis of cell phone signals. It found in 14 newer buildings on campus, the ones designed to be energy efficient and environmentally friendly posed the biggest cell phone reception problems.

"In some of our LEED-certified buildings there was weaker coverage that you might expect," said CU IT spokesman Greg Stauffer. "We think that may be due to film coverings on windows that filter out certain waves and that can affect cell phone coverage."

Read full article.

Wired on Afghanistan’s cellphone ecosystem, one of the country’s economic bright spots. There are about 12.5 million cellular subscriptions in the country of 27 million people.

Jan Chipchase, executive creative director at Frog Design (formerly everyone's favorite globetrotter-world-observer at Nokia) spent some time in Afghanistan recently for a research study on mobile banking.

In Afghanistan most cellphone users have pre-paid mobile accounts but not ATM cards (only 3 percent of the country has bank accounts) so mobile banking will take the form of SIM cards that are pre-loaded with credit and distributed to re-sellers. But that presents some major challenges. In most other countries, transporting the SIM cards and securing them would be a simple matter. That’s not the case in a war-torn environment not known for its safety, says Chipchase.

Read full article.

CIO describes a solar-powered, low-cost, open source cellular network for coverage in underprivileged and off-grid spots, using VoIP yet working with existing cell phones.

It was used at Burning Man, an nnual art event and temporary community based on radical self expression and self-reliance in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada.

We already knew from one study that iPhone owners have more sex partners than Blackberry and Android owners, now we learn that Android users are manly-scented, pork-eating, news-reading, bird lovers, while iPhone users are feminine-smelling, chicken-eating, entertainment-reading fish owners. [via Cellular News]

That's according to data published by Coupons.com that highlights differences between the discount coupons selected by iPhone users and Android users.

The data was pulled by analyzing coupon usage via the company's Grocery iQ shopping list application, for the period Jan 1, 2010 to July 31, 2010.

Read more.