The MoPR Blog

We’ve all heard the myths and urban legends surrounding cell phones, so how do we know which are true and which are false?

For instance, we read with skepticism a press release published last week on NaturalNews.com that claimed:

“A new review of more than 100 studies on the safety of mobile phones has concluded that cellular devices are poised to cause an epidemic of brain tumors that will kill more people than smoking or asbestos.”

The only doctor quoted in the story is cited on many websites as a “Mayo-clinic trained neurosurgeon.” However, it plainly states on the official Mayo Clinic website that:

More-common forms of radiation, such as electromagnetic fields from power lines and radio frequency radiation from cell phones and microwave ovens, have not been conclusively linked to brain tumors.

In the same press release the neurosurgeon claims

It is anticipated that this danger has far broader public health ramifications than asbestos and smoking. While one billion people worldwide smoke tobacco, three times as many now use mobile phones.

Yet, a study in 2006 by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute that tracked over 420,000 cell phone users, including thousands that had used their phones for more than 10 years found no increased risk of cancer among those using cell phones.

So, in the spirit of debatable claims like the one above, we’ve gathered a list of the most common “Mobile Myths” and debunk them one by one.

Mobile Myth #1: Cell phones cause cancer. (Still debatable)
No medical study to date has been able to show this to be true. Yes, radiation causes cancer but it has not been proven that cell phones emit enough radiation to have negative health effects. Of course the long term effects are unknown but it is highly unlikely that malignant tumors will result from cell phone use.

According to the National Cancer Institute website, “research has not consistently demonstrated a link between cellular telephone use and cancer or any other adverse health effect.”

Mobile Myth #2: Gas station fires can be caused by cell phones. (FALSE!)
Maybe it is because we laugh in the face of danger, but we personally ignore all signs asking to “Refrain from Cell Phone Use at the Pump.”  We don’t let the large vehicle with a large tank that takes forever to fill up stop us from talking or texting on our mobile.

Years ago a chain email was sent out stating that there were instances where cell phone sparks ignited gas fumes and that Shell issued a warning stating the dangers of cell phone use at the pump.

Our favorite Mythbusters featured this myth on their show; result: busted. A cell phone cannot create enough of a spark to ignite gas fumes. However, static electricity can cause sparks which is the likely source for these gas station fires.

At the end of the day however, the more people who believe this myth, the better. Why? Because the best reason to stay off your mobile phone while pumping gas is so you can pay attention to what you are doing. Those signs at the stations protect us from the folks out there who can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, let alone pump a highly flammable liquid into their car while trying to have a conversation.

Mobile Myth #3: Cell phones can crash airplanes. (Debatable)
Never has a cell phone been determined to be the cause of an airplane crash. Cell phones can disrupt the navigation systems of planes, however. As technology advances this is becoming less of an issue and soon travelers will be able to freely use their mobile and wireless devices in air.

BBC News announced in April that the European Union made it possible for travelers to make mid-air calls. Individual airlines will make the final decision on whether or not to offer the service, but this is a big step forward in showing that cell phone use in-flight can be safe. A picocell, a mobile base station, is installed in the plane and, after the plane reaches a certain altitude, the picocell is switched on providing a bubble of cell service for the passengers.

Mobile Myth #4: You can unlock your car via cell phone. (FALSE!)
Don’t cancel your AAA membership yet! The myth is that if you’ve locked your keys in your car and you have a spare at home you can have someone press the unlock button into the home phone while you hold your cell to your car and it will magically unlock. Remote entry locks use radio waves, which are not transmitted via cell phone speaker, and require the proper proximity to work. Busted.

Mobile Myth #5: Using cell phones near hospital equipment can cause malfunctions leading to injury/death. (FALSE!)
The Mayo Clinic conducted a study to test the theory that cell phones disrupted hospital equipment and found it to be completely false. If the Mayo Clinic has busted the myth I think it is safe to say that you are good to go on that next surgery or visit to the doctor’s office.

Once again, this is a case of “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should;” meaning if you are at the doctor’s office it is courteous to refrain from shouting into your phone from the waiting room. If you need to make a phone call, good manners tell you to step outside for the call. And for the love of God, if you are at the hospital and your wife is in labor, the last thing she wants you to be doing is talking on your cell phone. Trust us. So just use good judgment and be considerate of those around you before making that mobile call from the doctors office or hospital  - even if your cell phone won’t cause the heart and lung machine to stop working.

Dell releases low-cost laptops for “emerging economies.” Dell has unveiled a new line of computers designed to meet the needs of small businesses, governments and educational institutions operating on limited budgets in the world’s emerging economies. The new Vostro products include two pre-configured laptops and two desktops. Additional Vostro products designed for emerging economies will be introduced in coming months.

According to IDC, there are more than 72 million small businesses worldwide, with 23.4 million – nearly one-third of the global total – located in Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan). Latin America and EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) follow with 12.5 million and 11.9 million.

The new Vostro products were designed to address affordability, reliability and easy maintenance, says Dell.

Photoshop goes online, finally! Adobe Systems Incorporated last week announced the availability of an online version of Adobe Photoshop Express. The public beta will let users store, sort and show off digital photos with eye-catching effects. According to Adobe, Photoshop Express allows users to store up to 2 gigabytes of images online for free, make edits to their photos, and share them online in creative ways, including downloading and uploading photos from popular social networking sites like Facebook. Photoshop Express offers a variety of creative sharing options, including uploading and showing off photos and slideshows in your own online “Gallery” hosted by Adobe, or conveniently embedding or linking photos to social networking sites and personal blogs without having to leave the application.

Did you get Obama’s veep text? So did 2.9 million. Nielsen Mobile, a service of The Nielsen Company, estimates that 2.9 million US mobile subscribers received a text message from the Obama campaign over the course of Friday, Saturday and Sunday last week. How does Nielsen know this? Nielsen Mobile monitors shortcode marketing (the use of text-message shortcodes such as the 62262 “O-B-A-M-A”) through the world’s largest telecommunications bill-panel, an opt-in panel that reports on the billing activity for more than 40,000 subscriber lines in the US.

The VP message was sent in the late hours of Friday night and is, by many accounts, the single largest mobile marketing event in the US., to date. From a mobile perspective, it makes sense that the campaign chose to use text-messages. Today, 116 million US mobile subscribers (52 percent of subscribers) actively use text messaging, making it a new mass medium for marketing efforts.

Nic Covey, director of insights at Nielsen Mobile also believes that “the success of this text-campaign has Madison Avenue thinking even more about how they too can interact with a universe of 116 million text-message users in the US.”

We agree. From a marketing standpoint, good move. It got people talking throughout the week, not only about his announcement, but also his commitment to technology throughout the week – hitting a fever pitch Friday night.

On the other hand…

We knew who the veep was before we went to bed. We got the text message the next morning – because it was sent during the night. And where did we get the information? The old guard: TV news. Not the web, not Twitter, not a text message.

Information Week’s Mitch Wagner has a fantastic analysis on the old guard scooping the new media.

Was the announcement itself a success? Wagner doesn’t think so. It was successful though in getting people to opt-in [cough cough] with their email addresses. So far, we’ve received emails from Michelle Omaba, Barack’s campaign manager, and Joe Biden.

Then again, text messaging may be obsolete by 2017. In his thought-provoking post, Ed Hardy, editor at Brighthand.com says:

Five years from now, I predict that anyone in the U.S. getting a text will be surprised. U.S. carriers will turn the service off in less than 10 years.

The technology for full email access is available now, so SMS has really outlived its usefulness.

At least injuries from walking into light poles while texting will go down, right?

Verizon, meet Google. According to the Wall Street Journal (don’t look for a link, the WSJ still refuses to offer most their content online for non-subscribers) Verizon Communications is close to an agreement that would make Google the default search provider on Verizon devices. According to the article:

“Telecom companies are finally conceding that their homegrown search services have stalled.

Today, users have to go to different places to look up services such as ringtones, restaurants and Web pages. Verizon wants to create a new search platform that would be a one-stop shop.”

Revenue, says the piece, will be split and come from ads that appear in keyword searches.

Network World also has coverage of the pending deal.

Presidential race: The year of the text message? You’ve no doubt heard about Barack Obama’s plan to announce his VP running mate via text messaging (and if you are reading this after August 22, you know who he has picked). And for all the flack that John McCain has received on his tech skills, [e.g., “what’s an Internet?”] the GOP is also utilizing SMS to get its message out, mobilize supporters and reach newer voters. In Austin, Texas, the Statesman reports that local campaigns are ramping up their outreach with the help of text messaging.

Text messaging has been used in both parties, according to the article. One example given was engaging volunteers who they hope will then spread the message. A specific example was the use of text messaging to volunteers to call in to a radio show that featured an opposing view.

An interesting quote from the article:

“Fifteen years ago, it was the fax machine. Five years ago, the e-mail. Right now, the text message is it.”

Did you sign up to get election news via text? How has it worked for you? One person here in the office subscribed to the Obama Mobile text stream only to be completely left out on the big day. That’s right… even after subscribing, confirming her zip code and receiving the confirmation text from team Obama, she never received the expected text (or any other text message from the candidate’s party) around the announcement. Bummer. And, what was the purpose of sending the text at 2 am in the morning?

American teens not that into the Summer Olympics. For all the talk about the 2008 Summer Olympics being the first to really utilize online and mobile technologies, a new study from Harris Interactive Youth Center of Excellence, suggests that the 13-18 year old market expressed only moderate interest in the Olympics and weren’t exactly glued to their mobiles.

According to the report, just under half (46%) of 13-18-year-olds in the US expressed an interest in the Olympics, including just 27% who are extremely or very interested, according to a Harris Interactive Youth Center of Excellence study conducted before the Games began.

“Marketers and advertisers may think that teens are a natural constituency for the Games, since many of the Olympic competitors are the same age. Our findings, however, indicate that the Olympics have not yet captured the majority of hearts and minds of today’s teens in the US,” said Dana Markow, PhD, VP senior consultant, Harris Interactive Youth Center of Excellence.

A far smaller number of teens are interested in reading about (22%) or watching (14%) Olympic sporting events online. Similar to an overall interest in the Olympics, plans to follow the Games online increases significantly with age - consistent with the trend for youth to spend an increasing amount of time online as they get older.

Mobile data cards gaining with consumers. Wireless data cards—hardware that allows laptop and PC users to connect to the Internet over a wireless carrier’s cellular network—are fast becoming a popular means of home Internet access. According to a new report from Nielsen Mobile, there were more than 13 million wireless data card users in the US as of Q2 2008.

Recent adoption has been strong, with more than half (55 percent) of these devices acquired in the past 12 months. In fact, 43 percent of mobile data card users report they most often use their data card at home, while 15 percent say they typically use the card at work. Additionally, one in five (21 percent) data card subscribers take advantage of ubiquitous access by heading outdoors and 9 percent use their card while commuting [and hopefully not “driving”].