Is your cell phone ruining your life?

Wired has an interesting article by Rob Beschizza titled, "Ten Reasons To Throw Away Your Cellphone." The article lists all of the reasons why cell phones can make your life harder and more complicated. One of the reasons, and the one I identify with most, is listed below.

It makes you perpetually available
If it's on, they can get you. If it's off, they wonder why they can't get you. It's a lose-lose situation for your Zen.

Personally I think the benefits far outweigh the detriments, but obviously not everyone agrees. So I'll be keeping my phone for now. What about you?
Read the article for the rest of the reasons why Wired thinks you should throw out your phone. Ten Reasons To Throw Away Your Cellphone

Edit: I just realized how ironic it is that this post has Cell Phones ruining your life, while two posts ago cell phones were saving lives. LOL

Cell phones save a life

I'm sure you have heard of people using the back light on their cell phone as a temporary flashlight. I've even done it myself. That back light can be pretty bright.

This apparently happened to a group of surgeons in Argentina. It seems that they were in the middle of an appendix operation when the lights went out. For some reason the backup generators didn't kick in immediately like they were supposed to. So a family member gathered up the cell phones of people in the hallway outside of the operating room and used them to provide light for the surgeons. The surgeons were then able to continue the surgery with the light provided by the cell phones. Pretty amazing.

Via EnGadget and Rueters.

How hard can it be to NOT drop your phone in the toilet?

Cellular news bring us an interesting bunch of statistics about how many phones are lost or damaged in the UK every year. It seems that the biggest cause of phone damage, was being dropped in the toilet. 850,000 phones a year are lost to toilets in the UK. The second highest number was 315,000 phones left in taxis. Followed by 225,000 left on buses. So that means that UK residents are more likely to drop their phones into the toilet, than they are to leave them in buses or taxis!

Cellular News: Brits Drop 850,000 Phones Down the Toilet - Each Year
Via Gizmodo: 855,000 Phones Dropped in UK Toilets Yearly

Cell Phones scrambling Nissan Key fobs

I seems that if you own a Nissan Altima or the Infiniti G35, you need to keep the key away from your cell phone. Close proximity to the phone, when it is receiving a call, can scramble the electronic code used by the key fob. Once the key code is scrambled, you can no longer use it to unlock your car. Which basically makes it useless.
This could be a big problem. Especially for people like me who keep their phones in their pockets. Of course, I don't have the bad luck of owning a Nissan.
It does seem that this is something that could have been tested for in the lab before production. If the key fobs are that susceptible to other electronics, then there are probably other devices that can also affect them badly.

Via Techdirt: Nissan Warns Drivers: Don't Put Mobile Phones Near Our Keys

Do we all need to encrypt our phone conversations?

The New York Times has an interesting article about the huge expansion in sales of encrypted cell phones in Italy. It seems that nearly everyone in Italy is eager to purchase the encrypted phones to keep their conversations private. The most interesting thing about it, is that the eavesdroppers they are trying to protect themselves against aren't government agencies.
It seems that lately there has been a rash of wire tapping done by individuals and journalists using homemade equipment and free software from the Internet. Many of those wire taps have resulted in public scandals and even arrests. Consequently, many individuals are worried about illegal wire taps exposing their private conversations.

So the question is, is this a concern in the US? Italian cell phone systems use basically the same technology as US cell phone systems. Theoretically the same techniques used by individuals in Italy to tap cell phones could be used here. So is it just a matter of time before private wire tapping becomes a big concern here?

The New York Times: Phone Taps in Italy Spur Rush Toward Encryption

Daylight savings time change puts kid in jail for 12 days

School officials in trying to track down a bomb threat that was called in to a hot line at 4:17 am, arrested a kid who called in to the same schools information line at 3:12 am.
It seems that the hotline's logging function was not able to handle the daylight savings time change correctly. So the bomb threat was actually logged as coming in at 3:17 am. The school officials found the students call to the information line and assumed that it was the same person. They then confiscated the kids cell phone and confirmed that he had made a call to the school that morning around the same time. The kid was arrested and spent twelve days in jail before someone noticed the difference.
I know that bomb threats are a serious issue at schools, but so is arresting someone falsely. Couldn't the school officials have made sure they had a little more evidence, and that they had their facts correct before getting this kid arrested? Even if the time in the log was correct, they still have a 5 minute difference between the cell phone call and the bomb threat call.

Via Techdirt:Early Time Change Costs Kid 12 Days In Jail and The Register: US teen jailed for school's daylight-saving cock-up