May 5, 2008

T-Mobile USA launched its first commercial high-speed wireless service in New York City, and plans to expand the service to 20 to 25 other major U.S. markets by the end of the year.

April 23, 2008

The battle over cell phones in schools ended with the state's appeals court voting to uphold a ban on cell phones in public schools in New York city.

April 15, 2008

Cuban government has eased restrictions on buying cellular phones for the first time and also allowed registering those they had held illegally.

April 10, 2008

The FCC has approved a new nationwide alert system that will send text messages to cell phones to alert Americans when an emergency, disaster or attack occurs. The plan itself will deliver three different types of charge-free text alerts to mobile phone users.

April 8, 2008

The European Union has approved in-flight cell phone use for all of its 27 member nations. An on-board base station will relay phone signals to either a satellite or ground towers.

April 2, 2008

AT&T CEO Ralph de la Vega said that AT&T was expecting a 3G iPhone within the next few months., when asked about plans to sell a third-generation (3G) iPhone.

Nokia Smartphone Can Read Documents for Blind

According to AP, the world's first smartphone that translates photographs of written text into audio and then "speaks" the words aloud to users is expected to become available in early 2008.

The device is the product of a joint venture between the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) and world-renowned inventor Ray Kurzweil. It enables users to read most documents or other objects with printed text that can be photographed by the smartphone's embedded digital camera. For example, a blind user could employ the gadget to tell the difference between a $20 or $100 dollar bill, or to read restaurant menus and magazine articles.

The device will be marketed by K-NFB Reading Technology starting in February, and it will retail for about $2,100—$1,595 for the software from Nuance and roughly $500 for the 4.2 ounce Nokia N82 smartphone, according to the AP. Future versions of the device are expected to be able to recognize individual faces or locations and even translate multiple languages.

(January 28, 2008)

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