Posts Tagged ‘cell phones’

Check your coat? … How about your cell phone?

August 27, 2012

Punch line:  An LA restaurant is offering diners a 5% discount to check their technology at the door and actually talk to each other while dining instead.

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Excerpted from brandchannel.com’s “To Cell or Not – While Dining Out”

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The escalating battle over digital displays in public has reached new heights…or lows…depending on your position on personal freedom versus a modicum of civility.

Between texting, tweeting and Instagram-ing restaurant meal photos, “distracted dining” is the latest scourge on the most basic of manners, the art of face-to-face conversation.

Eva Restaurant … in Los Angeles is offering diners a five percent discount on their bill to check their tech at the door.

“For us, it’s really not about people disrupting other guests. Eva is home, and we want to create that environment of home, and we want people to connect again,” said owner/chef Gold.

About half the customers … take the discount. “I think … they like the idea of actually talking to each other again,” adds Gold.

Edit by BJP

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“Central link” between computers and mental disorders …

August 17, 2012

A new study reported by CBS finds that constantly being online can affect your mental health.

Researchers at the University of Gothenburg  found that a majority of them who constantly use a computer and mobile phones can develop stress, sleeping disorders and depression.

“It is easy to spend more time than planned at the computer (e.g., working, gaming, or chatting), and this tends to lead to time pressure, neglect of other activities and personal needs (such as social interaction, sleep, physical activity), as well as bad ergonomics, and mental overload.”

The study also found a correlation between stress and phone use.

“Often using the computer late at 48 night (and consequently losing sleep) was a prospective risk factor for stress and sleep disturbances.”

Takeaway: People need to set limits on computer and cell phone use …  to minimize the risk of these types of mental disorders.

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Your cell phone provider knows where you are and where you’ve been … and spreads the word

July 6, 2012

Excerpted from Real Clear Technology …

Cellphone companies hold onto your location information for years and routinely provide it to police.

At least tens of thousands of times a year, they hand cellphone location information to the FBI or police officers who have a court order.

They also analyze your information to send you targeted ads for their own services or from outside companies.

But, there is one person cell phone companies will not share your location information with …

You.

Click to see how your cell provider’s policies stack up

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Posted in Cell phones, Mobile Marketing | 1 Comment »

Limiting “unlimited” cell phone plans … it’s called “throttling”

March 14, 2012

Late last year, AT&T started slowing down data service for the top 5 percent of its smartphone subscribers with “unlimited” plans — often to speeds slower than AT&T provides to subscribers on limited or “tiered” plans.

When slowed down, the phone can still be used for calls and text messaging, but Web browsing is painfully slow, and video streaming doesn’t work at all.

AT&T’s throttling of “unlimited” data comes as it tries to deal with limited capacity on its wireless network.

When the iPhone was new, AT&T had ample capacity on its network, and wanted to lure customers with the peace of mind offered by unlimited plans.

One ‘throttled’ subscriber took AT&T to court … and won !

Judge Awards IPhone User $850 In Throttling Case

When AT&T started slowing down the data service for his iPhone, Matt Spaccarelli took the country’s largest telecommunications company to small claims court. And won.

His award: $850.

The judge said it wasn’t fair for the company to purposely slow down his iPhone, when it had sold him an “unlimited data” plan.

Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA also throttle users, but their policies are gentler.

Verizon only throttles if the specific cell tower a “heavy user” subscriber’s phone is communicating with is congested at that moment.

Thanks to TH for feeding the lead.

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Shopping in Singapore is off the wall … literally!

March 1, 2012

Punch line: PayPal seeks to capture the attention of daily subway commuters in Singapore with ‘mobile shopping walls.’

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Excerpted from psfk.com “Shop Right Off The Subway Wall With PayPal”

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Online payment service company PayPal is trialing a new mobile shopping initiative that allows customers to point and purchase using QR codes. PayPal has created catalog ‘mobile shopping walls’ in 15 metro stations in Singapore.  QR is short for Quick Response. They can be read quickly by a cell phone.

They are used to take a piece of information from a transitory media and put it in to your cell phone.

You may soon see QR Codes in a magazine advert, on a billboard, a web page or even on someone’s t-shirt.

Once it is in your cell phone, it may give you details about that business (allowing users to search for nearby locations), or details about the person wearing the t-shirt, show you a URL which you can click to see a trailer for a movie, or it may give you a coupon which you can use in a local outlet.

The reason why QR codes are more useful than a standard barcode is that they can store (and digitally present) much more data, including url links, geo coordinates, and text.

The other key feature of QR Codes is that instead of requiring a chunky hand-held scanner to scan them, many modern cell phones can scan them.

The large display features Valentine’s Day offers from eight participating retailers. The user will need to first download the PayPal QR code reader app, which scans the barcodes and allow the user to log into PayPal to purchase the items.

QR codes are quickly on the rise with an incredible increase of over 4500% of QR code scans between 2010 and 2011.

These square barcodes have been particularly popular in Singapore due to the rapid growth of smartphone ownership and free accessible Wi-Fi across the city.

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