Cell Phone Facts

Yes we all love our cell phones, mobile phones, smartphones, PDA's and the like, but did you know you can be tracked by the signal your cell phone emits even when you are not on a call?

Heres a few cell phone facts you might find interesting. Check out wikipedia for more.

• Cell phones have numerous privacy issues associated with them, and are regularly used by governments to perform surveillance.
• Law enforcement and intelligence services in the U.K. and the United States possess technology to remotely activate the microphones in cell phones in order to listen to conversations that take place nearby the person who holds the phone.
• Mobile phones are also commonly used to collect location data. The geographical location of a mobile phone can be determined easily (whether it is being used or not), using a technique known multilateration to calculate the differences in time for a signal to travel from the cell phone to each of several cell towers near the owner of the phone.
• Because mobile phones emit electromagnetic radiation, concerns have been raised about cancer risks that may pose when used for long periods of time. This radiation is non-ionizing, but localized heating can occur. The current consensus view of the scientific and medical communities is that health effects are very unlikely to be caused by cellular phones or their base stations.
• Cellular phones became widely available only relatively recently, while tumors can take decades to develop. For this reason, some health authorities have urged that the precautionary principle be observed, recommending that use and proximity to the head be minimized, especially by children
• The (0G) generation. In 1945, the zero generation of mobile telephones was introduced. 0G mobile phones, such as Mobile Telephone Service, were not cellular, and so did not feature "handover" from one base station to the next and reuse of radio frequency channels.
• The (1G) generation.  The first commercial citywide cellular network was launched in Japan by NTT in 1979. Fully automatic cellular networks were first introduced in the early to mid 1980s.
• The (2G) generation. The first "modern" network technology on digital 2G (second generation) cellular technology was launched by Radiolinja (now part of Elisa Group) in 1991 in Finland.
• The (3G) generation. In 2001 the first commercial launch of 3G (Third Generation) was again in Japan by NTT DoCoMo on the WCDMA standard.