Going Green with your Mobile Phone

Mobile phones are greening up their act.

If your like me you leave your mobile phone charger plugged into the wall at all times. Well that constantly plugged in charger continues to pull energy from the socket long after your phone is fully charged and you have removed your phone.

Mobile phone manufacturers are taking note and have developed an energy rating system for mobile phone chargers to enable consumers to make greener purchasing decisions. LG, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung Electronics and Sony Ericsson have teamed up to make mobile communication a bit greener.

The new rating system takes these two factors into account and is based on both European Union and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Energy Star energy standards. All five of the companies’ current chargers will be including in the five-star rating system where five stars categorizes the most efficient and zero stars the least efficient.

There has been no news from Research in Motion, the company behind the BlackBerry, but are welcomed to join the green initiative. Until then I will just have to unplug my charger.

Gartner Says Worldwide Mobile Phone Sales Increased 12 Percent in Second Quarter of 2008

Worldwide sales of mobile phones reached close to 305 million units in the second quarter of
2008, a 11.8 percent increase over the second quarter of 2007, according to Gartner, Inc.
Sales of mobile phones in the mature markets of Western Europe and North America slightly
recovered after a difficult start. Western Europe reached close to 42 million units while North
America surpassed 44 million units in the second quarter of 2008.

Nokia sold 120.4 million mobile phones in the second quarter of 2008 and widened its lead
to control 39.5 percent of the global mobile phones market.

Samsung’s mobile phones sales into the channel reached 45.7 million units.

With mobile phone sales reaching 30.4 million units, Motorola’s worldwide market share
dropped further in the second quarter of 2008 at -4.5 percent year-on-year.

LG’s positive momentum continued in the second quarter of 2008, with mobile phones sales
amounting to 26.7 million units. This represented a 2 percentage-point increase
year-on-year.

Sony Ericsson’s market share grew slightly in the second quarter of 2008 sequentially with
worldwide mobile phone sales reaching close to 23 million units.

Source: Gartner

Concept Phone with Adjacent Cameras

Designed by Paris-based Lysandre Follet, this unusual dual-camera handset is designed for multi-tasking functionality, claims Motorola. Users can click pictures with one camera while they can shoot with the other one. Also, two separate flashes can be used together at one go.