Cell Phones

It’s not the first time we’ve talked about iPhone cases, but it’s been a while since we last have and now it’s time to take a look at another great model. The iPhone 4 Body Glove is a simple, yet effective case that will offer great protection for your iPhone 4. It’s said to offer revolutionary protection with the aid of a durable hard shell which is wrapped in a textured glove material. This should protect the phone’s back and sides from scratches and the texture gives it a great deal of grip so you won’t have to fear that you might drop it as easily as you would without the casing.

The shape of this case is very basic. It will not attract attention to your phone if you are in public, it’s only plus being the functionality. It’s basically a hardened rubber casing that surrounds your iPhone. It only has some small cutouts for the phone’s camera, for the charger and for some of the side buttons. The casing feels really rugged thanks to the basketball-like texture that covers the entire surface of the casing. This will provide the enhanced grip that many people look for when buying a casing.

Body Glove Iphone 4 (Source: ecx.images-amazon.com)

As I’ve mentioned before, the back of this casing is perfectly plain, a fact which makes it easier to pocket. If you are not looking for a casing that will turn heads, the Body Glove is great as it will provide the desired grip, but at the same time it will not add a whole lot of extra drag when in comes to putting or pulling it out of your pocket.

Body Glove Iphone 4 (Source: ecx.images-amazon.com)

The Body Glove casing should be compatible with all iPhone 4 models, the fit being excellent to make sure the phone won’t slip out of it. Another great fact about the casing is regarding something we have talked about in an earlier article. The iPhone 4 models have some reception problems. Some of the models, if not held in a certain way, loose reception when your hand covers the antenna area. With this casing this problem is solved, as the rubber from which the casing is built offers the necessary isolation, so your body won’t interfere in any way with the reception.

The more recent Android phone models integrate, besides the popular accelerometer, a digital compass that you can use to find your way around without having to use the GPS. In this article we’ll take a look at these features and exemplify a few apps which can be used to fully enjoy the functionality of these components.

Android Phone Compass Accelerometer (Source: voo-doo.net)

First off, the accelerometer is a component that can be used for various tasks, but which has two main purposes. The most common place where the accelerometer is used is the phone’s internet browser. Anyone who owns an Android phone with an accelerometer knows that when you surf the web a lot and you need to have a better view of the screen, you just turn your phone sideways and the browser window will change orientation, allowing you to view your web a larger portion of your webpage. Besides this function, the accelerometer is widely used when playing games. Many of the recent games and applications enable the use of the accelerometer, this way the user being able to “feel” the game better. For instance, dice games can be played just by jerking the phone a bit in order to spin the dice, or the cars in racing games can be controlled by tilting the phone sideways.

Android Phone Compass Accelerometer (Source: cdn.androidtapp.com)

As for the compass, this component is only integrated into the more recent Android phone models, but users are already getting the hang of it, especially those who like to venture into the great outdoors.  The compass is based on a magnetic chip that can be used with a lot of compass applications available in the Android Market. These applications allow you to change the way the compass looks and change the background of the compass. These applications work fine without the GPS, but if you use them in combination with the GPS you can find out you’re exact location, you altitude and other useful information. You can also set the compass to point to the magnetic north or the true north. The compass can be easily calibrated using these apps, most of them requiring that your draw a virtual figure 8 with your phone, this way the calibrating itself. Other cool features include the ability to save certain locations or determine the speed with which you are traveling, if you use the phone’s GPS.

There are a lot of instant messaging applications and most of them have a version for every mobile phone operating system out there. The most popular IM apps for Android phones are Yahoo Messenger, GTalk, MSN Messenger and more recently even Facebook has a chat service, but in this article we’ll take a look at an instant messaging app not as popular, but which is still used by millions of people all over the world, the AIM messenger.  AIM messenger is the instant messaging service provided by the well known AOL and even if its popularity has dropped in the past few years, it’s a service still widely used, especially in the United States.

Aim On Android Phone (Source: phandroid.s3.amazonaws.com)

To install the AIM messenger on your Android phone, just go to the Android Market and search for the AIM messenger. The installation of this app is standard so you shouldn’t have any issues installing it. After the installation is complete, all you have to do is to log in and instantly your buddy list will appear and you can start chating. The latest version incorporates features such as Lifestream and it also integrates the Facebook chat so you can forget about installing some other Facebook application. Some say the integrated app that connects you to Facebook is even better than many other applications designed just for posting messages on the world renowned social network.

Aim On Android Phone (Source: cache.gawkerassets.com)

The AIM messenger also allows you to do a few in-window settings, like changing a buddy’s icon and update your status message with a few easy movements of the finger.  In the settings menu you can also do a lot of customizing. For instance, you can set your Facebook chat account, you can control the privacy settings, manage the sound notifications, and basically do anything you wish to set up your buddy list as you like it the most.

This app is probably the best way of keeping a connection across the AIM's servers, and because AIM can run silently in the background and notify you when you receive new messages, it makes a lot of sense as an app for Android phones.

Cellular phone data cables are used to establish a connection between your mobile phone and your computer. In most cases the data cable connects to the USB port of the computer on one end and to the connectivity port of the phone on the other end.

Connectivity is especially useful to synchronize the phone’s and the computer’s calendar, get your contact details in synchronization  with the PC, copy images, music and video files from one device to the other, and also you can use it to connect  the cell phone  to the internet and then allow the computer to use that internet connection.

Cell Phone Data Cable (Source: usbt.net)

The advantage of USB data cables over other means of transfer between devices, like Bluetooth or with the use of a memory card, is that it offers far higher speeds that the others. Also, USB ports are available on all computers, while Bluetooth and card readers are available only on some laptops by default.
Fortunately, most cell phone manufacturers such as Samsung and Sony Ericsson, have all agreed on a Micro USB connector as being the standard charger for their products. This means that their cell phone packages will include micro USB cables which can easily be connected to computers.
Data cables can be found for each and every manufacturer, but now, with the recent agreements, most of them will work from one model to the other.

Cell Phone Data Cable (Source: auroracell.com)

For instance, the data cable from Sony Ericsson is usually Sony Ericsson Data Cable which is based on a USB connector. Most of the Sony Ericsson phones, including the ones in the walkman series are compatible with this type of cable. Besides USB data cables, you can also get a Sony Ericsson data cable which uses a serial connection. These are compatible with some older models which worked only with specific cables.
As a recent discovery, the guys at Datapilot have come up with universal transfer kits which can be used to connect a large number of mobile phone models from most of the popular brands. The kit comes with data cables compatible with up to ten different phone models, an Apple product cable and a Bluetooth adapter.  

In this article we are going to take a look at an urban legend that says a car can be unlocked with the use of a cell phone. We’ll fully analyze this comment and we are going to test it from a scientific point of view in order to determine if this can really be done.

Cell Phone Unlock Vehicles (Source: img.ehowcdn.co.uk)

The myth says that if you own a car that comes equipped with a Remote Keyless Entry system and you accidentally lock the remote in the car, you can unlock the doors if you call someone who has the spare remote, and they press the unlock button on the remote, while holding it towards the mobile phone. If you are holding the phone next to the car’s door, it will unlock using the signal transmitted by the spare remote through the mobile phone.

There have been many videos made on the subject proving that it works, but because video files can be tampered with, to be sure, we should check this out from a scientific point of view. How does a car remote work? How does it open a car’s door and can the signal be transmitted through a cell phone? The simple answer is NO, this cannot be achieved in normal conditions with a standard car that has a standard remote keyless system. Even though many people swear by it, the signal from such a remote control is transmitted through a radio frequency, a signal that cannot be picked up by the phone’s microphone and forwarded to the other mobile phone that is next to the car.

Cell Phone Unlock Vehicles (Source: cellphonedigest.net)

The method would work if the system were based on a sound signal that could be picked up by the phone and transmitted through the phone’s frequencies. This not being the case in standard vehicles, many people unwillingly confuse people with their tests that seem to work. Actually, the tests that work are not made properly because the person that presses the remote’s open button is standing too close to the car and the signal is transmitted directly and not through the mobile phone. Car remote controls are known to work on a distance of over 300 feet in the newer models, in most cases the people doing the test are within the mentioned range and the car’s door opens when the unlock button is pressed. Fortunately, the more recent car models have a system that disables the automatic locking system if the remote is located inside the vehicle so there is no need for these theories that confuse people.