How Safe Is Your Cell Phone?

In March, Maine's legislature will begin debating a bill she submitted that would require manufacturers to put a warning label on every cell phone sold in the state declaring, "This device emits electromagnetic radiation, exposure to which may cause brain cancer." Her warning would continue, "Users, especially children and pregnant women, should keep this device away from the head and body."  

For those of you now eyeing your cell phones suspiciously, it's worth noting that both the National Cancer Institute and the World Health Organization say there isn't evidence to support the assertion that cell phones are a public-health threat. But a number of scientists are worried that there has been a dangerous rush to declare cell phones safe, using studies they feel are inadequate and too often weighted toward the wireless industry's interests. An analysis published by University of Washington neurologist Henry Lai determined that far more independent studies than industry-funded studies have found at least some type of biological effect from cell-phone exposure. 

Several countries — including Finland, Israel and France — have issued guidelines for cell-phone use. And San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who began researching the issue when his wife was expecting their first child, is hoping his city will adopt legislation that would have manufacturers print radiation information on cell-phone packaging and manuals and require retailers to display the data on the sales floor.

With 270 million Americans and 4 billion people around the world using cell phones — and more signing up every day — a strong link between mobiles and cancer could have major public-health implications. As cell phones make and take calls, they emit low-level radio-frequency (RF) radiation. Stronger than FM radio signals, these RF waves are still a billionth the intensity of known carcinogenic radiation like X-rays.

The wireless industry contends that RF radiation lacks the strength to alter molecules in the human body; the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) maximum for cell-phone-signal exposure is intended to prevent RF radiation from heating tissue to the point that cells are damaged. Cell-phone RF radiation's "effect on the body, at least at this time, appears to be insufficient to produce genetic damage typically associated with developing cancer," Dr. Robert Hoover, director of the National Cancer Institute's Epidemiology and Biostatistics Program, testified at a 2008 congressional hearing.

But the body of research is far from conclusive. In 1995, Lai co-wrote a study showing that a single two-hour exposure of RF radiation — at levels considered safe by U.S. standards — produced the sort of genetic damage in rats' brain cells that can lead to cancer. Though subsequent researchers — often funded in part by the wireless industry — failed to replicate Lai's results, a 2004 European Union — funded study reported similar findings.

Dariusz Leszczynski, a research professor at Finland's Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority in Helsinki, has done studies indicating that RF radiation may create a stress reaction in the cells that line blood vessels, leading to a dangerous breach in the blood-brain barrier. "Mobile-phone radiation may be able to indirectly hurt cells, perhaps by interfering with their ability to repair normal DNA damage," he says. "Given the scientific uncertainty, it's premature to say the use of cell phones is safe."

If RF radiation increases the chances of developing brain cancer, it should show up in long-term studies of cell-phone users. But many epidemiological studies have found no clear connection, including a 2007 Danish Cancer Society study of 421,000 cell-phone users, which led many in the media to conclude that mobiles are harmless. To date, "peer-reviewed scientific evidence has overwhelmingly indicated that wireless devices do not pose a risk," says John Walls, a spokesman for CTIA, a global wireless association. 

There are problems with many of these studies, however. For starters, the Danish one — which reviewed the medical records of people who had signed up for cell phones from 1982 to 1995 — didn't include all the business users, who were among the earliest adopters and most intensive users, because they were not billed directly.

Also, the study looked only at tumors that were diagnosed by 2002 — not long after daily use of cell phones became widespread. Brain cancers can take several decades to develop, so it might be many years before a measurable bump in cancer rates shows up. "The latency period we have is far too short," says Dr. Siegal Sadetzki, a cancer researcher at Israel's Gertner Institute whose epidemiological studies have found some connections between cell-phone use and salivary-gland tumors. "And today, people are using the phone much more heavily." 

Sadetzki served as Israel's principal investigator in the Interphone study, which was conducted over the past several years by 13 countries, most of them European. The Interphone results initially were to be published in 2006, but the final report has been postponed repeatedly, and the study investigators are reportedly deeply divided. In the U.S., which isn't one of the Interphone countries, the National Toxicology Program is launching studies of the health effects of cell phones. But peer-reviewed results won't be available until at least 2014.

That's a long time to wait for definitive data. The good news is that there are easy ways for those concerned about RF radiation to cut down on exposure. Using your cell phone's speaker or connecting a wired headset — while keeping the handset away from your body — drastically reduces RF exposure. (Bluetooth headsets help too, but they still emit some radiation.) And given the potentially more serious risks for children, who have thinner skulls than adults, parents might want to wait before handing teens their first phone — or at least ensure they use it mostly for texting.

Meanwhile, a start-up, Pong Research, is selling cell-phone cases that significantly reduce radiation exposure by channeling waves away from the head. Says Alfred Wong, Pong's chief scientist and a professor emeritus of physics at UCLA: "I think it's best to avoid as much of the risk as possible until the verdict is in."

That's exactly what Boland and other advocates of warning labels are arguing. It's true that cell-phone use has yet to be linked to cancer risk. "Scientifically speaking, we don't have the proof yet," says Sadetzki. "But as a public-health concern, I'm saying we definitely should adopt precautions."

 

FBI Tracks Cell Phones Without a Warrant

Law enforcement is tracking Americans' cell phones in real time—without the benefit of a warrant.

The Snitch in Your Pocket

Amid all the furor over the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program a few years ago, a mini-revolt was brewing over another type of federal snooping that was getting no public attention at all. Federal prosecutors were seeking what seemed to be unusually sensitive records: internal data from telecommunications companies that showed the locations of their customers' cell phones—sometimes in real time, sometimes after the fact. The prosecutors said they needed the records to trace the movements of suspected drug traffickers, human smugglers, even corrupt public officials. But many federal magistrates—whose job is to sign off on search warrants and handle other routine court duties—were spooked by the requests. Some in New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas balked. Prosecutors "were using the cell phone as a surreptitious tracking device," said Stephen W. Smith, a federal magistrate in Houston. "And I started asking the U.S. Attorney's Office, 'What is the legal authority for this? What is the legal standard for getting this information?' "

Those questions are now at the core of a constitutional clash between President Obama's Justice Department and civil libertarians alarmed by what they see as the government's relentless intrusion into the private lives of citizens. There are numerous other fronts in the privacy wars—about the content of e-mails, for instance, and access to bank records and credit-card transactions. The Feds now can quietly get all that information. But cell-phone tracking is among the more unsettling forms of government surveillance, conjuring up Orwellian images of Big Brother secretly following your movements through the small device in your pocket.

How many of the owners of the country's 277 million cell phones even know that companies like AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint can track their devices in real time? Most "don't have a clue," says privacy advocate James X. Dempsey. The tracking is possible because either the phones have tiny GPS units inside or each phone call is routed through towers that can be used to pinpoint a phone's location to areas as small as a city block. This capability to trace ever more precise cell-phone locations has been spurred by a Federal Communications Commission rule designed to help police and other emergency officers during 911 calls. But the FBI and other law-enforcement outfits have been obtaining more and more records of cell-phone locations—without notifying the targets or getting judicial warrants establishing "probable cause," according to law-enforcement officials, court records, and telecommunication executives. (The Justice Department draws a distinction between cell-tower data and GPS information, according to a spokeswoman, and will often get warrants for the latter.)

The Justice Department doesn't keep statistics on requests for cell-phone data, according to the spokeswoman. So it's hard to gauge just how often these records are retrieved. But Al Gidari, a telecommunications lawyer who represents several wireless providers, tells NEWSWEEK that the companies are now getting "thousands of these requests per month," and the amount has grown "exponentially" over the past few years. Sprint Nextel has even set up a dedicated Web site so that law-enforcement agents can access the records from their desks—a fact divulged by the company's "manager of electronic surveillance" at a private Washington security conference last October. "The tool has just really caught on fire with law enforcement," said the Sprint executive, according to a tape made by a privacy activist who sneaked into the event. (A Sprint spokesman acknowledged the company has created the Web "portal" but says that law-enforcement agents must be "authenticated" before they are given passwords to log on, and even then still must provide valid court orders for all nonemergency requests.)

There is little doubt that such records can be a powerful weapon for law enforcement. Jack Killorin, who directs a federal task force in Atlanta combating the drug trade, says cell-phone records have helped his agents crack many cases, such as the brutal slaying of a DeKalb County sheriff: agents got the cell-phone records of key suspects—and then showed that they were all within a one-mile area of the murder at the time it occurred, he said. In the fall of 2008, Killorin says, his agents were able to follow a Mexican drug-cartel truck carrying 2,200 kilograms of cocaine by watching in real time as the driver's cell phone "shook hands" with each cell-phone tower it passed on the highway. "It's a tremendous investigative tool," says Killorin. And not that unusual: "This is pretty workaday stuff for us."

But there is also plenty of reason to worry. Some abuse has already occurred at the local level, according to telecom lawyer Gidari. One of his clients, he says, was aghast a few years ago when an agitated Alabama sheriff called the company's employees. After shouting that his daughter had been kidnapped, the sheriff demanded they ping her cell phone every few minutes to identify her location. In fact, there was no kidnapping: the daughter had been out on the town all night. A potentially more sinister request came from some Michigan cops who, purportedly concerned about a possible "riot," pressed another telecom for information on all the cell phones that were congregating in an area where a labor-union protest was expected. "We haven't even begun to scratch the surface of abuse on this," says Gidari.

That was precisely what Smith and his fellow magistrates were worried about when they started refusing requests for cell-phone tracking data. (Smith balked only at requests for real-time information, while other magistrates have also objected to requests for historical data on cell-phone locations.) The grounds for such requests, says Smith, were often flimsy: almost all were being submitted as "2703(d)" orders—a reference to an obscure provision of a 1986 law called the Stored Communications Act, in which prosecutors only need to assert that records are "relevant" to an ongoing criminal investigation. That's the lowest possible standard in federal criminal law, and one that, as a practical matter, magistrates can't really verify. But when Smith started turning down government requests, prosecutors went around him (or "judge shopping," in the jargon of lawyers), finding other magistrates in Texas who signed off with no questions asked, he told NEWSWEEK. Still, his stand—and that of another magistrate on Long Island—started getting noticed in the legal community. Facing a request for historical cell-phone tracking records in a drug-smuggling case, U.S. magistrate Lisa Pupo Lenihan in Pittsburgh wrote a 56-page opinion two years ago that turned prosecutors down, noting that the data they were seeking could easily be misused to collect information about sexual liaisons and other matters of an "extremely personal" nature. In an unusual show of solidarity—and to prevent judge shopping—Lenihan's opinion was signed by every other magistrate in western Pennsylvania.

The issue came to a head this month in a federal courtroom in Philadelphia. A Justice Department lawyer, Mark Eckenwiler, asked a panel of appeals-court judges to overturn Lenihan's ruling, arguing that the Feds were only asking for what amounted to "routine business records." But he faced stiff questioning from one of the judges, Dolores Sloviter, who noted that there are some governments, like Iran's, that would like to use such records to identify political protesters. "Now, can the government assure us," she pressed Eckenwiler, that Justice would never use the provisions in the communications law to collect cell-phone data for such a purpose in the United States? Eckenwiler tried to deflect the question, saying he couldn't speak to "future hypotheticals," but finally acknowledged, "Yes, your honor. It can be used constitutionally for that purpose." For those concerned about what the government might do with the data in your pocket, that was not a comforting answer.

Via:Newsweek

Do Smart Phones Thwart Public Records Laws?

State leaders in Florida are in a battle with technology: new forms of communications that make it difficult for public officials to follow the law.

The state has one of the best government public record laws in the country. Virtually every public document is accessible to the public. And though the state is embracing the perks of advanced technology — the Legislature just started piloting the use of electronic meeting packets, instead of printing them on paper — the use of cell phones and BlackBerrys is causing concern. It's simply too difficult to archive all communications.

E-mails sent from a BlackBerry are easily tracked and archived by government servers. But the wireless devices can also send electronic messages in another way called "PINing," and those communications often are not tracked. The practice stirred controversy last summer when staff members of Florida's Public Service Commission were caught exchanging PIN messages with a lobbyist for a utility it regulates.

"People need to understand that they cannot use these kinds of modes of communications to conduct official business if they have no way of capturing the record that it creates," says Anne Weissman of the nonpartisan watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

'Where Do You Draw The Line?'

Weissman says that during the Bush administration, some officials used Republican National Committee e-mail accounts and PIN-to-PIN messaging to avoid record keeping. She says states across the country need to be careful.

"I'd be inclined to ban the use of BlackBerrys during those kinds of proceedings, just because of the risk that they could be used for inappropriate or ex parte communications," Weissman says.

But Ron Book, a Tallahassee lobbyist, disagrees. He says that's just not possible in this technological age. "Where do you draw the line? Do you draw the line at a BlackBerry, but yet it's OK to bring a personal computer in?" Book says.

State Sen. Mike Fasano remembers that at a committee meeting last year on property insurance, a lobbyist in the audience was sending to a senator's BlackBerry questions to ask the office of insurance regulation. "That is, in my opinion, way out of line," Fasano says.

But Fasano, who chooses to leave his phone in his office during meetings, says he doesn't believe there should be a ban. "Certainly, a lobbyist should not be texting messages or PINing messages to a senator, asking him or her to ask these specific questions. If a lobbyist had any courage or guts, he or she would get up there and ask those questions himself before the Senate committee," Fasano says.

Florida law already covers electronic communications, noting that any discussion that has to do with public issues is a public record. Open-government experts say it just comes down to enforcement and hope that governments can keep up with the changes in technology.

Complaints rolling in about Google Nexus One

Google's Nexus One phone may have been one of the most anticipated devices of the last few weeks. But since the smartphone's launch last Tuesday, it has left a string of unhappy customers in its wake.

Nexus One has been plagued by consumer complaints including spotty 3G connectivity, a high early termination fee, poor customer support from Google and problems with the touchscreen.

"There are some aspects of the experience that Google didn't think through as carefully as they should have," says Charles Golvin, an analyst with Forrester Research. "This has implications for the store they have launched and their future ambitions for it. Google, clearly, has a lot of work ahead of it."

Google introduced the Nexus One as the first device to be sold by the search company itself, rather than a manufacturing or carrier partner. The Nexus One, which runs Android 2.1, has been designed by HTC and works with T-Mobile's network in the United States.

But contrary to initial speculation, the device isn't free. It will retail for $180 with a 2-year contract with T-Mobile. An unlocked version is also available for $530 -- a price similar to most other smartphones -- and that version will work on other GSM phone networks worldwide as well as AT&T in the United States, although with some limitations.

The difference, though, is the Nexus One is available only through Google's online store. Unlike with a Motorola Cliq or a HTC G1, users can't walk into a T-Mobile store and buy the Nexus One.

They can't even count on T-Mobile's customer service representatives in store or the company's phone support to solve their problems.

It's a strategy that has backfired on Google. The company's support forums are full of customer complaints around the Nexus and the company's poor service.

"A lot of complaints and frustration that people are expressing would normally be handled by going back into the store or by calling the support help line," says Golvin. "Having a physical location where you can take your phone back helps customers and Google seems to have underestimated that."

"Solving customer support issues is extremely important to us, because we want people to have a positive Nexus One experience," says a Google spokesperson. "We are trying to be as open and transparent as possible through our online customer help forums."

Many of the customer complaints are centered about the device's inability to connect to T-Mobile's 3G network. The Nexus One does not pick up the 3G network or keeps switching to the slower EDGE network, say some users.

A Google spokesperson says the company is aware of the problem. "We are aware of the issues that have affected a small number of users and are working quickly to fix any problems," the spokesperson told Wired.com in an email. "We hope to have more information soon. When we do, we will post it to the user forum."

Add to all this Google's decision to charge a separate early termination fee in addition to the one charged by T-Mobile. Nexus One customers who bought the subsidized, $180 version and then decide to cancel their contracts will have to pay $200 to T-Mobile.

But Google also charges users a $350 "equipment recovery fee" if you give up on the contract within 120 days.

Including all charges, Nexus One customers who want to bail early will end up paying $550. That's significantly higher than the controversial $350 early termination fee imposed by Verizon last year.

"Google provides a subsidy for devices purchased with T-Mobile USA service. If a consumer cancels service after 14 days, Google recoups this subsidy in the form of an equipment recovery fee," says the Google spokesperson.

"After 120 days, the equipment recovery fee will no longer apply. This is standard practice for third party resellers of T-Mobile and other operators, and you will find similar policies for other mobile service resellers. The T-Mobile early termination fee is separate and handled by T-Mobile."

Despite the problems, Google can bounce back, says Golvin. Customer dissatisfaction is likely to be just a small speed bump in the road for Google's mobile ambitions, he says.

"Google tends to have a bit of a Teflon coating," says Golvin. "People tend to cut them a lot more slack -- as they do with Apple -- than they do with their mobile operator."

Prisoners Run Gangs, Plan Escapes and Even Order Hits With Smuggled Cellphones

A Guide to Mobile Web Design Tips and Tricks

Having a mobile-optimized web site can really make your site stand apart from the pack. Even though smartphones like the iPhone and Google Android devices can display “the full web,” having a web page formatted for smaller screens and with features that can take advantage of a touch screen, geolocation, or address book functionality can make the mobile web browsing experience that much better.

Even just a few years ago, optimizing websites for mobile browsers was a painful and difficult process, in part because of the limitations of most mobile browsers. Today, thanks to the proliferation of WebKit (which powers the browsers on the iPhone, Android and webOS devices, with BlackBerry expected to join the mix next year), it’s much easier to decide on a strategy for making your website pop on mobile platforms.

We’ve put together a toolkit of resources for the designer and non-designer alike to get you started. Did we miss your favorite tool or service? Let us know in the comments!

 

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Services for Optimizing Your Content for Mobile Browsers

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If you don’t have experience with HTML and CSS (or you don’t have the time), there are a number of services that can create mobile versions of your website for you.

MoFuse and MoFuse Premium — MoFuse has been offering a simple way for bloggers and businesses to easily create mobile versions of their websites for quite some time. For bloggers or smaller sites, the company offers MoFuse for Blogs, which is a free and easy way to quickly mobilize your web site (it uses your RSS feed to generate the new site) whenever it is accessed by going to “m.yourdomain.com.” For businesses or larger sites that want a little more control, MoFuse Premium offers more customizable options.

Mippin — Mippin is another free service that can create a quick mobile version of your website using your RSS feed. The options aren’t extensive, but the version that Mippin creates should be viewable on almost any WAP compatible mobile phone.

mobiSiteGalore — mobiSiteGalore can create quick mobile versions of websites, offers users some customization options, and can take advantage of the .mobi TLD. mobiSiteGalore will let you create your mobile site from a computer or from your phone.

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Plugins for WordPress and Other Publishing Systems

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Having a WAP-formatted site is fine, but if you want to be able to offer visitors from an iPhone or Android device some really great optimized mobile features, you want to consider creating a separate stylesheet for your website. For users of WordPress and other publishing systems, there are a lot of plugin options available that make adding a mobile theme to your site extremely easy.

WPtouch — WPtouch is a fantastic plugin available for WordPress.org users (WordPress.com users can also take advantage of WPtouch with the recent addition of mobile themes) that automatically makes your site easy to read and access from an iPhone or Android device.

The plugin is extremely robust and even offers backend features like the ability to set an iPhone Favicon (so that when users add your web page to their iPhone’s home screen, it has a great looking icon), the ability to work with other WordPress plugins like FlickrRSS and Blip ().it, support for AJAX, customized headers, and more. What I really like about WPtouch is that users can choose to turn it off and access the full version of a website at any time by flicking the mobile on/off switch at the bottom of each page.

WordPress Mobile Edition – Crowd Favorite created this plugin that allows users to easily define what type of devices should be shown a mobile web page (and what shouldn’t — for instance if you want BlackBerry users to see your mobile page but you want iPhone users to see the full site) and it comes with Crowd Favorite’s Carrington Mobile Theme which is easy on the eyes and also fully customizable.

WordPress Mobile Pack — The WordPress Mobile Pack is from the dotMobi team and it is a whole suite of tools for mobile web optimization. It includes a base mobile theme, which is very attractive, a mobile admin panel, mobile ad support and the option for visitors to switch between the full and mobile versions of a website.

WPtap — WPtap is a plugin for WordPress, and the site also offers up some alternative themes for users who want a more customized look and feel to add to their sites. WPtap looks very similar to WPtouch, but the emphasis seems to be on offering pre-built mobile styles.

WordPress Mobile by Mobify — This is a plugin for the Mobify service (see description in the next section). It handles automatic redirection of mobile clients to your Mobify mobile view page.

Mobile Plugin for Drupal — Mobile Plugin offers Drupal () sites a mobile optimized view, comes with a mobile version of the standard Drupal Garland theme and includes device detection, hooks for adding mobile-specific features and automatic YouTube () mobile replacement.

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Tools for Designers

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Mobify — Mobify is a really interesting service because it makes it easy for designers or users who know HTML and CSS to painlessly modify and optimize their website for mobile access. The service is free (though paid monthly plans are available for more features) and it works extremely well with systems like WordPress, Drupal, ExpressionEngine and any other system that has predictable URL patterns and well formed HTML.

Mobify has a visual editor that lets you see what your content looks like on different device types and you can then modify the CSS and see the changes in real-time. Some sites that have used Mobify to create mobile optimized versions of their content include A List Apart and revered web developers and designers, such as Jonathan Snook and Veerle Pieters.

iPhoney — iPhoney from Marketcircle gives Mac users a pixel-accurate web browsing environment that is powered by Safari. Why does this matter? Because when crafting the mobile version of your site, it’s important to be able to see how the final product will look on your phone. iPhoney hasn’t been updated in a while but is still a really useful tool.

iWebKit — iWebKit is a framework of sorts for creating iPhone-optimized websites or web apps that can take advantage of the iPhone’s UI elements and other features.

jQTouch — jQTouch is a really innovative jQuery plugin for mobile web development on the iPhone and iPod touch. With it you can create websites or web apps with animations, support for forms, customized UI elements, additional extensions, swipe controls, and more. The developer is really active with the project and some of the stuff you can do with it is amazing.

iPhone Compatible CSS Layouts — Matthew James Taylor created a bunch of liquid CSS layouts that are iPhone and iPod Touch compatible and free for anyone to use. If you’re looking for a starting point for building a mobile optimized site, you might want to give these layouts a look.

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Other Resources

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Mobile Web Design by Cameron Moll — This is a really great book (available in print or as an ebook) with tips, best practices, and examples on styling and optimizing your site for mobile content. If it suffers from anything it is that it was written before the iPhone explosion really took off, thus it isn’t as up to date as it could be. Still, for mobile web enthusiasts, there’s a lot of great information here.

Craig Hockenbery’s “Put Your Content in My Pocket” — In August of 2007, Craig Hockenberry (from the Iconfactory and one of the brains behind Twitterrific () for the Mac and the iPhone) wrote a great article for “A List Apart” and although some of the technologies have evolved, much of what Craig wrote then still applies today. A great read.

Smashing Magazines’s Mobile Design Showcase – Need some inspiration? Smashing Magazine did a great roundup of iPhone optimized designs in September.

CSSiPhone — CSSiPhone is a CSS gallery dedicated to iPhone optimized site designs. Like Picasso said, “Good artists copy, great artists steal!”

#iPhone TV: Top #iPhone #Apps for Live Streaming Television

Earlier this year, Apple submitted a spec to the IETF for live streaming multimedia content over HTTP, leading some to suspect that a live video protocol would soon be making its way to iPhone and iPod devices. With the new 3.0 version of the iPhone OS, that HTTP live streaming protocol became a reality, and while there were already a handful of live video apps on the iPhone, they’re presumably now a lot better.

This list is a round up of some of the live TV options available on the iPhone. Most of these apps work best over wifi (and a few won’t work at all over 3G), and generally live streaming is a big drain on battery life. Still, being able to catch up with live television or out-of-market broadcasts when you’re not near your TV is a great option for iPhone owners to have.

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Entertainment

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netTV (Free/$2.99)

Available in both free and paid options, netTV offers live streaming access to over 200 channels from around the world, including a larger-than-usual number of channels from the US. The quality is generally pretty good, though I did experience some issues when first connecting to a channel, and of course it varies from channel to channel (depending on the source of the video stream).

TVUPlayer (Free/$4.99)

TVUPlayer plays live TV for over 300 channels, though only a handful of channels broadcast at the right bandwidth to play well. Some of the video feeds come in choppy or with audio syncing issues (I actually couldn’t get audio to work at all), a result of the iPhone’s hardware limitations according to the developers. Still, the app offers an impressive line up of live international television channels, even if many of them are strange.

WorldView Live ($2.99)

WorldView Live isn’t exactly TV, but it is live streaming video. The app provides access to thousands of live web cams from around the world. Only a handful (about 60, according to the developer) are actually live video, but the app does offer an interesting, if voyeuristic, view of the world for armchair travelers.

BONUS: Television ($2.99)

The $2.99 Television application isn’t live TV, but it offers access to an impressive line up of television video catch-up services. The app, which only works over wifi, lets users watch on-demand video from HBO, ESPN, NBC, FOX, CBS, Comedy Central, CNN, Sky and more.

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News

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FRANCE 24 LIVE (Free)

The live application from France’s channel 24 news offers live, video-on-demand streaming from the network in French, English, and Arabic over wifi, 3G, and even Edge! Of course, the video will be pretty choppy and low quality over Edge, but it’s unique among live video applications for even offering that option at all.

Al Jazeera English Live ($2.99)

Al Jazeera’s iPhone app, from Livestation (), has 24/7 live streaming of its English-language news channel over wifi and 3G. The quality is very impressive and the app is under active development — so bugs don’t stay unsquashed for very long. If you are streaming over 3G, though, be aware that every 10 minutes you watch takes about 7.2mb of bandwidth, which is important to know if you’re not on an unlimited data plan.

BBC World News Live (€3.99)

Livestation offers a live streaming video app for BBC World News, as well, but the €3.99 application is only available in the UK (so I wasn’t able to try it out).

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Sports

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MLB.com At Bat 2009 ($9.99)

Major League Baseball’s MLB.com At Bat 2009 application may be pricey at $9.99, but it’s well worth it for die-hard fans that want to keep up with their team or out-of-market teams on the road. The app offers live audio broadcasts of every game to all owners of the app, and two games are offered over live video each night. For MLB.tv subscribers, however, every game can be watched live via the iPhone app (excepting those blacked out due to local market restrictions). The quality of the video streamed by the app is very impressive, especially over wifi.

PGA Championship ($1.99)

The last of the pro golf tour’s yearly majors, the PGA Championship, is next week at Hazeltine National Golf Club and the Professional Golf Association is making sure everyone can watch the tournament no matter where they are. The app gives users access to live video streams of four marquee groups (think big name players like Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, and Padraig Harrington) on Thursday and Friday, and two more groups on the weekend. You can also watch the entire field play through the course’s par 3 holes during the whole tournament.

This is actually the third live video app the PGA has put out this year. They also had iPhone apps for tracking the Masters tournament and the US Open, and in March, CBS put out a March Madness application with live video of the year-end NCAA college basketball tournament. We’d expect both organizations to do the same in 2010.

TV 2 Sporten (Free)

If you like Norwegian football, then the free TV 2 Sporten app is for you. Jam-packed with live news and score updates, the app also has a live video section with goals and other game highlights. Of course, it will all make a lot more sense if you speak Norwegian.

#IPHONE TOOLBOX: 75+ #iPhone Resources

Well, I’m sure you’ve all heard of all the iPhone by now, undoubtedly one of the most hyped tech products of the last year. Never have we seen so many applications, resources, hacks, and so much news coverage for one little device. This list is a valiant attempt at bringing together the best of the “iPhone web.”

 

iPhone Apps

Apple hasn’t yet released an iPhone SDK (software development kit) to developers, instead, they’ve opted to promote the use of the device’s full-featured Safari browser, and have encouraged web developers to develop web apps specifically for the iPhone.

iPhoneChat- iChat-like AIM chat application.

OneTrip- Simple shopping-list application.

FlickIM- Multi-featured AIM chat application.

Digg (iPhone edition)-Digg.com formatted for the iPhone.

Gcalc- Calculates the cost of tech according to power consumption.

Hahlo - iPhone-styled interface for Twitter.

iPhlickr- iPhone-styled Flickr interface.

iDelicious- Styled interface for del.icio.us.

iPicli- A nicely designed gallery of creative content, managed by users.

PocketTweets- Another twitter app, with a minimal interface.

eBuddy- Feature-packed iPhone chat client with support for AIM, Yahoo!, and MSN (Site works only if visited on your iPhone).

Cool Gorilla Talking Phrasebook- Foreign language phrase-book with audio.

Texterity- Innovative way to view magazines (specifically formatted for the iPhone).

Bejeweled- Version of the popular mobile-phone game, “Bejeweled” optimized for the iPhone.

Newsgator Mobile for iPhone- Full-featured, mobile version of Newsgator’s online offering. Great for users of the MacRSS client, NetNewsWire, which automatically syncs to the service.

Twitter for iPhone Yet another twitter app.

Dailymotion for iPhone- Youtube’s already built-in, what about the other video-sites? Another video-sharing site, Dailymotion, is offering an iPhone formatted version of their site.

iRovr- A social-network exclusive to the iPhone.

iPhoneiGTD- App for access of projects being tracked via the Mac client iGTD. The only catch is that your iGTD data needs to be synced with .Mac in the first place.

TeleMoose- A front-end for Amazon.com optimized for the iPhone.

Google Reader - An interface for popular web-based RSS reader, Google Reader, nicely optimized for the iPhone.

iZoho- An iPhone front-end for the web-based office suite Zoho. The iPhone version lets you do everything you might do on your computer, including viewing and editing docs, spreadsheets, and presentations.

Gas.app- Enter your zip code and this app will find you the cheapest gas in town (USA only).

MyMetar- A “weather bookmarking service” which allows you to bookmark your local METARs, TAFs, and radar images.

iPhoneTravel- Searches directory travel.ian.com just in case you need to book flights, hotels, and cruises from your iPhone.

iBookmark- Lets you manage and sync del.ico.us bookmarks with your iPhone.

Youtube - An iPhone-optimized Youtube browser, just in case the “desktop” version isn’t working for you.

GoMovies- An easy and quick way to search for movie showtimes and other movie-related info right from your iPhone.

iChess- Bored? Cure your chess craving with iChess, a simple, chess app for your iPhone.

Leaflets- A suite of iPhone apps: Search, Feeds, Newsvine, App-List, Upcoming, Flickr, del.icio.us, and Le Tour de France, organized in a desktop-like fashion.

Listingly- A list making application with a great UI. Integrated word recognition and the ability to print lists make this an indispensable resource, especially for making shopping lists on the go.

iPling- A “social expansion engine” allows you to findothers with similar interests. The app even provides a way for users to meet up in real-life after the anonymous exchange of text-messages.

NYTimes River- Cuts out the clutter on the NYTimes website, just delivering the news in an easily readable format.

CheapMF- Out shopping? Not sure about prices? CheapMF can help. It’s a utility that searches Amazon.com for prices on specified products in order to help you make educated shopping decisions.

iTouch- A simple, addictive game which tests your reflexes, just touch some dots on the screen.

Avalanche- An addictive puzzle game in which the goal is to clear the screen of blocks by picking three or more inter-connected blocks of the same color.

Expense View- Allows you to import your spending data into your iPhone on-the-go.You can then access your data at home and see exactly how you’ve been spending your money. It’s even equipped with graphs and categories for the organized spender.

iPhone recipes- Cooking resource 101 Cookbooks has assembled an iPhone interface for searching through recipes.

iActu- Newsstand like interface for reading news headlines from various Newspapers.

iTweet- The third twitter app on this list, with an intuitive, streamlined interface.

Ta-da List 37signals, simple, intuitive to-do list app.

Movies Another app for looking up movie showtimes and other related info on your iPhone.

iTipr- Excellent application for calculating appropriate tip amounts.

Seeqpod- Search for playable music on the internet and then play it back on your iPhone.
Beejive- Another chat application, Beejive, is a solid contender in the iPhone chat app market. The app supports several chat protocols including, AIM, MSN, Yahoo!, Gtalk, ICQ, and Jabber. While everything seems to be in working order for me, please note the app’s still in it’s early alpha development stage.

TestiPhone- Web-based simulator for quickly testing your iPhone applications.

JiWire- A utility to find free Wi-Fi hotspots by location, worldwide.

FastApp- An iPhone “dashboard” that displays the latest additions to iPhoneApplicationList.com

WordBreaker- A word-game in which you you attempt to guess your computer’s secret word before it guesses yours, in a hangman-like logic format.

Airport Delay Tracker- Track live air traffic information.

iBloglines- Another iPhone-optimized RSS reader, this one, with the Bloglines service.

Belfry SciCalc- A nicely implemented scientific calculator for the iPhone.

Your Vids- Another iPhone optimized video service with several features.

TV Forecast- A personalized TV-guide optimized for the iPhone.

iPhone Resources

Collections (App Lists, Wallpapers, Forums etc)

iPhone Application List- An ever-updating list of iPhone apps.

iPhone Widget List- Like iPhone Application List, but with even more apps.

sciphone.net- A constantly updated collection of the best iPhone wallpapers, including weekly themepack releases.

ThemeMyPhone- A community-centric resource for iPhone wallpapers.

ModMyiPhone.com- iPhone forum and community.

iPhone Application Gallery ~ AppSafari ~- An iPhone application gallery with ratings, reviews, and comments.

Blogs

iPhone Central- The guys from Macworld have put together a blog solely dedicated to the iPhone, with all the authority that goes with the Macworld name. They even have an iPhone version.

The iPhone Blog- A nicely put together iPhone blog.

ZDNet- iPhone- ZDNet’s iPhone coverage.

The Cult of Mac- The Cult of Mac blog covers the iPhone plenty.

CNet- iPhone- CNet’s coverage of the iPhone.

iPhone- Gizmodo Gizmodo’s iPhone coverage.

TUAW- iPhone TUAW’s iPhone coverage.

Ars Technica- Apple Ars Technica’s Apple coverage, plenty of iPhone coverage to be found.

Podcasts

iCali- Cali Lewis’ (from GeekBrief.tv) in her iPhone-centric podcast.

ApplePhone Show- A weekly audio podcast covering the iPhone, hosted by industry leaders Scott Bourne, Chris Breen and Andy Ihnatko.

MacBreak Weekly- The popular weekly Mac podcast with hosts Leo Laporte, Merlin Mann, Scott Bourne and Alex Lindsay is bound to cover the iPhone more than enough.

TWiT Another one of Leo Laporte’s successful tech podcasts, again, bound to even further inform you of the latest iPhone developments.

Hacks

Hack the iPhone- A comprehensive site containing all the info you need to hack your iPhone.

iPhone Hacks- An assembly of the latest iPhone hacks in blog form.

Applehound- Consistently updated listing of iPhone bugs, ready for hacking.

#iPhone Virus Cured? #Apple to Release Security Patch

The security vulnerability that threatened iPhone users via corrupt SMS messages will apparently be addressed by Saturday. An O2 (who carries the iPhone in the UK) spokesperson tells the BBC that Apple is set to release a patch, available in iTunes, that removes the danger.

As reported yesterday, two researchers presented a way in which iPhones could be remotely controlled – including accessing a phone’s address book and camera – after being corrupted by an SMS message containing a single square character.

Although no threat was imminent, the researchers estimated that it would take hackers only a couple weeks to exploit the vulnerability once their findings were made public.

All along, the researchers said the goal of releasing this information was to get an unresponsive Apple to fix the security vulnerability. And for now, it looks like mission accomplished.

#iPhone Hack Exposed: The Key Facts

As we reported earlier today, security experts Charlie Miller and Collin Mulliner have exposed an iPhone virus that could allow criminals to control your phone just by sending a single text message (SMS). Their presentation, at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas, is making a lot of waves, but the details are scattered or overly technical for most iPhone owners.

That’s why we’ve done some research on the information that has come out on this security vulnerability. The technical detail involved in the hack can be overwhelming, so we’re synthesizing it down to the key points – as well what you can expect. Don’t be alarmed, but be vigilant. Here’s the security breakdown:

1. The major issue is a security flaw involving SMS. Specifically, the hack can control an iPhone remotely, including your iPhone’s camera, Safari and more. It can even send messages to friends in your address book, which is where this hack becomes scariest.

2. The hack works by sending you code in an SMS message (or a series of messages) that crashes your iPhone. After that, your iPhone is theirs to use.

3. The offending text would come in the form of a single square character. If you get the square character, turn off your phone IMMEDIATELY.

4. You only have to receive the message to get hacked; you don’t even have to do anything with the text message.

5. The flaw was discovered by noted security expert Charlie Miller, who has hacked everything from MacBook Airs to Second Life, and partner Collin Mullinger.

6. The attack was presented publicly at the Black Hat conference. The duo decided to do this after Apple gave them no response back in July, when they provided Apple with information on the security flaw. The goal is to bring attention to the flaw (which they are clearly getting).

7. According to Reuters, now that the vulnerability is exposed, hackers could build software that mounts this SMS attack within the next two weeks.

8. Apparently Google Android, Windows Mobile phones, and Palm Pres are vulnerable to similar hacks. The team demonstrated the attack on an Android phone and a Windows Mobile phone.

While we’re still sifting through very technical information on this attack, it’s a clear reminder that no software, no computer, and no phone is safe from thieves, hackers, and harm. We’ll provide additional updates as they come from either Black Hat or Apple.

 

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