Mobile carriers facilitate cash transfers

Mobile communications operators and banks joined forces on Monday to make it easier and cheaper for hundreds of millions of immigrants and migrant workers to send money home by using their mobile phones. The aim is to reduce the transaction costs of sending small amounts of cash to just a few percent, from a current 24 percent for amounts as small as $50.
Source: Lucas van Grinsven, Reuters, via CNET News.com, February 11, 2007

GPS software promises hope for the disabled

Since a horse-riding accident eight years ago, von Laffert has had to navigate around the cobblestone streets and concrete steps of her urban college campus in northern Germany in a wheelchair, her path often ending unexpectedly in dead ends and time-consuming U-turns. Soon, wireless software developed on her campus may provide an answer.
Source: Kevin J. O’Brien, International Herald Tribune, February 11, 2007

Mobile Industry Announces Answer to iPhone

All four major music labels have agreed to release their digital music catalogs to MusicStation and 23 mobile operators in Europe and Asia representing some 690 million customers have already committed to using the service, said Rob Lewis, the 37-year-old British serial entrepreneur who is behind the service. Mr. Lewis and three partners are the co-founders of London-based Omnifone, a U.K. start-up which has been operating in stealth mode for four years.
Source: Jennifer Schenker, Red Herring, February 11, 2007

Mobile networks powered by wind

The world’s first mobile phone base station powered by wind and the sun’s rays will soon open in Namibia. The trial follows a pilot held in Swindon, UK, led by Motorola. Mobile firm MTC Namibia will run the cell.
Source: BBC News Online, February 13, 2007

Flying the cleanly skies?

Without a viable jet-fuel alternative, air travel in 30 years may be only for the wealthy. At least one travel industry official predicts that in 30 years, long-distance flying will be undertaken only by the wealthy as ticket prices rise dramatically — and the number of flights shrinks proportionately — to curb the emissions of greenhouse gases created by air travel.
Source: Gregory M. Lamb, The Christian Science Monitor, February 12, 2007

Blogs to the rescue!

The US government should use the power of the Internet to engage citizens directly in relief operations, say two computer scientists. Use of wikis, blogs and other ‘community’ tools could help to coordinate responses to natural or man-made emergencies.
Source: Declan Butler, Nature, February 15, 2007

Former Sun CEO says nonprofit Curriki Web site encourages learning

Today, McNealy[, former CEO of Sun Microsystems,] is focused on a rapidly changing part of the online world: K-12 education. McNealy has spent most of the past year as the leading pitchman for Curriki, a nonprofit group that’s trying to build a mega-Web site of educational materials that teachers, students and parents anywhere in the world can use, modify, critique and expand on. And they can do all that for free.
Source: Benjamin Pimentel, San Francisco Chronicle, February 13, 2007

Mobile carriers facilitate cash transfers
Mobile communications operators and banks joined forces on Monday to make it easier and cheaper for hundreds of millions of immigrants and migrant workers to send money home by using their mobile phones. The aim is to reduce the transaction costs of sending small amounts of cash to just a few [...]