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What do you do if you are stuck in a field at a pop festival but there's trouble ahead because your mobile phone's battery is about to run out?
Thanks to a new gizmo, you now just need to face the music and dance.
Mobile phone operator Orange said, it had teamed up with GotWind, a firm specializing in renewable energy, to produce a recharger powered by dance energy alone.
The portable kinetic energy chargers will be given a test run at this year's Glastonbury Festival, the world's biggest greenfield music and arts celebration that begins on a farm in Somerset on Friday.
Orange said the prototype chargers weigh the same as a phone and are about the size of a pack of cards. Attached to the user's arm, they employ a system of weights and magnets which provide an electric current to top up charge in a storage battery. This can then later be used to recharge the phone.
"We wanted to create a fun, engaging and interactive product which would encourage users to have a laugh while charging their mobile phone and at the same time test out a new energy-efficient prototype," said Hattie Magee, Head of Partnerships at Orange UK.
A new software system which enables mobile phone users to obtain location-specific, real-time information, either actively or passively, from other users across the world has been developed by a team led by an Indian-American professor at Duke University.
The rapid convergence of social networks, mobile phones and global positioning technology has given Duke University engineers the ability to create something they call "virtual sticky notes," site-specific messages that people can leave for others to pick up on their mobile phones.
"Every mobile phone can act as a telescope lens providing real-time information about its environment to any of the 3 billion mobile phones worldwide," said Romit Roy Choudhury, an assistant professor at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering.
It will be as if every participating mobile phone works together allowing each individual access to information throughout the virtual network.
Interested in trying that new Indian restaurant? Tap into the virtual sticky notes floating in the ether within the restaurant and find what other network users thought of it. Heading to the airport and need to know where the traffic jams are? Sensors in the phones detect movement and can relay back to the network where traffic is the heaviest.
The potential of this new application, which has been dubbed micro-blog, is practically limitless.
"We can now think of mobile phones as a 'virtual lens' capable of focusing on the context surrounding it. By combining the lenses from all the active phones in the world today, it may be feasible to build an internet-based 'virtual information telescope' that enables a high-resolution view of the world in real time," Roy Choudhury said.
The application combines the capabilities of distributed networks (like Wikipedia), social networks (Facebook), mobile phones, computer networks and geographic positioning capabilities, such as GPS or WiFi.
 The world's top cell phone maker, Nokia has unveiled two new models aimed at the business market dominated by the Blackberry, but Research in Motion Ltd shares rose because investors believe the maker of the popular handset is safe.
/photo.cms?msid=3136211 The new Nokia phones, meant to refresh the somewhat aging lineup of corporate offerings at the Finnish company, were widely expected after leaks on the Internet.
Nokia shares closed 2 per cent lower in Helsinki at 16.57 euros, while RIM stock closed 5 per cent higher at C$144.21
"This is not going to change anything," said Nomura analyst Richard Windsor. "They've got to do much more, they have to do a complete offering. The problem is they don't offer device independence and they don't have the embedded position that RIM does."
The new sliding model E66 and the E71, with full keyboard, both start shipping in July and will retail for around 350 euros ($538), excluding operator subsidies and local taxes.
Both phones will have 3.2 megapixel cameras and built-in GPS receivers for navigation. The Nokia E71 is 10 millimeters thick -- the thinnest phone with a full QWERTY keyboard in the world.
"The business market is becoming increasingly competitive and highly segmented, so these new products are critical new additions to Nokia's E series line up," said Geoff Blaber, an analyst at research firm CCS.
Over the last few months, Nokia's rivals, including Canada's RIM and Sony Ericsson, have introduced new models for business users, intensifying competition in the sector.
"We will see a swathe of new products from RIM, Palm and a number of Windows Mobile licencees in the coming quarters, so it was essential that Nokia strengthened its portfolio," CCS's Blaber said.
No BlackBerry support
The new phones do not include Blackberry service, included on all of Nokia's previous corporate phones.
Analysts said it was not a major problem for Nokia, which has always offered a wide range of emails on its devices.
"We do see a number of organisations adopting a 'RIM plus one' strategy, but in such cases, they typically provide Blackberry for senior executives and some other device/email platform for mainstream users," said Gartner analyst Nick Jones.
Also Nokia's Soren Petersen, who heads the phone portfolio, downplayed the fact that Nokia will sell the phones without an option for Blackberry email.
"I don't think that it is much of an issue. It's a client they need to develop," he told Reuters in an interview. The world's top cell phone maker, Nokia has unveiled two new models aimed at the business market dominated by the Blackberry, but Research in Motion Ltd shares rose because investors believe the maker of the popular handset is safe.
The new Nokia phones, meant to refresh the somewhat aging lineup of corporate offerings at the Finnish company, were widely expected after leaks on the Internet.
Nokia shares closed 2 per cent lower in Helsinki at 16.57 euros, while RIM stock closed 5 per cent higher at C$144.21
"This is not going to change anything," said Nomura analyst Richard Windsor. "They've got to do much more, they have to do a complete offering. The problem is they don't offer device independence and they don't have the embedded position that RIM does."
The new sliding model E66 and the E71, with full keyboard, both start shipping in July and will retail for around 350 euros ($538), excluding operator subsidies and local taxes.
Both phones will have 3.2 megapixel cameras and built-in GPS receivers for navigation. The Nokia E71 is 10 millimeters thick -- the thinnest phone with a full QWERTY keyboard in the world.
"The business market is becoming increasingly competitive and highly segmented, so these new products are critical new additions to Nokia's E series line up," said Geoff Blaber, an analyst at research firm CCS.
Over the last few months, Nokia's rivals, including Canada's RIM and Sony Ericsson, have introduced new models for business users, intensifying competition in the sector.
"We will see a swathe of new products from RIM, Palm and a number of Windows Mobile licencees in the coming quarters, so it was essential that Nokia strengthened its portfolio," CCS's Blaber said.
RIM was not immediately available to comment.
Nokia sells 40 per cent of all phones sold globally, but the market for business users who look for fast access to their emails on the road is dominated by RIM.
Petersen said that because only a tiny portion of corporate e-mail accounts are used over mobile, it gives an opportunity for providers such as Nokia to attack RIM's dominant position.
"To me, the game is wide open. It's very early days," he said.
Nokia is also looking at developing email devices for its usual consumers, where uptake could be much faster than at companies.
"Consumer email will overtake corporate really fast, really fast," Petersen added
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