Avoid Using Cell Phones While Walking In Public

Despite the recent drop in the number of injured pedestrians, total injuries related to walking while using a GT-I9300 cell phone have more than doubled over the past decade.Jack Nasar, co-author of the study and professor of city and regional planning at The Ohio State University, said that if this trend continues he wouldn't be surprised if the number of pedestrian deaths related to cell phone use doubles again by 2015.

He added that "the role of cell phones in distracted driving injuries and deaths gets a lot of attention and rightly so, but we need to also consider the danger cell phone use poses to pedestrians."According to the results of the study people between the ages of 16 to 25 were at the most risk of being injured because of cell phone use.

The researchers analyzed injury reports of more than 100 hospitals collected by the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System - a database maintained by the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC). From 2004 to 2010 the investigators identified the number of pedestrian injuries which were associated with cell phone use.

The researchers came across several cases of accidents while people were walking and talking on their mobile phones. One case involved a teenage boy walking straight off a bridge into a ditch while talking on a cell phone, and another man was hit by car while walking across the road and chatting on his phone.

In 2004, around 559 pedestrians were admitted to hospital following an injury related to cell phone use, the following year there were only 256 cases. However, the number of pedestrians treated in emergency rooms while using their cell phone has risen every year since 2005.The authors say that the number of cell phone-related injuries could actually be a lot higher.fdd2SDDxd1

They believe that a better way of calculating the real extent of pedestrian injuries related to cell phone use could come from comparing distracted walking to distracted driving - which has been studied very well. A study published in the American Journal of Public Health revealed that texting and cell phone use have led to a significant rise in fatalities due to distracted driving, rising from 4,572 fatalities in 2005 to 5,870 in 2008.

Another study, which appeared in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology showed that people have greater difficultly maintaining a fixed speed, or keeping their car safe in a single lane when using their cell phone.The researchers compared CPSC estimates for injuries among drivers who were distracted by GT-I9500 cell phones with more accurate data gathered from emergency rooms.

The analysis revealed that the number of actual crash-related injuries in emergency rooms related to cell phone use is grossly underestimated by the CPSC. In fact, Nasar said that the real number of injuries is more than 1,300 times higher than what the CPSC estimated.

Spate of cell phone thefts hits Oak Park

Six people were robbed of their GT-I9300 cell phones or had them snatched from their hands between June 7 and June 11.Police made arrests in two of the incidents, and are investigating to see if a gang of teenaged street thieves are responsible for other incidents.

An Oak Park man was walking on the 800 block of Erie Street at 8:35 p.m. June 6 when he was confronted by four juveniles. One of them demanded his wallet and then punched him in the face. The other three juveniles also began punching the man, who dropped his iPhone. The thieves fled, running northbound, and the GT-I9500 cell phone was recovered several blocks away.The victim was taken to Rush Oak Park Hospital, where he was treated and released for a bloody nose and a head bump.

In another incident, a 15-year old Oak Park boy was walking on the 300 block of North East Avenue at 9:05 p.m. June 7 when a man tapped him on the shoulder from behind and asked to use his cell phone. When the boy said no, the man punched him on the side of the head, knocking him down, and continued to punch him. The thief then reached behind his back and said “I have a gun. Give me your phone.” He then took an iPhone, valued at $600, and ran off.

Another theft occurred just a few blocks away at about the same time. In that incident, an Oak Park man riding his bike on the 700 block of North Fair Oaks Avenue at 9:07 p.m. June 7, was surrounded by five males, one of whom displayed a black handgun and pressed it against the cyclist’s side. He then reached into the cyclist’s pocket and stole his cell phone. After ordering the cyclist to get off his bike and run north on Fair Oaks, the gang fled.

In another incident, at 9:25 p.m. June 11, a 14-year old Chicago boy grabbed another CTA Green Line rider by the arm and attempted to steal his I5 MTK6577 cell phone. However, the victim and his friend, both 18-year old Saudi nationals here as exchange students, were able to hold the thief until police arrived. The boy was processed and turned over to a guardian.There were two other incidents classified as “theft from person,” where no force or threat of force was used in the crime.

At 1:55 p.m. on June 9, a 44-year-old man sitting on a bench in Taylor Park, in the 900 block or North Ridgeland Avenue, had his cell phone snatched from his hand.The other incident occurred at 7:40 p.m. on June 10 in the 6000 block of West North Avenue. In that case, four Chicago boys, ages 12 to 14, were arrested and charged with theft from person after they grabbed a cell phone from a nine-year-old girl’s hand and ran off with it.

Anyone who has ever had a cell phone stolen knows how frustrating it can be to get the phone back, or get the phone shut off. Now, federal lawmakers want to make that process easier. Senator Charles Schumer said that if someone reports that their smart phone has been stolen, the phone company should render the device useless from that point forward and kill any service to it for good. The theft of cell phones is the fastest growing robbery crime. Verizon and T-Mobile said they have stolen phone databases that make it impossible for devices reported as stolen to be reactivated on their networks.

However, it is possible that those phones will be reactivated on another network. Apple provides some assistance in locating stolen devices with built-in tracking technology but there can be a delay, and certain security features might not work once the cheap cell phone cases is disconnected from the internet. So Senator Schumer, along with Attorneys General in several states, said they want a kill switch. "Within a couple of months, word would spread within the criminal community and people wouldn't steal cell phones anymore.

Right now it's very easy to just go over there and sell the cell phone in the hot market and then the phone provider changes the number if you want. If you made those phones dead, the minute they were stolen and reported in--cell phones would not be stolen in a matter of months," said Senator Schumer. Lawmakers are asking cell phone companies to consider this - if it isn't done, Schumer said he will draft legislation to address the issue.

Drivers get ticketed for using their cell phones during Target Zero program

For four hours on May 30, five Redmond Police Department (RPD) traffic officers were on the lookout for drivers using their GT-I9300 cell phones and not buckling their seat belts.As part of the King County Target Zero Task Force’s Click It or Ticket enforcement, they issued 48 citations — 46 for cell phone/texting violations and two for seat belts — from 4:30-8:30 p.m., according to Jim Bove, RPD’s community outreach facilitator.

“The cell phone issue continues to be a huge problem. We recommend people just putting their phone in the trunk. That way drivers aren’t even tempted to talk on the phone or text,” Bove said.County wide between May 20 and June 2, officers issued 387 seat belt infractions and 322 tickets for cell phone usage/texting or usage of other electronic devices. Last year in King County during this same time period, officers on extra patrols wrote 296 seat belt infractions and 197 GT-I9500 cell phone violations.

Statewide during the patrols, officers from more than 130 police and sheriff agencies wrote 2,321 seat belt violations and 1,448 cell phone/texting tickets. Last year, during this same time period, officers on the extra patrols statewide issued 3,171 seat belt violations and 1,059 cell phone violations.The program is funded by a Washington Traffic Safety Commission grant.desSDds34

“This is a really important issue, not just with our police departments but with the community. They want people to be held accountable for behind-the-wheel cell phone use,” said Annie Kirk, King County Target Zero manager.“People don’t always make the best decisions, so officers give them a reminder why that’s important,” Kirk added. “We did have a large number of citations, but officers also saw a lot of people who were being safe in their cars.”

Kirk noted that officers see a lot of cell phone use in Redmond, and the city will be participating in another King County campaign focusing on I5 MTK6577 cell phone-distraction enforcement in late June and in August.Quick - put your cell phone up to your ear. Which side is it on? Researchers say that simple move can tell them a lot about how your brain works.

When it comes to how you hold your phone, turns out it's your brain that makes the call.A team at Henry Ford Hospitals found that more than 70% of people held their phone to the ear on the same side as their dominant hand. That tended to be the case even when it made it more difficult to hold the phone and take notes.

Researchers think the preference is determined by the location of the speech and language centers in your brain. Left-brain thinkers who tend to be more logical and analytical are more likely to hold the cheap cell phone cases to their right ear, while right-brain thinkers who are often more intuitive and creative tend to hold the phone to their left ear.

Guilford schools approve cell phone use in class

The use of GT-I9300 cell phones in the classroom has become a hot topic. One local school district wants to approve using them in classes for learning purposes. The Guilford Board of Education is working on giving the green light to students using their smartphones in the classroom.

This is doing a 180 to their policy change going from prohibiting phones all together to encouraging students to use them. None of the board members showed any dissent with the new change. "They're not used for communication or recreation inside a classroom setting, but they may be used for communication outside of classes or in certain inappropriate areas," said Paul Freeman, Board of Education.

Also, this doesn't mean the school will purchase phones for everyone but they will make tablets or smart phones available to everyone in group settings if need be.

Under the proposed policy, teachers will still be able to take away GT-I9500 cell phones if they're being used improperly and the rules will vary from elementary school students to high school students. Many of us never had to worry about the temptation of using a cell phone during school time. Over the last decade, it's been hard to find kids without them. A local school district is presenting a policy in hopes of approving cell phone use in high school classes for learning purposes.

As soon as school lets out, the cell phones come out. But, Guilford High School students say they are still out to some degree in class despite the no phone rule. "I mean, we're teenagers," said Maia Murdock, a senior.Teenagers who love technology for learning purposes according to the principal, Rick Misenti. In some cases, the smartphones are already allowed.sdfdDS2x

"We're allowed to look stuff up on our I5 MTK6577 phone. Obviously, it has to be for school," said Murdock. Monday night, the Policy Committee will submit a proposal to the Board of Education to allow cell phones use in the high school. Misenti says it will allow them direct access to multiple sources of information. "I think it will be a good thing. I think students will be more comfortable around their teachers knowing they're going to let them do something," said Leah Giovanniello, a junior.

Students admit even if they have the phone on silent and see a text come across or hear the sound, they're going to be tempted to write back. That's where parents worry the educational environment will turn into a social environment. When asked what would he say to the parents who don't like it, Misenti said, "I have a great degree of confidence, not just in our students but teachers as well, that they'll use this new policy to their advantage as well to move kids forward."

"By having it approved it's just going to be very problematic and then it's going to move on to things like cheating," said a parent. We asked Misenti if the cheap cell phone cases phones would be allowed during tests. He says that will likely be the teacher's call. Parents and educators will have a chance to weigh in before a decision is made.

Emergency weather alert system for cell phones far from comprehensive

A tornado touches down in your area, prompting the National Weather Service to issue a warning and then a text message on your cell phone alerts you to the danger."It's still highly dependent on what smart phone you have," said National Weather Service meteorologist Tyler Fleming. "In time, people's GT-I9300 phones more and more will have it." Those without older cell phones aren't eligible to get alerts, but even millions of people who do have the latest devices can't get the messages.

More than 60 smart phones on the Verizon network — including the iPhone, BlackBerry and Droid — are compatible and should receive the alerts.AT&T, the nation's other large carrier, offers the service on just 10 devices; iPhone is not one of them. It's unclear why so few are compatible. AT&T officials did not return emails seeking comment Thursday.

As storm-tracking technology has improved in recent years, weather officials have focused their efforts on disseminating information to more people more quickly."It's no longer an issue necessarily of us seeing the tornadoes coming. . . . It's an issue of people getting the warning and taking cover when they get the messages," Fleming said.dsaDE3D

That, he said, is why it's so important for GT-I9500 cell carriers to reach as many people as possible.According to their websites, both Verizon and AT&T will continue making more devices compatible.The weather notices, first used last year, are part of a broader cell phone alert network created by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Officials can also disperse AMBER alerts and presidential alerts during national emergencies.

People can opt out of weather or AMBER alert notifications, though the presidential alerts are mandatory.People who don't have eligible I5 MTK6577 phones, or who believe a text might not wake them, can also buy an emergency weather radio for as low as $15, which will alert them.

The developers of a new mobile app may have just caught a break — and found a new group of potential customers — with the revelation that government is secretly snooping on Verizon cell phone users.Developers in South Africa have developed an app called Seecrypt, which they say protects cell phone users from having their calls and texts tracked.

It was revealed Wednesday that the National Security Agency has forced Verizon to turn over cheap cell phone cases records of customers inside the United States in the name of fighting terrorism.For the app to work, both people wanting to text or call each other must have the application. But when the application is used, the phone company will not know the identity or phone number of the other person on the line. It will only know that the caller used Seecrypt.