From bricks to the iPhone: 25 years of the mobile phones

They started life 25 years ago as carphones - because you needed a car to take the weight of the battery - and cost a fortune, but today there are more mobile phones in the UK than there are people.

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From bricks to the iPhone: 25 years of the mobile phones

Hard times turn us to gaming, but not everyone will be a winner | Victor Keegan

Companies may look to cash in on the upcoming mobile market rather than invest millions in video games. Will it work though? Monopoly – the game – has had a long and complicated pedigree.

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Hard times turn us to gaming, but not everyone will be a winner | Victor Keegan

CES: iPhone-controlled drone unveiled at tech show curtain-raiser

AR.Drone – a flying 'quadricopter' with on-board cameras and internal guidance system – shown at Las Vegas industry event Unmanned drones have become synonymous with controversial military action in some of the most dangerous warzones. But now a child's toy has been created using the same technology.

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CES: iPhone-controlled drone unveiled at tech show curtain-raiser

The iPhone isn’t perfect | Victor Keegan

With most examples of new technology, the owner's desire to be seen at the cutting edge blinds them to admit any faults When hostages defend their kidnappers, it is known as "Stockholm syndrome". Something similar happens to iPhone users, according to the Danish analyst Strand Consult , when they fall so in love with the device that it blinds them to its defects such as a poor camera, lousy battery life for heavy users and no Bluetooth facility that can transmit photos. This provoked a predictably outraged response from iPhonistas, but the truth is that a kind of Stockholm syndrome happens not just with iPhones but with most examples of new technology where the owners' desire to be seen at the cutting edge irrationally blinds them to admit any faults. A few weeks ago I had a meeting at the British Library with CoPilot the highly successful maker of iPhone apps for navigation. At the beginning I declared an interest – that no sat-nav device I had tested during the past few years had worked speedily first time or in heavily built-up areas though they were usually brilliant in open country when you didn't need them so much. Throughout our long and entertaining discussion the CoPilot iPhone app failed completely to find our location. To be fair, as soon as we got outside when it picked up a satellite signal (inside it was restricted to Wi-Fi and mobile phone triangulation) we got an instant fix on the map which pointed me along the route I wanted to go). Last week a taxi driver was raving to me about how good sat-nav was, but when I asked him why he wasn't using it that night (when he had taken me in the wrong direction) he said it wasn't so good in heavily built-up areas. Stockholm syndrome also happens with other smart phones with an added variant for reviewers: the fear that not being able to make some of the functions work may be due to your own stupidity or the temporary defects of a pre-production model. I have just finished trialling two rivals to the iPhone – Nokia's flagship N900 (running on a Maemo open source operating system) and Samsung's Galaxy (running on Google's Android operating system, also open source). Both of them come with five megapixel cameras and online stores for selling applications of a kind that have been such a runaway success for the iPhone. First, the upside. Both are technologically superior to the iPhone in terms of the quality of photos and video. The N900 is beautifully engineered. It has a slide-out keypad which will be popular with those who have smaller fingers than me but also results in it being heavier than the iPhone whose lack of moving parts means the screen can, unlike the Galaxy, fill the whole of one side of the device. Curiously, the N900, unlike the Galaxy, doesn't have a single key to press to make a telephone call (yes, some people still do that)

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The iPhone isn't perfect | Victor Keegan

Leading PCmakers HP, Dell and Lenovo all failing on environment, says Greenpeace

Campaign group criticises leading manufacturers HP, Dell and Lenovo for not cutting down on toxic components – but praises Apple, Nokia and Acer Greenpeace has accused three of the world's biggest PC manufacturers of failing to live up to their promises to make more environmentally friendly computers. Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Lenovo have all been singled out in a report from the environmental campaign group, which claims they have failed to deliver new machines that do not depend so heavily on toxic chemicals. "HP, Lenovo and Dell had promised to eliminate vinyl plastic (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) from their products by the end of 2009. Now they've told us that they won't make it this year," Greenpeace said in its latest Guide to Greener Electronics report . "The phase-out of toxic substances is an urgent priority to help tackle the growing tide of e-waste. Still, producers only go green when they feel public and consumer pressure to do so," it continued. Indeed, computer companies are facing a different kind of pressure thanks to the recession – which analysts say has caused the biggest slump for the industry in its history . Despite such a slowdown, however, hundreds of millions of PCs are still sold every year. In the last quarter alone, the three companies singled out by Greenpeace sold more than 30m computers around the world . Given such high sales volumes, the use of toxic components can have a devastating environmental impact – particularly in west African countries that accept vast amounts of electronic waste from Europe and the US, in contradiction with international regulations. As a result of the west's decision to export e-waste, cities such as Lagos, Nigeria, and Accra, Ghana, play home to huge toxic dumps full of discarded computers and electronic devices , where scavengers – often children – attempt to extract the metals in order to resell them. Since 2006, Greenpeace has monitored companies' promises to reduce the number of toxic components and has noted a gradual improvement from many electronics manufacturers. The Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia currently leads in Greenpeace's rankings , after keeping up with plans to reduce its CO2 emissions.

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Leading PCmakers HP, Dell and Lenovo all failing on environment, says Greenpeace

The opening day of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona has produced a host of new mobiles bristling with technology

The opening day of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona has produced a flood of smartphones bristling with technology as traditional handset manufacturers such as Samsung and Sony Ericsson play catch-up with the iPhone. In a further attempt to grab back some of the ground lost to Apple, Nokia also announced it was opening an applications store. From May, the Ovi store will allow Nokia users to download a plethora of applications such as Facebook, MySpace, maps and even Lonely Planet guides. It remains to be seen, however, whether the mobile phone operators on whom Nokia relies to get its phones into consumers' hands will accept the Finnish company's attempt to muscle in on their relationship with customers. The world's largest mobile phone manufacturer also unveiled two new smartphones, which it hopes will take the use of mobile email beyond business users, an area which is dominated by bitter rival RIM with its BlackBerry. The first phone, the E55, looks rather like Nokia's answer to RIM's successful BlackBerry Pearl as it also sports a keypad which has two letters per key to make the phone smaller. It also has a 3.2 megapixel camera and will be available from the summer for €265 (£237). The phone, which is essentially an update of Nokia's critically successful E71, is expected to be free to customers willing to take a contract. "I believe it is going to really introduce mobile email to a whole new generation of users," said Kai Oistamo, Nokia's executive vice-president of devices. The E75 has a slide-out qwerty keypad and will be available from next month for €375. It is also expected to be free with a contract. Sony Ericsson, meanwhile, unveiled its latest phone, codenamed Idou , which has a mammoth 12.1 megapixel camera, making it the most powerful camera phone on the market by just 0.1 of a megapixel.

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The opening day of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona has produced a host of new mobiles bristling with technology

Nokia admits defeat in Japan — but Vertu will continue

Nokia, the world's largest mobile phone maker, has decided to stop selling phones in Japan, except for its luxury Vertu brand, reports Reuters . "In the current global economic climate, we have concluded that the continuation of our investment in Japan-specific localized products is no longer sustainable," Nokia executive vice president Timo Ihamuotila said in a statement. The story says the problem is that "Most of the mobile phones used in Japan are part of third-generation networks and boast features such as TV broadcasting and electronic payment functions." The need to develop special handsets means non-Japanese suppliers have only a small share of the Japanese market -- about 5%, according to IDC Japan. But it also means Japanese phones don't sell outside Japan. Sales of Vertu phones are probably not going to be large. Reuters says: "Vertu, founded in 1998, sells gem-encrusted, hand-built mobile phones with prices ranging from 3,500 euros to over 100,000 euros." That sounds like a strange business to me. If your €24,000 phone is obsolete after two years, that's €1,000 a month in handset depreciation. (The original Vertu Signature cost €24,000 -- as hand-made in Hampshire and sold in London.) Can you get the diamonds re-used on a different handset, or do Vertu buyers have so much money they just don't care? Nokia Mobile phones Gadgets Nokia guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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Nokia admits defeat in Japan -- but Vertu will continue