Posted by Simon Pavitt on Feb 23, 2008
There's a great article about spread of mobile phones in India and Africa on the BBC News website.
For instance, it mentions how migrant Zimbabwean workers in South Africa send money back using M-banking and avoid having to pay bribes to border guards when they go home.
Posted by Simon Pavitt on Nov 25, 2007
Officials in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh have stopped a text messaging service that gave out drivers' contact details.
Under the scheme, anyone could send a text to access a vehicle owner's name, address and phone number.
Officials say the original idea was to provide "citizen-centric services" and assist police and investigating agencies: "SMS us the vehicle registration number... and get all the information - vehicle, tax and owner's details etc," read the advertisement put out by the state transport department.
But the facility, launched a year ago, was withdrawn after women complained that they were being harassed by men, and most of the information being sought pertained to young women.
For more info, go to BBC News.
Posted by Simon Pavitt on Nov 19, 2007
The BBC is reporting how the king of Spain's recent undiplomatic outburst at the Venezuelan president has become a ringtone hit across Spain. An estimated 500,000 people have downloaded the insult featuring the words "Why don't you shut up?", generating a reported 1.5m euros ($2 million). King Juan Carlos asked Hugo Chavez to "shut up" at a summit in Chile after Chavez said that Spain's ex-PM Jose Maria Aznar was a "fascist". In Venezuela, a group of students who oppose Mr Chavez's government have also been downloading the ringtone. Companies selling the ringtones have avoided legal problems concerning breach of the king's image rights by using an actor to voice the line.
Posted by Simon Pavitt on May 13, 2006
According to the BBC,
there was recently a row in the Iraqi parliament over a mobile phone ringtone.
The speaker of the Iraqi parliament (Mr Mashhadani, a Sunni) was being interviewed in the lobby of the parliament when a mobile phone belonging to the bodyguard of another MP (Ms Saadi, a Shia) twice played a religious tune, prompting security staff to attack the bodyguard.
The speaker later turned off cameras and microphones and stormed out of the assembly when the MP demanded an apology.
Posted by Simon Pavitt on Apr 02, 2006
On 11 March 2004, just before the Spanish general election, bombs exploded on 4 trains as they entered Madrid killing 200 people.
The Government hurredly put the blame on ETA, an organisation fighting for Basque independance from Spain. But many people assumed the bombs were a consequence of Spain's support for the war in Iraq and started gathering in the centre of Madrid.
News of the protests spread by mobile phone and more and more people joined, accusing the government of managing the release of information about the attacks to their own political ends. The national newspaper El Pais referred to "the more than dubious attitude of the government in relation to the lines of investigation". Eventually the Government was forced to admit that the explosions might have been caused Al-Qaeda.
In the election a couple of days later the ruling Partido Popular, which had been ahead in the polls, surprisingly lost to the socialist PSOE. As one person put it:
