Mobile Industry Aims for Greener Phones
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Manufacturers, environmental groups unite to educate consumers, increase recycling, and reduce hazardous materials used in mobile phones.
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A group of mobile phone operators and handset vendors is developing a third-generation mobile phone platform that combines many standard hardware and software components.
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Travelers want to go green and  stay clean in the next year -- and they don't want cell phones  disturbing their peace, according to an annual survey of travel  trends.
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Wind-powered charger prototyped Eco-warriors planning to head down to the Glastonbury mud festival - sorry, music festival - later this month will be able to re-charge their mobile phones in an almost entirely carbon-neutral fashion.â¦
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In the French Riviera town of Cannes, the mobile industry is weighing a tough challenge as it struggles to maintain profitability: how to sell more expensive, sophisticated phones &#151; while making them simpler.
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By Anna Marie Kukec Daily Herald Business Writer  Goodbye, analog.  Or shall we say, good riddance? At least that could be what executives at the mobile phone service providers are thinking.
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The phone that's rubbish A Nokia executive has shown off a concept handset made from recycled cans at this year's Mobile World Congress (MWC) show in Barcelona.â¦
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"It should improve their internal efficiency and give new opportunities moving more into the services world, where naturally software is very important."  The world's biggest mobile handset firm, Nokia, has announced a reorganisation aimed at taking advantage of future growth areas and increasing its efficiency. via Manawatu Evening Standard
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Several projects dreamed up by the software giant's research department find new uses for mobile phones.
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Technology firms and gadget lovers are urged to think more about the environment as new regulations come into force.
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A rose is a rose is a phone? British scientists seeking to protect the environment have designed a biodegradable mobile phone cover that breaks down in soil when discarded and sprouts
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(InfoWorld) - If just a small portion of the world's mobile phone users unplugged their charger when the battery is full, it could save enough electricity to power thousands of homes. So said Nokia on Thursday, as it unveiled a new industry group that aims to make mobile phones more environmentally friendly. The group also includes Motorola, France Telecom, Vodafone Group, TeliaSonera, and others. It was created as part of a European Commission project aimed at uniting members of different industries to work on reducing the environmental impact of their products. Members of the new group will try to educate people more about how they can reduce the environmental impact of using their cell phones. For example, manufacturers will start displaying a reminder on phones to unplug chargers once the battery is charged. If only 10 percent of phone users did that, they would save enough energy to power 60,000 European homes each year, Nokia estimates. The companies will alsoÂ reduce the hazardous materialsÂ they use beyond what current legislation requires. One example is Nokiaâs decision to stop using any components in its phones that contain a certain type of environmentally harmful chemical flame retardant. The operators will also increase the number of used phones that are returned for recycling. Theyâll examine existing recycling schemes around the world and identify successful ones. They also plan to try out incentive initiatives to determine if they might improve recycling rates. Environmental organizations including World Wildlife Fund, the Finnish Environmental Institute, the European Consumersâ Organization and the U.K.âs Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs are also part of the new initiative. The European Union recently instituted new regulations on the types of hazardous materials that can be included in electronic devices. Most manufacturers were able to alter their products to comply with the new laws, but Palm in July stopped shipping what was its latest smart phone, the Treo 650, to Europe because it didnât meet the regulations.
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Those who don't mind carrying a paperweight already have plenty of options for "smart" phones that do more than just make calls. The rest of us are stuck with a sad compromise between size and function.
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Industry forum has agreed that handsets will be charged using a micro-USB connector, with positive environmental implications.
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Europeans hoarding old mobile phones  are creating a small headache for policy makers who want to  collect and recycle batteries, an industry association said.
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Long gone are the days when it was enough for a mobile phone to simply be a phone. Ever since the technology began to emerge to transform handsets into handheld media players, phone manufacturers have been producing these multimedia marvels in droves.
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(InfoWorld) - Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson and the development fund of the GSM Association (GSMA), which represents the interests of GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) operators, have started a pilot project to develop biofuels to power rural India's wireless networks. A similar pilotÂ to the one in India is currently being run by Ericsson and GSMA in Lagos, Nigeria, with the MTN Group, a service provider with operations in Africa and the Middle East. In India, Ericsson and GSMA are partnering with a large local operator, Idea Cellular. India has large rural areas that lack electricity connections or have an inadequate power supply, which is likely to be a bottleneck for mobile operators planning to expand their coverage to the countryside, said P. Balaji, head of marketing and strategy at Ericsson India, on Thursday. Instead, users in rural areas in India and elsewhere in the world have to choose between using biofuel or fossil fuels to power their generators. Using biofuels is environmentally friendly as it reduces carbon-dioxide emissions by between 70 percent to 80 percent, Balaji said. Biomass for biofuel can be locally produced, providing employment in rural areas, he added. Ericsson and GSMA are aiming to create an ecosystem consisting of mobile services operators, local farmers who will grow the crops for biofuel and local entrepreneurs who will generate the biofuel for the wireless base stations, using converter technology developed by Ericsson and the GSMA. Biofuel will currently provide only marginal savings to an operator, but the benefit is likely to increase as biofuel is more widely adopted, while the cost of fossil fuels rises, Balaji said. Using biofuel will also translate into savings on logistics and transportation of diesel, he added. India has been adding over 6 million mobile subscribers each month, and many operators are targeting the countryâs underserved rural markets as the next big revenue opportunity. In India, Ericsson and the GSMA have identified nonedible plant-based fuels such as cotton seeds and jatropha, a plant grown in the region. In the second phase of the pilot in Pune in Maharashtra state, the two organizations and Idea Cellular are setting up a supplyÂ chainÂ usingÂ locallyÂ grown crops to produce biofuel to power betweenÂ five and 10 base stations in the region. The goal is to have these base stations powered by cotton or jatropha by the middle of this year.