Ringtone Producer

After years of struggling with an ancient (vintage?) Nokia the size of a brick which only had about five different polyphonic ringtones, I’ve recently been lucky enough to inherit a fancy smart phone from a benevolent relative.

Unfortunately, my old Nokia’s charger was not compatible with it, and I had to spend almost as much as I would have on a new basic phone to buy a new, special charger. NOT that I’m complaining, understand! Because even though the charger was undoubtedly pricy, considering that it was the only expense I had to incur for the smart phone, it was still a massive bargain!

Even so, I was rather elated to hear today’s announcement from the GSMA mobile phone industry association about an agreement between 17 mobile phone operators and major handset makers and their plans to have standardised, universal chargers for all the major cellphones by 2012.

This will mean that all future cellphone chargers should be interchangeable, so you would be able to use any other phone’s charger to charge your particular phone.

Apart from the obvious convenience it would give all of us – such as being able to charge your own phone with anyone else’s charger – it will also be good for the environment.

According to the GSMA, having universal chargers will help to reduce greenhouse gases from manufacturing and transporting replacement chargers of 13.6 to 21.8 million tons a year. Cast-off chargers currently generate more than 51 000 tons of waste a year! That sounds amazing to believe until one considers these statistics released following a French study which found that, every 20 months, between 48 million and 51 million cellphone chargers become obsolete!

“The mobile industry has a pivotal role to play in tackling environmental issues and this programme is an important step that could lead to huge savings in resources, not to mention convenience for consumers,” said Rob Conway, CEO and board member of the GSMA. “There is enormous potential in mobile to help people live and work in an eco-friendly way and with the backing of some of the biggest names in the industry, this initiative will lead the way.”

Among the initial group of cellular companies who have joined GSMA’s initiative are: 3 Group, AT&T, KTF, LG, mobilkom austria, Motorola, Nokia, Orange, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, Telenor, Telstra, T-Mobile and Vodafone.

The standardised chargers will have a shared USB interface and also meet higher energy efficiency targets, with up to 50 percent energy savings.

But one doesn’t have to wait until the arrival of the universal chargers in order to make a difference to the environment. Chargers can be power-sucking vampires, so when not in use to charge your cellphone, it should be unplugged. Nokia has recently released phones that beep when they are charged, as a reminder to unplug the charger.

And now I’m off to, for the first time in my life, download some cool mp3 ringtones on my fancy smart phone!

After cleverly (and successfully) employing technology during his US Presidential election campaign, it is probably rather apt that President Barack Obama ended up becoming part of it.

The new President had scarcely been sworn in before a Boston company began selling highlights from his inaugural address… as ringtones and multimedia greeting cards.

Skycore LLC, in conjunction with Ringmyname.com, have decided to cash in on the feverish Obamania sweeping the United States. So they created a website called ObamaRingers.com, where fans and supporters of the new Commander-in-Chief can pay $1.99 to have their phones chime such nuggets as “The time has come”, “Challenges we face” or “Pick ourselves up”.

We wonder if the President himself will purchase one for his BlackBerry? After all, the fight he had to conduct to keep that smart phone with him during his presidency was, since it posed such a security nightmare, almost more difficult to win than the election itself! But he succeeded, and BlackBerry One, as it has since been dubbed by the media, can continue to occupy the White House with him.

It is actually not so far-fetched to wonder if President Obama would purchase a ringtone for the ‘first phone’. According to a 2008 study conducted by Ipsos MediaCT, a marketing research company, approximately one-third of all mobile phone users download ringtones, and about 40% of users frequently change their ringtones.

The company’s research shows that ringtones are the most common type of mobile music content downloaded by users.

But, as a CNN report recently pointed out, customising a phone with multiple ringtones can be expensive. Depending on the cellular network or service plans, ringtones can cost anywhere from US $0.99 to $2.99. But apparently this technicality isn’t deterring cellphone users. Analysts at Screen Digest, a UK-based firm covering global media markets, predict that mobile music sales will double from $1.6 billion in 2008 to $3.2 billion in 2012.

However, for folks who find themselves to be a bit more cash-strapped than usual during this current global recession, there are plenty of free ways to get ringtones. One includes the ringtone creator application on Facebook (which is merely one of many ringtone applications on the social networking website). That particular application is a fun way for people to select snippets of audio and edit it to their liking.

Whether other people will like it when it ends up as a ringtone on the creator’s cellphone – well, that remains to be seen or heard, doesn’t it?

Looking for a robust mobile phone that will outlast oblivious abuse by it’s owners? Seems the LG Renoir can take it rough. It seems to be the upgrade from my LG KU990, which I’m still enjoying apart from the fact that it has some limitations (with new tech seemingly around the corner at all times). 5 Megapixels on the KU-990 is replaced with 8 megapixels and some trick functionality on the photography, sound (no Dolby branded) and GPS side.

Wish I could upgrade now! GPS functionality makes a huge difference as I’ve tried it out recently on a friend’s Samsung Omnia (with add-on Garmin GPS).

It seems everybody is jumping on the Widgets bandwagon, it’ll be interesting to see how LG opens up development for widgets so that LG users can also have access to the interesting types of apps that the iPhone developers community has come up with…