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- This Halloween, mobile content provider Mixxer.com is offering free mobile content to wireless trick-or-treaters. The company is giving away spooky graphics and sounds, including ringtones from “Halloween,” “The Exorcist,” “The Addams Family,” and “Tales from the Crypt.” The company also is offering free Halloween-themed screensavers, including black cats and pumpkins. Sure beats a penny or a toothbrush in your trick-or-treat bag.
- Text-messaging world- record holder Ben Cook was bested by a voice-recognition computer in a texting exhibition sponsored by Nuance Communications Inc. The company put its Nuance Mobile Dictation tool to the test against Cook, who captured the world record by typing a complicated 160-character message using three-key taps in just over 42 seconds. The Nuance product completed the message in just over 16 seconds.
- Nemesysco, which provides voice analysis technologies, and TelTech L.L.C. launched a new service it claims can allow callers to discern their love interest’s true feelings over the phone. The LoveDetect service is offered via TelTech’s prepaid calling-card products and works with both landline and cellular phones. The voice analysis technology measures the speaker’s passion, excitement, concentration and confusion and provides an `emotional signature’ to the recipient, said the companies. Users can view the results in real-time via a Web-based control panel or receive a verbal report at the end of the call.
- A new study from the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Ohio claims heavy mobile-phone use may affect male fertility. Researchers tested 364 men and found those who claimed to be the heaviest users had the lowest average sperm counts and the lowest quality sperm. Those who did not use cell phones at all had better sperm counts and quality. The study’s leader said more research is warranted, but doubters speculated heavy mobile-phone users may be more sedentary and prone to other poor health habits that might better explain the findings.
