Cellular Telephones

State prison officials have confiscated 4,130 contraband cellphones this year, more than all those seized in the previous three years combined, according to an internal report released Thursday. The findings sparked concern among legislators that the proliferation of cellphones in state lockups is a growing security problem. More than 100 illegal phones were discovered at the California Institution for Men in Chino, including 10 in August, according to the report from Matthew Cate, head of the state prisons system.

Apple Inc. may unveil a version of the iPhone for Canada as early as today, but China Mobile said Monday that talks over the launch of iPhone handsets in China had been called off. Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs may make the announcement about the iPhone for Canada during his speech at the Macworld conference in San Francisco, said RBC Capital Markets analyst Mike Abramsky. Apple probably will outline an agreement with Rogers Communications Inc.

The purse may be the consummate accessory in New York, but in Los Angeles, where Hollywood deals are sealed while navigating traffic on the Santa Monica Freeway, the cellphone is the ultimate status symbol. Here are some that really get the cash register ringing. $28,000 to $171,550 GoldVish Illusion. For the jewelry lover who has everything, this diamond-encrusted phone comes in a solid 18-karat casing in yellow, rose or white gold with crocodile leather inlays available in 12 colors.

Japanese electronics maker Kyocera Corp. said it would buy Sanyo Electric Co.'s money-losing cellphone business for as much as $468 million, creating the world's sixth-largest cellphone maker. Kyocera, whose international unit is based in San Diego, hopes the deal will boost its struggling U.S. operations as Sanyo has with Sprint Nextel Corp. as a major customer in that market, although Sanyo aims to focus on its core products such as rechargeable batteries.

Millions of fingers scurrying over mobile electronic devices probably paused this week as news emerged of a trove of text messages containing flirty and sexually explicit chat between Detroit Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick and one of his top aides. Even those engaging in more wholesome dialogue would be wise to wonder: Do text messages disappear -- like oral conversations -- or are they permanently logged somewhere for potential retrieval -- as e-mail usually is?

Karl Goetz looked at his Prada-branded cellphone Friday morning and saw a message he had never seen before. "Rejected connection." It was another way of saying his high-end phone was suddenly as useful for making calls as a pair of Prada pumps. But fashion was not to blame. The problem was with the premium cellphone service Voce, which mysteriously shut down Friday.

Qualcomm Inc. overtook Texas Instruments Inc. to become the largest maker of chips for mobile phones last year as customers used more of its semiconductors for devices that surf the Web and download videos. Sales of Qualcomm phone chips rose to $5.5 billion in 2007, compared with about $5 billion for Texas Instruments, which had dominated the market since the 1990s, said Will Strauss, an analyst at Forward Concepts Co. in Tempe, Ariz.

A fleet of 100 cars rolled onto a Bay Area interstate Friday to begin perfecting a tool that could one day transform the lives of commuters around the world. Maybe. With San Francisco Bay shimmering to the west, university students drove the cars all day back and forth along Interstate 880. Each was carrying a cellphone loaded with Global Positioning System software. And as they drove, it beamed back signals that researchers shaped into a real-time map of traffic speeds.

Sharon Vaughan had been warned that cellphone reception was notoriously bad in this wealthy Central Coast town of art boutiques and touristy shops selling pottery and seashells. But the reality of cellularless living didn't really sink in until she moved to her first apartment in town two years ago. "The only place I could get a call out was on a wooden deck outside my apartment," said Vaughan, a restaurant manager at Cambria Pines Lodge.

Viacom Inc.'s Paramount studio is starting a unit for delivering entertainment on mobile devices. Paramount said it had appointed executives to head the unit in North America, Asia and Europe.