Wireless Communications

YOU KNOW the shot: Seen from above, the hero (or villain) is hurtling down the freeway, top down, one hand on the wheel and the other clutching a cellphone to his ear. It's Hollywood's image of how deals are made, dates are broken and gossip is shared, at 65 miles per hour. On Tuesday, that shot will be history. California motorists -- as well as those in Washington state, where a similar law was recently passed -- will be prohibited from talking on hand-held cellular phones while driving.

No one in the evening crowd at a Starbucks in Pasadena knew Humphrey Cheung. But Cheung, quietly sipping hot chocolate and working on his laptop, knew things about them. Several tables away was a guy sitting alone with his own laptop. "He's starting a business," Cheung said. And the young couple in the far corner? "They're getting married," he confided. Cheung isn't psychic. He had hacked into the coffee shop's wireless Internet connection on his Toshiba laptop.

Britney does it. So does my boss. What about you? It's texting while driving: the insanely attention-diverting practice of typing out messages on cellphones while barreling down the highway. A law against it in California is set to go into effect in July, but it applies only to drivers under the age of 18. Guess that leaves Britney Spears in the clear. An abstinence campaign probably wouldn't have much of an effect either, given how common texting has become as a form of communication.

Internet service provider EarthLink Inc. expects to launch its first municipal wireless system today, with high-speed connections in six square miles of downtown Anaheim. The Orange County city is key to EarthLink's strategy as it adapts to changing online habits and the evaporation of its dial-up business. Anaheim is the biggest city so far to embrace a nationwide trend of creating citywide wireless Internet access for residents and businesses.

The messages came in French and English in the minutes and hours after a magnitude 7 earthquake struck Haiti on Jan. 12: "heavy earth quake right now!" "I see at a distance clouds of dust." "Hundreds of dead body in the collapse of Hotel Montana." "parts of the Palace have collapsed." "Phones seem to be out. . . . Communication is at a standstill." Before authorities could begin to assess the damage, before reporters and aid workers could arrive on the scene, Twitter and other social media sites offered a quick portrait of the damage.

California drivers chafing at the ban on holding cellphones can soon forget about texting, too: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has banned motorists from sending, writing or reading messages on electronic devices starting Jan. 1. Schwarzenegger signed legislation Wednesday that imposes a $20 fine for a first offense of texting while driving and a $50 fine for any subsequent violation.

People have been asking for years whether cellphones can give you a brain tumor. And for years, the wireless industry has been telling us not to worry our pretty heads. So that's settled, right? Maybe not. A group called the International EMF Collaborative issued a report the other day warning that cellphones may be more dangerous than users have been led to believe by health authorities. The report, titled "Cellphones and Brain Tumors: 15 Reasons for Concern," says the latest research indicates that regular use of cellphones can result in a "significant" risk of brain tumors.

Some of the actors on NBC's drama "Heroes" are among those in Hollywood who may have the superpowers to help Twitter break into prime time. Greg Grunberg, who plays a Los Angeles cop with the ability to hear people's thoughts, pulls out his iPhone nearly everywhere, including between takes on the studio lot, to tap out the short Twitter messages known as tweets. He broadcasts them to the more than 20,000 friends and fans following him.

She was the ultimate all-American mom from the 1970s raising six kids on TV, but when it came to learning how to use her cellphone to send text messages, she avoided asking her own tech-savvy children. "I didn't want to see them rolling their eyes," said Florence Henderson, best known for playing Carol Brady, the sitcom mom on "The Brady Bunch." The 75-year-old actress "was always very afraid of anything technical like that," and instead of seeking help from her children, she got a three-minute lesson from a business associate.

Frank Gruber's workstation at AOL in Dulles, Va., could be in any cubicle farm from here to Bangalore -- pushpin board for reminders, computer on Formica desk, stifling fluorescent lighting. It's so drab, there's nothing more to say about it, which is why the odds of finding Gruber there are slim. Instead, Gruber often works at the Tryst coffeehouse in the Adams Morgan neighborhood here, at Liberty Tavern in nearby suburban Clarendon, Va.

Only Steve Jobs could make anticlimax seem so fascinating. After the Apple CEO unveiled his company's most fervently anticipated new product at an invitation-only media event Wednesday, most of the anticipation was left in the bottle. Despite months of hype heralding an entirely novel kind of electronic device, the reality was underwhelming. The iPad resembles a scaled-up iPhone -- without the phone. It's an iPod too big to fit in your pocket yet too small in capacity to hold your entire music collection, with a Web browser featuring excellent graphics but tied to a data network (AT&T's)

The messages came in French and English in the minutes and hours after a magnitude 7 earthquake struck Haiti on Jan. 12: "heavy earth quake right now!" "I see at a distance clouds of dust." "Hundreds of dead body in the collapse of Hotel Montana." "parts of the Palace have collapsed." "Phones seem to be out. . . . Communication is at a standstill." Before authorities could begin to assess the damage, before reporters and aid workers could arrive on the scene, Twitter and other social media sites offered a quick portrait of the damage.

She was the ultimate all-American mom from the 1970s raising six kids on TV, but when it came to learning how to use her cellphone to send text messages, she avoided asking her own tech-savvy children. "I didn't want to see them rolling their eyes," said Florence Henderson, best known for playing Carol Brady, the sitcom mom on "The Brady Bunch." The 75-year-old actress "was always very afraid of anything technical like that," and instead of seeking help from her children, she got a three-minute lesson from a business associate.

Here's maybe the best reason yet to make sure your Wi-Fi connection is secure from snoopers. A French technology company called Withings has introduced the first bathroom scale with Wi-Fi capability. And if that wasn't enough, it also has an iPhone app. All you do is step on the scale, and your weight shows up on a personal Web page (hopefully, that's secure too) or the phone screen, where you can compare it with past readings. You can even get a graphic showing weight loss -- or gain -- over time.

People have been asking for years whether cellphones can give you a brain tumor. And for years, the wireless industry has been telling us not to worry our pretty heads. So that's settled, right? Maybe not. A group called the International EMF Collaborative issued a report the other day warning that cellphones may be more dangerous than users have been led to believe by health authorities. The report, titled "Cellphones and Brain Tumors: 15 Reasons for Concern," says the latest research indicates that regular use of cellphones can result in a "significant" risk of brain tumors.

The Obama administration made it a national priority to spread high-speed Internet access to every American home and it offered stimulus money to help companies pay for it, but the biggest network operators are staying away from the program. With today the deadline to apply for $4.7 billion in broadband grants, AT&T, Verizon and Comcast won't be going for the stimulus money, sources close to the companies said. Their reasons are varied. All three say they have enough cash to upgrade and expand their broadband networks on their own. Some say the grant money could draw unwanted scrutiny of their business practices and compensation programs, as seen with automakers and banks that got government bailouts.

Frank Gruber's workstation at AOL in Dulles, Va., could be in any cubicle farm from here to Bangalore -- pushpin board for reminders, computer on Formica desk, stifling fluorescent lighting. It's so drab, there's nothing more to say about it, which is why the odds of finding Gruber there are slim. Instead, Gruber often works at the Tryst coffeehouse in the Adams Morgan neighborhood here, at Liberty Tavern in nearby suburban Clarendon, Va.

Cellphone customers gripe about being nickel-and-dimed to death by their wireless service providers. But guess what happens when you put all those nickels and dimes together? You get a really huge chunk of change. Since the beginning of the year, the four leading wireless companies -- Verizon, AT&T, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile -- have quietly raised a monthly fee that each charges to recoup some of their business costs. Taken individually, the fee hikes represent pocket change for most people.

When Shaquille O'Neal wanted to set up a Twitter account after someone had impersonated him on the social media network, it was Kathleen Hessert who guided him. The media strategist warned of one other thing. "Twitter is immediate and without filters," Hessert said. "There will be an athlete or coach who posts immediately in anger or in haste and gets himself in trouble. That will happen." Kevin Love, meet Kathleen Hessert.

As authorities in Tehran have blocked opposition websites, jammed satellite TV channels and banned foreign journalists from covering demonstrations against last week's disputed elections, Iranians living in the U.S. have rushed to fill the communications gap. Iranian students and exiles here are flooding Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and their e-mail distribution lists with footage of bloodied protesters and other snippets gleaned from friends and relatives back home.