Philippine Cell Phones

There’s a healthy discussion/opinion on whether philippine cell phones should be banned for people who are car-driving. Advocates say that accidents and cell phone use are statistically correlated.

Some advocates of the move seemed to zero in on teen use. I disagree. It should not be limited to teens alone. If there should be a ban, it should be applicable to all drivers. - Ludy Onkeko

NOKIA N80 - Philippine Pricing: P35,000

The Nokia N80 has an LCD that boasts a 262k-color depth, and 352×416 pixel resolution, making navigation a visual treat. This Cell Phone is equipped with a flash and a slew of photo options, but there is a  bit of image noise in darker environments. Video capture is limited only by the size of the memory card, and quality is acceptable, as far as mobile phones go. You can also use the front-mounted camera for both photos and video with a consequent drop in quality. Best to use the front cam for 3G video calls.
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Slide and shoot simplicity. It’s your family photo lab fused into your design savvy smartphone. All so you never miss another moment. Meet the Nokia N70 - Priced at around P23,000.
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James Katz is professor of communication and director of Rutgers University’s Center for Mobile Communications Studies. He has an abstract on Cell Phone Culture:

No contemporary cultural artifact embodies the genius and the disruptive excess of capitalism as clearly as the cell phone. Ubiquitous in most developed societies in Europe, the Americas and Asia, the cell phone has become a laboratory – some would say an asylum – for testing the limits of technological convergence. Less a telephone today than a multi-purpose computer, cell phones are game consoles, still cameras, email systems, text messengers, carriers of entertainment and business data, nodes of commerce. Particular age cohorts and subcultures have begun to appropriate cell phones for idiosyncratic uses that help to define their niche or social identity. Today’s Forum will examine the cell phone as a technological object and as a cultural form whose uses and meaning are increasingly various, an artifact uniquely of our time that is enacting, to borrow the words of a contemporary novelist, “a ceaseless spectacle of transition.”

Read the transcript here.