Interesting Facts

According to research carried out by website uSwitch.com , 9 out of 10 landline-users in the UK are bombarded by cold calls – despite half of them being ex-directory. (8 out of 10 mobile phone users suffer too, and two-thirds also blitzed by spam text messages. One call centre in the UK has been sending out 6 million unsolicited calls a day, even British Gas made 7,000 cold calls to 900 homes over the course of 2012, about 8 calls to each household. I got one last night from a company conducting "surveys". I just said, politely, but firmly, "No thank you." Hung up, and then blocked that number.)

According to the Licenced Taxi Driver Association, over 10,000 mobile phones are left behind in taxis in London every month. (Of course, with the introduction of PAYM network, the mobile phone payment system adopted by nine of the biggest banks in the UK, you'll be paying for your taxi with your phone, so you're less likely to forget it.)

In 1946 the first (very primitive) mobile phone was used by the Swedish police force.  After 6 calls the battery died. An early mobile phone weighed 80lbs. Early phones could run for about 30 minutes, and took 10 hours to recharge. Explore more visuals like this one on the web's largest information design community - Visually .

Stacey Withers downloaded a 5-minute cartoon onto her Orange network mobile phone whilst on holiday in Turkey. What's interesting about that? Well... (That short clip cost her a whopping £1,118. It actually cost her £101 more than the family holiday and the equivalent of £223 for every minute of the film. She isn't alone, another British holidaymaker racked up a staggering £20,000 mobile phone bill in Turkey, when she used her internet connection to upload holiday snaps to Facebook. This was 28 times the amount she paid for her holiday.  (Lucky for her Orange reduced the amount.) It shows me 2 things, Britain must stay in the EU and we need to let Turkey join.)

According to a study by uSwitch.com, one in 10 children in the UK has a mobile phone by the time they are 5 years old. (What's worse is a study by the National Literacy Trust said that children as young as 7 are more likely to own a mobile phone than a book. We can only hope they have downloaded the Kindle app.)

According to German security expert, Karten Nohl, an eighth of all SIM cards used in mobile phones around the world are at risk of fraud, theft, or being bugged. (Once infected, hackers can remotely access the phone and send premium rate text messages, steal money and personal information, record calls, bug owners to track their location, and other naughty things. They'll be lucky to find my phone switched on.) Source

At Christmas ever popular on Santa's wish list are electronic gadgets. Even for children. According to a survey conducted by the Gadget Show live, the first gadget a child gets is probably a games console, by the age of seven years and seven months. (The last they receive is likely to be a mobile – with which they will be texting their friends by the time they are nine years and three months. In between, they will get their first digital camera at eight years six months, a TV in their bedroom two months later and an MP3 player at eight years and nine months. They’ll flip open their first laptop at eight years and ten months. At an even younger age we give them toy replicas of these gadgets, even working examples, aimed at children.  The future is going to be very interesting as our digital age generation comes of age.)

According to billmonitor.com, mobile phone bills in the UK are, on average, £439 a year. (The largest monthly bill in 2011 was £1,700! I wonder what kind of phone numbers they were calling.) 

According to research from mobile network O2, smartphones are hardly ever used to make a phone call. (Most people use their smartphone for surfing the web, checking social networks or playing games. The research found that the average smartphone owner spends more than two hours each day using the device. Here's a breakdown of what they use it for. Browsing the internet - 25 minutes  Social networking - 17 minutes Playing games - 13 minutes  Listening to music - 16 minutes Making phone calls - 11 minutes Text messaging - 10 minutes Taking photographs - 3 minutes Even though people only spend three minutes a day taking photographs, photography was the most popular thing to use a smartphone for, 74 per cent said that they had taken photos with their handset. For me all the above is true apart from playing games and texting. I have never played a game on my Motorola Droid, and I send about 10 texts a year. In fact my smartphone gets about 30 minutes use a day, I prefer...

According to figures released by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents; more people were killed on UK roads in 2011 than at any time since 2003. (Statistics revealed almost 2,000 people died in traffic accidents – 3% up on 2010. The number of deaths and serious injuries reported to the police hit 25,023, a 2% increase on the previous year and the first increase in those killed or seriously injured since 1994. Now I wonder what's changed recently that might cause these increases. Anyone here been using their mobile phone recently?) Source