Mobile phones are often packed with features that offer users far more than just the capability to send text messages and make voice calls. These may include internet browsing, music (MP3) playback, personal organisers, email, watch/alarm, built-in cameras, ringtones, security measures (e.g. pin codes), SIM blocks, games, radio, Push to talk, infrared and bluetooth connectivity, and call registers. Some of which we have highlighted below;



Hands free

Is hands-free the answer? The idea behind hands-free sets is simple. The strength of radio wave radiation decreases rapidly with distance from the handset. Exposure from a mobile phone even ten centimetres from your head is far lower than if the headset is right against your ear.

Reports of up to a 95% reduction in exposure suggest that hands-free sets are effective. But another study by the Consumers Association described an increase in radiation reaching the user when they used a hands-free kit.

They claimed the earpiece cable of the hands-free kit acted as an aerial, directing more radio wave into the user's ear. But this only happens when the phone is in a precise position and the cable is a specific length. Shields are an alternative to hands-free kits. Independent tests have supported claims that they can protest users from some radio waves.



Ring Tones

Monophonic
Early phones had the ability to play only monophonic ring tones, short tunes played with simple tones. These early phones also had the ability to have ring tones programmed into them using an internal ring tone composer. Various formats were developed to enable ring tones to be sent via text using RTTL encoding.

Polyphonic
Polyphonic means that multiple tones can be played at the same time using instrument sounds such as guitar, drums, electronic piano, etc. Many phones are now able to play more complex polytones; up to 128 individual notes with different instruments are played simultaneously to give a more realistic musical sound. Mobile phone handsets manufacturers have taken full advantage of new technologies to improve speakers in order to produce a better sound quality.

Music ring tones
A new version of ring tones, often called either music ring tones, voice tones, realtones, singtones or true tones, now use actual pieces of music, along with all lyrics and the entire song backing music, including backing singers. They are usually contained in MP3, WMA, WAV, QCP, or AMR format that can be used as a ring tone.



Bluetooth

When you use computers, entertainment systems or telephones, the various pieces and parts of the systems make up a community of electronic devices. These devices communicate with each other using a variety of wires, cables, radio signals and infrared light beams, and an even greater variety of connectors, plugs and protocols.

The art of connecting things is becoming more and more complex every day. We sometimes feel as if we need a Ph.D. in electrical engineering just to set up the electronics in our homes! In this article, we will look at a completely different way to form the connections, called Bluetooth. Bluetooth is wireless and automatic, and has a number of interesting features that can simplify our daily lives.

Bluetooth communicates on a frequency of 2.45 gigahertz, which has been set aside by international agreement for the use of industrial, scientific and medical devices (ISM).

A number of devices that you may already use take advantage of this same radio-frequency band. Baby monitors, garage-door openers and the newest generation of cordless phones all make use of frequencies in the ISM band. Making sure that Bluetooth and these other devices don't interfere with one another has been a crucial part of the design process.

From the user's point of view, there are three important features to Bluetooth:

• It's wireless. When you travel, you don't have to worry about keeping track of a briefcase full of cables to attach all of your components, and you can design your office without wondering where all the wires will go.
• It's inexpensive
• You don't have to think about it. Bluetooth doesn't require you to do anything special to make it work. The devices find one another and strike up a conversation without any user input at all.

Why is it called Bluetooth?
Harald Bluetooth was king of Denmark in the late 900s. He managed to unite Denmark and part of Norway into a single kingdom then introduced Christianity into Denmark. He left a large monument, the Jelling rune stone, in memory of his parents. He was killed in 986 during a battle with his son, Svend Forkbeard. Choosing this name for the standard indicates how important companies from the Baltic region (nations including Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland) are to the communications industry, even if it says little about the way the technology works.



Camera phones

In 2004, 60% percent of mobile phones in Japan have built-in cameras. Camera phone shipments are already outselling digital cameras by a factor of four and companies aims to ship well in access of 150 million camera phones by the end of 2006.

Some organizations and places have started to ban camera phones because of the privacy and security issues they raise. Such places would include The Pentagon or local fitness clubs. One country, Saudi Arabia, has banned the sale of camera phones nationwide (although pilgrims on the Hajj are allowed to bring in camera phones). Another, South Korea, requires that all camera phones sold in the country make a clearly audible sound whenever a picture is taken. In Singapore camera phones are banned at companies or facilities that have an association with national security.

Some newer camera phones are also videophones, and can transmit videos and video calls. Camera phone video and photographs taken in the immediate aftermath of the 2005 London bombings was featured worldwide.



Games

Mobile phone games started off with the simplest of ideas, with games like ‘Snake’, where you are chasing dots around a screen with a snake like controller that keeps growing the more dots you gather, to the more advanced and highly complex games we have nowadays.

Nearly all service providers now supply easy access to downloadable games and are available on most phones. With technology moving so quickly, both mobile phone game developers and the phones manufacturers themselves are pushing the technology race along even faster.

For a list of downloadable games with Sagem, visit the Planet Sagem site to find out more  -  click here