Samsung P900

Samsung P900

County joins city in plea for higher cell phone charge

By one vote, Warren County supervisors agreed Tuesday to join the City of Vicksburg in asking for legislative permission to impose higher fees on cell phone customers.Local officials have said more money is needed to support 911 Dispatch Center staff and operations and they want the flexibility to increase the monthly cell phone fee from $1 to as much as $4.The bill is pending in the Capitol as a local and private measure, which can be acted on at any time until the Legislative session ends in about five weeks.Supporting asking for the increase were District 1 Supervisor David McDonald, District 5 Supervisor Richard George and District 4 Supervisor Carl Flanders.Figures show about 60 percent of calls to the city-county emergency number are now placed from cell phones.“People that use the system ought to be the people that pay," said McDonald, who is also the board's representative on the E-911 Commission.

MasterCard Launches Money Transfer Using Cellphones

MasterCard Inc. and the GSM Association, a wireless trade group, are launching a remittance program that uses mobile phones. Under the new program, remittance recipients would be notified of a transaction via text message sent over a mobile network. They could then access the funds with MasterCard products that don't require a bank account, such as prepaid cards.The program is meant to capitalize on the growing number of U.S. immigrants that transfer money back to their homelands on a regular basis.MasterCard plans to start testing the program in two markets within the next two months. Bharti Airtel Ltd., India's largest cellphone operator, and the State Bank of India are also slated to participate in the venture.Latin American migrants working in the U.S. alone sent about $45 billion to their home countries last year, up from $30 billion in 2004, according to a recent study.Card-based remittance programs have been slow to catch on though, in part because customers in some countries were not comfortable with card-based technology.

Vodafone Unleashes Three McLaren Mercedes Phones

Vodafone seems to be getting all the cool phones nowadays and these three new McLaren Mercedes phones are no exception. The new 770SH, GX29 and SGH-Z720M are manufactured by Sharp and have pretty nice specs. Aside from being designed by a company that makes cars you'll never be able to afford, these new phones come with exclusive content, silver chrome covers and red highlights to reflect the McLaren Mercedes racing team colors.