The invention languished for decades, presumably because Bell Telephone was busy milking all the money they could from their monopoly, charging us rent every month on a device we were not allowed to actually purchase. The first true mobile phones, or cell phones, were introduced in 1984, the distinction from radio telephones being their ability to switch from one base station to another as the user moved about, known as a "handoff". Although mobile phones have evolved from a shoe-box sized contraption that only carried phone calls to a palm-sized gadget that will entertain you with music, video games, and photos of Aunt Bessie's new cat, they still have one problem that hasn't been fixed: the reception still sucks! As you travel, you and your phone move from one reception area to another. Although these areas, or cells, are typically 10 miles square, the shape of the reception area is actually round, due to the nature of the way radio waves emanate from the antenna. So these areas tend to overlap along adjoining edges and leave gaps in other areas. And if you think you'll have great reception when you have five bars (a gauge of signal strength with a 0 value representing no signal strength and a 5 representing the strongest signal) think again, because (as reported at Wired.com) the bars are meaningless when it comes to the sound quality or signal strength of your call! This is because you actually have two signals that your phone receives-the primary signal, and a multi-path signal that will screw up that call you were making to discuss who will win American Idol, or what to have for dinner, or some other terribly important subject. But that's not all the fun!

It turns out drivers on cell phones make more mistakes than drunk drivers, according to a University of Utah study, so that call you're making about whether to have steak or chicken for dinner puts you and everyone else on the road at extreme risk! But at least you have one hand on the wheel, right? Not if you're sending a text message to Aunt Bessie thanking her for the pictures of her cat. So those high- tech wizards have managed to make a dangerous gadget even more dangerous. Cell phones are not the greenest devices either.

Unlike those good old ugly Western Electric land line phones that last 20, 30 or more years, (the type that you can kick around the room with no damage, after that cute chick at the bar gives you her phone number that turns out to be the number for Home Depot) cell phones are cheaply made, unreliable, and typically get replaced after a year or two. At present, there are 500 million used cell phones in America alone, and every cell phone in the dump adds fun substances like lead, mercury, and arsenic to the soil, which eventually ends up in the water table, and then in your tap water. Ain't technology great?

By B.C. Elliott @ http://www.dumbproduct.com

To Recycle Your Cellphone: http://www.mygreenelectronics.org

The author is a web designer and know-it-all who lives in Boise, Idaho. His interests include writing, skiing, and bicycling. He is the guilty party responsible for http://www.dumbproduct.com