NTT DoCoMo will switch off its second-generation cell phone network in just over three years, the company said Friday.

The carrier was first in the world to launch commercial 3G service when it debuted a network in Tokyo in October 2001 and, after some early technology troubles were sorted out, has benefited from a user base that is quick to adopt new technology and a local business model that gives it the ability to dictate technology and features put in handsets by manufacturers.

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Texas Instruments posted a smaller-than-expected drop in quarterly profit, but said it may post a loss in the current quarter and announced a 12 percent cut in jobs, as demand for cell phone chips fell.

But shares of the maker of wireless and analog chips rose 5 percent in after-hours trading on Monday as analysts said the better-than-expected fourth quarter and the cost-cutting measures meant TI could be positioned for growth when demand recovers.

“The hope is that we’ll start to find the bottom at these levels. That, along with expense reductions, will create a greater flow through to the bottom line when revenue starts to recover,” said Collins Stewart analyst Ashok Kumar.

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Intel on Friday said it is researching technology to harvest free energy from the environment, which could lead to devices such as mobile phones running for indefinite periods without recharging.

The company is working on tiny sensors that can capture energy from sources such as sunlight and body heat. In the future, such energy could be used to power personal electronic devices such as cell phones.

There are already watches available that are powered by body heat, as well as prototype smartphones with display screens that double as solar cells, said Justin Rattner, chief technology officer at Intel, during a press event. Intel is also looking at powering a mobile phone by harvesting the energy the user generates by moving the phone’s trackball. The radiation of cell phone or TV signals might also be used to power devices.

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Convergence is one of the greatest wonders of modern life. At its simplest, it means the transition from an analogue world to a digital one. With convergence, all it takes is a click of a mouse and information will be transmitted over the converged digital platform.

The potential and opportunities of convergence is limitless. Thanks to convergence, we can digitise almost everything including text, sound, speech, film, graphics, animation and music. In this format, information can be then be transmitted over the converged digital platform.

As the country’s leading telecommunications provider, Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM) has always been at the forefront of the digital revolution.

From a history in providing merely voice services, TM embarked on its first dial-up Internet service in 1996. TM then made its foray into broadband in 2001 with the introduction of its signature brand, Streamyx; which became an instant hit.

Broadband has transformed and revolutionised the lifestyle of Malaysians.

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The text message from the elephant flashed across Richard Lesowapir’s screen: Kimani was heading for neighboring farms.

The huge bull elephant had a long history of raiding villagers’ crops during the harvest, sometimes wiping out six months of income at a time. But this time a mobile phone card inserted in his collar sent rangers a text message. Lesowapir, an armed guard and a driver arrived in a jeep bristling with spotlights to frighten Kimani back into the Ol Pejeta conservancy.

Kenya is the first country to try elephant texting as a way to protect both a growing human population and the wild animals that now have less room to roam. Elephants are ranked as “near threatened” in the Red List, an index of vulnerable species published by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

The race to save Kimani began two years ago. The Kenya Wildlife Service had already reluctantly shot five elephants from the conservancy who refused to stop crop-raiding, and Kimani was the last of the regular raiders. The Save the Elephants group wanted to see if he could break the habit.

So they placed a mobile phone SIM card in Kimani’s collar, then set up a virtual “geofence” using a global positioning system that mirrored the conservatory’s boundaries. Whenever Kimani approaches the virtual fence, his collar texts rangers.

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BlackBerry mobile devices do not pose a security threat and no permission is needed from the Indian government to make the service available, an official said Wednesday, according to media reports.

Indian security agencies have previously expressed worries that militants may use the popular devices to communicate and that intercepting and tracing emails from them was difficult. Read the rest of this entry »