Gotta Love the Mobile

"The BBC reports on a three-year study that has concluded that many people would be unable to live their lives without their mobile phones and those mobile phones are becoming essential to the management of our private and emotional lives. 86% of those questioned used texting to make arrangements rather than a voice call, as a text message could be precisely worded. Many saw this as an important way of filtering relationships and allowed people to respond appropriately to others.46% of survey respondents used the phone to entertain themselves or their friends and to lift their own mood.55% to stave off boredom and 52% to gossip. Users, the study said, fell into three groups, cyborgs, prosthetics and the connected but unattached.
Mobile phones seen as 'essential' " [Smart Mobs]

Remember the first time you saw a big, bulky cell phone (or a "portable" one in a bag) and you wondered why on earth anyone would want one?

In a couple of years, they'll do a study that comes to the same conclusion about smartphones that take pictures, shoot video, and play games.

"The Spinster Librarian links to public libraries who have wishlists on Amazon.com. All 298 of 'em." [Library Stuff]

I know there's been talk about this before, but does anyone know if there is a list of libraries that are part of the Amazon Associates program? Perhaps we could highlight them so that someone purchasing items from Amazon could help a library this way, too.

Launch of Regional Interfaces to GoogleNews

"It's important to remember that these new 'regional' versions access the same content that's included via the primary news page BUT these new sites give a higher relevancy weighting to sources from each country on the automated 'top stories' displays....

1. Google News Canada
2. Google News U.K.
3. Google News Australia
4. Google News New Zealand

See Also: If you're Looking for a News Service that:
A) Provides Access to More Than Double the Amount of Sources
B) Offers the Ability to Browse News by Subject, then Take a Look at NewsNow.
See Also: Remember, Google News Only Provides Access to English Language Content. AllTheWeb News, Net2One and AltaVista News Germany, and the Regional Versions of Yahoo are Services that Provide Content in Other Languages." [ResourceShelf]

I'll bet you didn't know that, now did you?