Cell phone plans are almost as easy to understand as particle physics. There are so many plans, each with their own freedoms and restrictions, that it can be quite confusing to determine which is the best one for a particular person. Prepaid cell phones, however, take away some of the confusion by avoiding contracts and offering greater flexibility. Could this be behind their current spike in popularity? Getting what is paid for Users of cable and satellite TV already know that paying only for what is needed can be an annoying and impossible challenge. Hundreds of channels are paid for, but only…

For most things, when we lose them, we lose them. Depending on the value, we either replace it or put in an effort to find it. There’s not much that goes into it. Cell phones are different. There’s a process that has to happen when you lose one. It can cause emotional distress and create challenges in day-to-day life. This graphic by our friends at MyLookout breaks down the process and shows us what happens when phones are lost. Click to enlarge. …

Flip phones were hot in the first half of the millennium. If you weren’t a stuffy business type with a Blackberry or Palm, you probably carried a flip phone. Then, the iPhone came and changed our world. Smart phones took over. The flip phone died. It’s back. Sort of. With three flexible AMOLED touchscreens, a smart triangular design, and sporting a custom Android interface, this artistic and functional design by Kristian Ulrich Larsen gives us a glimpse of how the smart phone generation can be flipped again. …

One area that could really use some innovation is the financial industry. We’ve already begun to see some interesting developments in the form of Credit Card 2.0, where credit cards will take advantage of chips to become more useful than before. However, this is a far cry from eliminating the need for that credit card or wallet altogether. But is it possible? With services like Square and Zetawire growing and companies like Google, Apple, and PayPal gaining interest in mobile payments, it seems like the future is already here; however, there are many obstacles that stand in the way of making this…

When was the last time you had a lengthy chat with someone on the phone? A few weeks? Months? Years, even? Well, if it’s been a while, you can rest assured that you are not the only one. But it should make us wonder if the the future of one-on-one communication will rest solely on our thumbs. You’ve probably seen teens and adults alike texting away on their phones. It’s seemingly an infectious, zombie-like trend. They text while in school (unproductive, I know). They text while in the movie theaters (annoying, I know). They text while driving (dangerous, I know). They are taking over! Silence!…

Let me get this out in the open: I have never owned a smart phone. Never! I have thought about purchasing one soon (and am currently having an inner battle over this decision), but I’m not quite sure. Yet there is pressure on me to buy one of these phones too — it is almost expected that geeks own a smart phone these days to keep connected. But if I stick with the dumb phones of today and forego the smart phones of tomorrow, does that make me dumb? It’s complicated. The reasons that I don’t want a smartphone include the costs associated with purchasing a smart phone — actually, it isn’t the cost of the phone…