Palo Alto Senator Joe Simitian, the man who authored the 2008 California ban on using cellphones while driving sans the use of a hands-free device, now wants a similar ban placed on cyclists texting or making phone calls. This means that, similar to drivers, cyclists pedaling while handling their iPhones or Droids or whatever could face a $20-$30 fine. more ›

Answering that phone call or shooting off a quick text while waiting for the light to change can still net you hefty ticket, a state appeals court ruled yesterday. In a ruling that actually makes perfect sense, despite the defendant's argument that having one's foot on the brake is not the same as "driving", one judge wrote that accepting the driver's interpretation of the hands-free law would, "open the door to millions of people across our state repeatedly picking up their phones and devices to place calls and check voicemail (or text-based messages) whenever they are paused momentarily in traffic". more ›

What should have been a routine traffic stop ended in a fatal car accident yesterday evening when a driver in Concord refused to stop for a patrol car that spotted him talking on his cellphone while driving. Instead of pulling over, the driver of a white pickup sped off down Solano Way, leading police on a brief chase before broadsiding a BMW, killing the innocent driver inside. more ›

This is a little out of our jurisdiction, but we love a good techie-perv-news item: A 24-year-old intern at the Santa Ana Public Works Department has been charged with using his cellphone camera to videotape other guys peeing and stuff in adjacent bathroom stalls. Miguel Ruiz Fabian has been charged with 23 misdemeanor counts of disorderly conduct and "unlawful viewing" — he actually had 64 separate videos stored on his phone, and somebody caught him. more ›

Did BART Police violate everyone's civil liberties by switching off cell phone service last week, or were they simply acting in the name of public safety? An editorial in the Examiner today argues the latter, and this is perhaps predictable given the paper's arguable conservative bent. The ACLU, naturally, has penned a strongly worded letter to BART Police chief Kenton Rainey stating their objections, though they aren't filing any lawsuits just yet. more ›

Here's a little bait for all the Apple-hating commenters: That little company down in Cupertino that used to just make funny looking computers is planning on releasing the next generation of iPhone, the iPhone 5, by summer. Rumors swirling about the Apple-obsessed blogosphere say that a Chinese supplier confirms that Apple is ordering a shit ton of silvery aluminum backings for the phone, signaling that the new model will look more like the iPad 2 than the iPhone 4. As Business Insider points out, the move away from the squarer iPhone 4 design makes sense given all those problems people had with it, including Antennagate. more ›

Call him Governor Viola Swamp if you must, because Jerry Brown just ordered an astounding 48,000 government-paid cell phones - that's around half of those used by government employees - be returned by June 1. Hrumph. Yes, the texting party is over for an estimated 96,000 cell phone users whose bills are fronted by state taxpayers. more ›

New legislation, proposed by Supervisors David Campos and John Avalos and inspired by a fight over a new cell phone tower in Bernal Heights, may make it more difficult to place a call in some neighborhoods of S.F. as more and more people buy smart phones and try to play Words with Friends simultaneously on the bus at 5:30 p.m. As noted by Matt Baume over at NBC Bay Area, "As a result [of this proposed legislation], more parts of the City may become like AT&T in the Upper Haight: impossible to place a call unless you walk several blocks north or south." more ›

The Business Times reports today that AT&T is pleased with themselves and "proud of the network [they] have built", as they continue to beef up their data network in San Francisco -- which is ground zero for network failures, dropped calls, and dead zones in the world of the iPhone. This follows on an earlier report about all the money AT&T says they're investing to upgrade their local networks, but still doesn't clarify where, exactly, the money's being spent, or how much improvement iPhone users can expect by "the end of the year," when said upgrades are supposed to be complete. more ›

Today's Business Journal notes that AT&T has already invested $1.1 billion this year to upgrade wireless (and wired) networks across California, which has included 100 new cell sites, 25 antennas in "high-traffic areas," and 35 separate 3G upgrades. So how come we couldn't get the internet to work on our iPhone all Labor Day weekend long? [SFBJ] more ›

On Saturday, according to The Chronicle, an Antioch woman "drove off a boat ramp and into the Sacramento River while she was talking on a cell phone with her daughter, asking for directions," and died. Kathleen Gomez Collier, 47, careened into a river near Isleton in Sacramento County. "Just before the call was cut off, Collier told her daughter that her car was filling up with water and to phone her insurance company." In related technology/Sacto news, a blogger from the area recently gave up her cellphone because ye olde print publication NYT told her to do so. more ›

The much buzzed-about iSlate, along with Apple's iPhone, will likely be sold with the option of Verizon Wireless 3G service by the middle of this year. more ›

UPDATE: Apparently, it's not so much "available" yet. more ›

According to this woman, who was in line at 3 a.m. this morning at a Verizon store in order to be the very first owner of a Motorola Droid phone in SF, this is "the phone [she's] been waiting for." more ›

Brilliant pop culture blogger FourFour gives us this brilliant montage (which must have required, like, months of work) in which he edits together the myriad moments from recent horror film history in which the screenwriters got lazy and employed the no-cell-signal excuse for why their characters are totally screwed. Enjoy. (See his earlier "not here to make friends" reality TV montages here and here.) more ›

Five months after a liver transplant, Steve Jobs is alive and on stage at Apple's "It's only rock and roll" event this morning. The focus is on music, and the release of iTunes 9, but if there are any huge announcements you can find them here in the next half hour. We're not physically there, but as a service to you we're going to give you a few highlights as we receive them from the fine nerds at Endgadget -- and for the truly Apple-nerdy among you, you can click over there for their moment by moment live blog. more ›

Many AT&T customers, including the legion of iPhone users out there, may be aware of some wonkiness with their wonder devices of late. Dropped calls, delayed voicemails, inability to access voicemail, inability to tweet their Muni woes, etc. It's been a shitty month or two, and it all comes down to the fact that Apple and AT&T struck that single-carrier deal a couple years back, and AT&T can't handle the data traffic anymore. As the NYT reports today (complete with slide show), AT&T is scrambling to expand their network. more ›

Gone are the days of the technology and currency-free oasis of drugs, dust and art both whimsical and questionable. more ›

Hundreds of pages of research on the risks of cellphone use while driving, conducted in 2003 as part of a long-term study that was never given the go-ahead by the government, have been released to the public thanks to the work of a consumer group. The documents include a draft letter, never sent, to then Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta regarding the ongoing risks of hands-free devices. As the New York Times reports: "That letter said that hands-free headsets did not eliminate the serious accident risk. The reason: a cellphone conversation itself, not just holding the phone, takes drivers' focus off the road, studies showed." So yeah... to paraphrase a certain bumper sticker: Get off the fucking Bluetooth and drive. more ›

We're not sure if you've noticed, but as of yesterday, the new cell phone law has gone into effect. That's right: no more talky while driving, unless you've got a hands-free device for your phone. Yesterday, while we were out, law breakers were being pulled over left and right. It's a great way for the CHP to fill up those ticket quotas. more ›

Round 4 goes to Dennis Herrera more ›

Shamelessly pilfered from Valleywag, we came across this footage, above, of Boing Boing's Xeni Jardin frying cell phones at Machine Project's Fry-b-que. more ›

Delay, delay, dealy in the deadly tiger case more ›

What's on the cell phones of those who survived the recent tiger attack? more ›

They still make phone books? more ›

Someone in Vallejo (or San Francisco?) thinks he's freakin’ hilarious flooding 911 with crank calls. The crank caller has been using a donated cell phone, perhaps one that was donated to the homeless (why do the homeless need cell phones?), to call in fake emergencies. more ›

We at the Gothamist network would like to express our heartfelt wishes to the people of Minnesota in the days after their tragic bridge collapse. We're not trying to discount the severity of the accident by making note of it in opposition to our usual -Ist lightheartedness - we just wanted to take a moment and recognize those affected last week. more ›

What with Paris Hilton's release earlier this week and the upcoming celebration of American Independence (sorry, Londonist!), we've been thinking a lot about freedom. Freedom to vote, freedom to choose, and most importantly, freedom to blog. Here are a few things we're happy we've been free to blog about this week. more ›

more ›

Here's a roundup of today's news more ›