Huge achievement for the Telecom markets. The impact of having a mobile phone is quite far reaching than just enabling communications.  Cellular Phone became a life style for many, a life saver for some and integral part of their livelihood for a whole lot of others. As per the statistics, at the end of 2007, as per ITU report, one in two in the world now have a cellular phone. Wow!

Source: 49% of humans have mobile phones: ITU
THE number of mobile phone users world soared to over 3.3 billion by the end of 2007, equivalent to a penetration rate of 49 percent, the International Telecommunications Union has said in a report.

Africa showed the strongest gains over the past two years and more than two thirds of all mobile subscribers were from developing countries by the end of 2007, the ITU said. This is ‘a positive trend that suggests that developing countries are catching up,” the report said. Mobile subscription growth stood at 39 percent annually in Africa between 2005-2007, and 28 percent in Asia over the same period. India and China added 154 million and 143 million new subscribers respectively. The global annual average growth rate stood at 22 percent, the ITU said.

As mentioned in the article, its  a big surprises.  Microsoft releasing an application that runs on non-Windows Mobile. But Location Based Service with voice recognition is a cool application.

Microsoft, purveyors of everything Windows Mobile, have just released a public version of TellMe, their new Location Based Application with voice recognition for the BlackBerry platform. TellMe is a cool little piece of software taking your GPS coordinates and providing you with search results, movie times, restaurant reviews, traffic info, and more based on your current location. As an added bonus, all of this information can be accessed with simple voice instructions, allowing you to use the software on the road without risking your spotless driving record. Currently, the software is supported on all GPS-equipped ‘Berrys, including the 8800, 8820, 8830, 8310, and we assume the 8110.

Microsoft’s new LBS for BlackBerry | The Boy Genius Report

When it comes to web surfing there is no other device like iPhone. Nokia fans and Blackberry folks are very reluctant to accept that iPhone from a computer company beat the mobile phone companies flat out. But they all know iPhone has really done it. Data from search engines only confirms it.

On Christmas, traffic to Google from iPhones surged, surpassing incoming traffic from any other type of mobile device, according to internal Google data made available to The New York Times.

A few days later, iPhone traffic to Google fell below that of devices powered by the Nokia-backed Symbian operating system but remained higher than traffic from any other type of cellphone.

The data is striking because the iPhone, an Apple product, accounts for just 2 percent of smartphones worldwide, according to IDC, a market research firm. Phones powered by Symbian make up 63 percent of the worldwide smartphone market, while those powered by Microsoft’s Windows Mobile have 11 percent and those running the BlackBerry system have 10 percent.

Source: Google Sees Surge in iPhone Traffic