42 Revolutionary Facts About Mobile Phones Every Tech User Should Know

Curiosity is an 'experimental' online mobile game by Peter Molyneux promising the winner a 'life-changing' prize. There was a winner (Scott Bryan Henderson), back in May of 2013. He still hasn't gotten his prize.

27. Most modern handheld devices like iPhones contain a mineral called "coltan" that is being produced as a commodity by slaves exploited by rebel armies in the Congo.

28. Phones have an asterisk and pound sign because when Bell Labs designed the first touch-tone phone, their system had two tones which were not assigned values. So, they threw in * and #.

29. In Japan, mobile phone's camera shutter sound cannot be muted.

30. A California teenager named Steven Ortiz traded up to an old phone on Craigslist for different items until he eventually acquired a Porsche.

In 1992, rapper Mac Dre was charged with conspiracy to commit robbery and sentenced to 5 years in prison after he refused a police deal, which was informing law enforcement about his partners. While awaiting trial Mac Dre recorded a full album over the phone, taunting law enforcement officials.

32. Since most people in Japan and China use their phones or computers to phonetically convert the Latin alphabet to type Chinese characters, more people are forgetting how to write some characters by hand. On a Chinese TV show, only 30% of participants could write "toad", 癞蛤蟆 (Lài há ma).

33. The area code for the International Space Station phone (ISS) is a Houston area code, 281.

34. 16% of cell phones are contaminated with E. coli bacteria from fecal matter.

35. Each person has a "walking signature" that can be detected by their smartphone's accelerometer data; the signature persists even if you change phones.

There was a woman named Aubrey Ireland who had a restraining order on her parents for installing a keylogger on her computer and cell phone and driving 600 miles from Kansas to Ohio for unannounced visits.

37. In 2011, Fredericton police gave out Pizza Hut coupons to drivers who pulled over to talk on their cell phones.

38. Mobile phones often have two completely different phone numbers attached to them which are both usable. One is the one you think your number is and the other is called a Mobile Identification Number (MIN), a number your carrier uses to ID you.

39. 90 to 95% of mobile phone sales in Japan were waterproof because Japanese young girls are so fond of their mobile phones they even use them in the shower.

40. According to the UN, only 64% (4.5 b illion/7 billion) of the world's population has access to a toilet, while 86% (6 billion/7 billion) has access to a mobile phone.

T-Mobile collects the web pages you visit on your T-Mobile phone, even if you are using WiFi and not their network.

42. Siri was supposed to be for Android and BlackBerry phones before Siri, Inc. was bought by Apple back in April of 2010.