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This week, we celebrated the 40th anniversary of the first call made from a cell phone. It can be hard to imagine a time when we didn’t all have our phones, computers, music, and more in our pockets at all times. But let’s take a look back at some of the technological innovations we’ve had since 2000.

Alicia Keys performing during halftime at this weekend’s All-Star Game. AP Photo/Eric Gay

Just earlier this month, the tech industry was all abuzz with the news that Alicia Keys had been tapped by BlackBerry to serve as the company’s global creative director. But it seems the partnership hasn’t yielded the boost or excitement the company was hoping for.

On the surface it seems like it was looking up for the sagging BlackBerry. Besides the flurry of activity surrounding Keys’ appointment, the company debuted its new BlackBerry 10 smartphones, which are due in the U.S. in mid-March.

But reports Forbes, “sales have dramatically underperformed previous estimates, mainly because of supply constraints and limited support from carriers.” It appears the company is having trouble competing with a host of new Android and Window phones, and possibly a new iPhone expected in the first half of 2013, according to Canaccord’s analysts.”

The BlackBerry 10 phones are so bad that, as Forbes reveals, RIM has revised its sales estimates for the new Z10s downward. They’re now expected to move only 300,000 in the February quarter, down from a previous estimate of 1.75 million units.

Limited supply is one of a few problems BlackBerry is facing, capping the company’s capacity to sell BlackBerry 10 products, reports Forbes. But it isn’t alone in this problem. Apple faced this problem with several of their iPhone models, being unable to make enough phones to meet the demand.

While this has been a problem for BlackBerry in the past, with the new the Z10s and Q10s the demand is low, due in part to pricing. “BlackBerry’s new smartphones cost about the same as their major competitors Apple and Samsung’s competing models after taking into account carrier subsidies,” says Forbes.

Not only are consumers lukewarm to the new models, carriers also are unenthusiastic. According to the magazine, Sprint will only be launching the Q10, while T-Mobile will only commercialize the touch screen-only Z10. Verizon Wireless and AT&T, the two largest U.S. providers, will carry both models.

So what role is Alicia Keys meant to play in all of this? Marketing had better get on this fast in order to leverage Keys’ popularity to generate some sort of something for the brand.

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Current Occupation: Vice President / General Manager of Field Sales & Operations – Michigan/Indiana Region, T-Mobile USA

Favorite website: Pulse, C-Net, Wall Street Journal

Favorite read: #1: Good to Great; #2: What Customers Really Want

Recent read: The Help

2012′s ultimate goal: Get oldest Son off to college in the fall & celebrate 19happy years of marriage!

Quote Governing Your Mission or a Quote that Inspires You: Essential Piece: Isn’t it a wonderful thing that we’re all different? Each of us has strengths and skills to share. And when we link our individual strengths together, we’re invincible. Can’t imagine us without you.

Twitter handle: @tmobile

Brigette Jackson, an executive at T-Mobile, is the subject of this next installment of Behind The Click.  More specifically, she’s the Vice President and General Manager for the Michigan and Indiana Region of T-Mobile. I had an opportunity to connect with  this fellow digital power player to learn more about her position.  What follows will both inspire and encourage you, no matter what industry you currently work.  Fasten your seatbelts!

LdC:  So it seems that a lot of  your foundation is due in large part to your education. What was it like attending Michigan State?

BJ: My college career was an enjoyable experience. I grew up, learned a lot and met many people with diverse backgrounds.  A lot of the people I met are still my friends today.

LdC:  Are you an active alum?

BJ: Yes, I stay informed and attend homecoming.  I also participate in activities through the MSU chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha, which I was a member of at MSU.

LdC:  Did you express an early interest in the convergence of tech and customer growth or did you “fall into” it?

BJ: I graduated with a Bachelor of Science with an emphasis in Management. I have always been in sales jobs throughout my career.  Working in sales management, I was introduced to technology and saw the rapid growth and innovation first hand.  That’s what led me to my current position at T-Mobile.

LdC: What is a typical day like for you?

BJ: I conduct sales meetings with my team, attend strategy meetings where we plan business strategies and tactics to retain customers and grow the business, review sales reports, visit stores and our business sales clients and meet customers.

LdC:  What is the biggest challenge of your day?

BJ: Continuing to grow sales and market share within the Region.

LdC:  What advice can you give to women looking to get into telecommunications at an executive level?

B: Be ready for this fast-paced, innovative business.  You need to make sure you are knowledgeable about all of the ever-changing technologies, stay ahead of the competitors and be able to make quick decisions.

LdC: What advice can you give to women with projects who are looking to create strategic alliances with T-Mobile?

BJ: Pull customer demographics, make sure the demographics mirror the area of the product you are targeting and do a business case to ensure the return on investment is healthy.  Take as many business partners that relate to or support the project as you can throughout the process.

LdC:  How do you balance work and family life?

BJ: Careful long & short-term planning to make sure I don’t miss any important engagements.  I absolutely live by my Outlook Calendar to stay organized and I plan far ahead.

LdC: What’s your biggest dream for your position/department at T-Mobile this year?

BJ: At the end of the year, I would like to have a profitable business that has achieved all targets and have grown our customer base and increased our market share.

Thanks for reading!  Keep up with tech events and more at my site www.ldcoleman.com while we prepare the next profile.  Get the latest in digital news and more by following me on Twitter @mediaempress

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(Reuters) – People who want the new $200 Apple iPhone 4S may have to get in line on Friday because U.S. wireless phone carriers appear to have sold out. Sprint Nextel (S.N), which is selling the iPhone for the first time, said it sold all of its $200 iPhone 4S and is not taking back orders. Sprint still is selling more expensive versions of the phone with higher memory.

Rival AT&T (T.N) said on its website on Monday afternoon that customers ordering the same iPhone at that point would not receive their phones for another 21 to 28 days. Verizon’s website said it will ship the phones by October 20. Orders for the latest iPhone, the last product the company introduced before the death of its co-founder Steve Jobs, surpassed 1 million in the first 24 hours, beating Apple’s previous one-day record of 600,000 sales for the iPhone 4, according to Apple.

Read More…

(Christian Science Monitor) — In her recent address before the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to alleviate starvation in the Horn of Africa and build a more secure food supply for the future. Governmental organizations and NGOs are not the only ones supplying innovations and assistance – Secretary Clinton also noted several partnerships with private companies.  One of the US Agency for International Development’s (USAID) partners is Souktel, a mobile phone service based in the Middle East.  Information and communication lines are valuable commodities in a world that is growing more connected every year. The founders recognized the potential for burgeoning mobile phone networks, and began theirJobMatch service in 2006. Souktel creates databases, message surveys, and instant alerts that can be sent out and received via mobile phone. The platform tries to better connect job seekers with employers through basic Short Message Service (SMS) texting.

Read More…

Social Networking has not only become a means to communicate, it has also become a way of life. Many people use platforms like Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, get the latest news and happenings, air their dirty laundry and keep their friend list up to date with the good and bad of their lives. While different folks have different strokes for Facebook usage, there are just some “friends” that make you want to delete them immediately because their status updates are annoying and clog your news feeds.

I’m sure we all have a few characters on our friend list that we would like to or have given the boot. Here are the seven most common Facebook fanatics that can make you anti-social:

Read the rest of this entry »

By Alexis Garrett Stodghill

Most Western news about Africa focuses on the seeding of al-Qaeda terrorism in nations like Yemen, or revolutionary battles against dictators like Muammar Gaddafi. But there is another, quieter disruption taking place in countries like Kenya in which black coders and tech entrepreneurs are creating their own boom. In Alex Perry’s article for Time, the author outlines numerous stories of success that have had international implications emerging from the continent, chronicling Africa’s exponential growth in the sector. Mobile tech via cell phones in particular has seen a host of creative applications sparked by African inventiveness. About the impact of cell phones on Africa’s economies, Perry reports:

 According to studies by the London Business School, the World Bank and consultants at Deloitte, for every 10 additional mobiles per 100 Africans, GDP rises 0.6% to 1.2%. [...]

But this is not a story merely of how technology is changing Africa. Africans are changing technology right back. They now use text-message networks to send e mail, run social networks (South Africa’s MXit) and even verify from a bar code whether a drug is genuine or fake (mPedigree in Ghana and Sproxil in Nigeria). Africa’s influence on global technology is most marked in mobile banking: with its M Pesa service (M for mobile, pesa meaning money in Swahili), Kenyan operator Safaricom became the first-ever telecom company to create a mass mobile-banking service, setting industry standards now being copied from California to Kabul.

Africans, and Kenyans in particular, are making their presence felt online too. When Kenya erupted in violence in the aftermath of a disputed general election in late 2007, a handful of Nairobi code writers created Ushahidi (meaning testimony in Swahili), a data-mapping platform to collate and locate reports of unrest sent in by the public via text message, e mail and social media. The idea was simply to find out what was happening. Says Ushahidi co-founder Juliana Rotich: “The TV was playing The Sound of Music while we could see houses burning in our neighborhood.” But the desire to know what’s going on turned out to be universal, and Ushahidi quickly became the world’s default platform for mapping crises, disasters and political upheaval. According to Rotich, by May of this year, Ushahidi, which is free to download, had been used 14,000 times in 128 countries to map everything from last year’s earthquake in Haiti to this year’s Japanese tsunami and the Arab Spring.

We can only expect more African tech companies to blow up as plans to add Internet cables in the region are executed in the coming years. The cost of connectivity will go down and the speed of the average connection will go up as a result, leading to more involvement by the already active community. Growing investment from companies like Google, which has its regional headquarters in Kenya’s Nairobi, will lead to similar inventions like cloud computing, which came out of South Africa.

But unlike South Africa, the most developed African country, Kenya is the nation tech onlookers are observing with the greatest expectations. It has promoted the free and open use of telecom, unlike leaders that over-control or underdevelop state resources to the detriment of their useful application. Kenya invests in tech infrastructure so that both companies and citizens can enjoy the Internet as “a basic human right,” the nation’s information minister told Time.

Such is its affinity for technology that “Kenya’s love for IT has earned it the nickname Silicon Savanna,” Perry wrote. Playing on the name of America’s tech hub — Silicon Valley — this moniker shows just how important the region has become as a leader in international innovation.

Read more in detail about the leaders, movers and shakers of Silicon Savanna on Time.com. Does this movement shake up your vision of Africa as impoverished and underdeveloped? Is investing in its burgeoning tech sector something you would consider? Leave your comments below!

(Wall Street Journal) — Using a cellphone may increase the risk of a certain type of brain cancer, an international panel of experts said Tuesday, adding to a growing debate about whether a now nearly ubiquitous form of communication poses health risks.  The experts said cellphone radio waves are “possibly carcinogenic,” classifying them in the same risk category as lead, chloroform and coffee. The classification from the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer could lead the United Nations health body to look again at its mobile-phone guidelines, the scientists said.  The IARC panel did not conduct new research. Its findings, which will be published July 1 in the journal Lancet Oncology and in a few days online, came after reviewing the “available literature” on everything from microwave exposure to the environmental exposures of radio, television and wireless signals.

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(Bankrate) — From iPhones to Android phones, the proliferation of smartphones has made consumers more vulnerable to scams aimed at getting banking and other personal information. So far, the attacks aren’t as widespread as they are on the Internet, but they are expected to increase as more consumers use their smartphones to conduct banking transactions.  ”The bad guys out there want to target the platforms that give them the biggest bang for their buck,” says Andrew Hoog, chief investigative officer at viaForensics, the Chicago-based digital forensics and security firm. “The new juicy target is smartphones.”  Many smartphone users use their phones for work as well as pleasure. That means scam artists have access to potential business information and personal data that can compromise someone’s identity.

Read More…

What did we ever do before mobile phones and the industry movements behind it all?!  Every time you blink there is either another new device or a new merger.  One can only guess at how the duopoly of the AT&T acquisition will affect consumers, particularly those who consistently rack up the most in mobile expenditures each and every month: African-Americans.  And since the ratings and statistical giant Nielsen also seems to think that our demographic is the key to the smartphone wars as well, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at one of the latest smartphones, Samsung’s Nexus S.

Now, those who are really into the smartphone game will know that this phone hit the market just a couple of months ago, but what is new is that Sprint just announced earlier this week that it will now make the phone available via its network in the spring of this year.  So this phone poses a new option for those on that carrier who are toying around with upping their Android game.  (The Samsung Nexus S is available currently on AT&T, T-Mobile only).

Peep the video below now to see me put the phone through its paces but also watch some “person-on-the-street” reaction as well. I also have some hot Playbook news right before the Nexus S demo jumps off….  Let me know what you think of the device in the comments below. Also note, while the Playbook comes out on April 19th pre-orders are being accepted right this moment.

If you want to bypass the video tech review, here are the highlights:

The Nexus S, the world’s first handset to feature the latest version of Google’s Android operating system 2.3 he 4-inch Contour Display features a curved design for a more ergonomic (who made up that word, anyway?) style and feel when held in your hand and to your face. Nexus S also features Near Field Communication (NFC) technology which allows you to read information off of everyday objects like stickers and posters that are embedded with NFC chips. They’re not here yet, but they are coming. Mark my words and remember those three letters! Powered by a 1 GHz Samsung application processor, Nexus S produces rich 3D graphics, faster upload and download times and supports HD-like multimedia content. Nexus S is equipped with a 5 megapixel rear facing camera and camcorder, as well as a VGA front facing camera. In addition, Nexus S features a gyroscope sensor to provide a smooth, fluid gaming experience when you are tilting the device up or down or panning the phone to the left or right. Nexus S is reported to come with 16 GB of internal memory though the brand new unit I had for test-driving had 13 GB.  Hmmmmm…
All in all, a hot device.

Important tip:  don’t just always react just as a consumer.  You know I always want you to think about how the phone can make you money, as well.  Have a business?  Sell a product?  A mobile phone application is one of the hottest ways to brand and drive revenue.  Of course, it’s got to make sense and provide real value for the end-user, but at least price need not be the factor which holds you back anymore.  A new start-up called Mobiflex has developed a system for people to create an iPhone or Android mobile app incredibly low prices. No, it’s not going to offer 3D and all the other bells and whisles, but it’s a good start and can be customized accordingly.  If you can build a PowerPoint presentation, you can now make an app.  Google Mobiflex for more information.

Lauren DeLisa Coleman is a writer, host and thought-leader specializing in the diverse segment of the Gen Y demo, tech and its convergence with socio-economic concerns. She is also the CEO and founder of Punch Media Group, an edgy digital media and entertainment company which develops pop culture experience and branding strategy across digital platforms. Follow her @mediaempress