America’s abandonment of the landline phone in favor of the cell phone is accelerating, but nowhere has it gone further than in Arkansas and Mississippi. The states where the smallest proportion of people depend solely on wireless phones and no landlines: new Jersey and Rhode Island.
About 35 percent of adults in Arkansas and Mississippi have cell phones and lack traditional wired telephones, according to estimates released by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In new Jersey and Rhode Island, that figure is only 13 percent.
“The answer’s obvious. No one has money here,” said John Daigle, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Mississippi. “If they can do without a landline, they’ll do it to save money.”
In eight states besides Arkansas and Mississippi — mostly in the West — at least 30 percent of adults rely strictly on cell phones. they are Colorado, Idaho, Kentucky, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon and Texas.
At the low end, Pennsylvania is among just eight states where less than 17 percent of adults use only cell phones.
Spain wants links removed
Their ranks include a plastic surgeon, a prison guard and a high school principal. all are Spanish, but have little else in common except this: they want old Internet references about them that pop up in Google searches wiped away.
In a case that Google inc. and privacy experts call a first of its kind, Spain’s Data Protection Agency has ordered the search engine giant to remove links to material on about 90 people.
Google has decided to challenge the orders and has appealed five cases so far this year to the National Court.
Some of the information is embarrassing, some seems downright banal. In all cases, the plaintiffs petitioned the agency individually to get information about them taken down.
Spain is backing the individuals suing to get links taken down.
Robots gain steam
Top scientists around the world are trying to improve upon robots, which can already detect bombs, perform surgery and even go into battle.
At iRobot Corp., they’re trying to make a better vacuum.
Of course, iRobot’s scientists do other things too. The company, best known for its Roomba floor vacuum, recently sent machines to Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster to help detect radiation, to the war zone in Afghanistan to find bombs, and to the Gulf of Mexico to locate spilled oil in the water.
But home robots make up 55 percent of the company’s revenue and are part of the reason iRobot is on a tear.
That iRobot, the only public company that focuses purely on robotics, is getting attention from investors indicates that this young industry is becoming more mainstream.
“It’s almost like buying Internet companies in the 1990s,” said Alex Hamilton, an analyst with Early Bird Capital who covers iRobot. “The sky’s the limit.”
<a href="http://www.goerie.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110421/BUSINESS05/304219986/-1/BUSINESS03tag:news.google.com,2005:cluster=http://www.goerie.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110421/BUSINESS05/304219986/-1/BUSINESS03Thu, 21 Apr 2011 04:16:43 GMT 00:00″>Around the water cooler