the united states president has the legal ability and right to shut down the entire u.s. internet and all phone networks in case of a national emergency.

the language that defines what constitutes a national emergency is vague, and the original law was written during wwii.

"just what form the future telephone will take is, of course, pure speculation. here is my prophecy: in its final development, the telephone will be carried about by the individual, perhaps as we carry a watch today. it probably will acquire no dial or equivalent, and i think the users will be able to see each other, if they want, as they talk. who knows but what it may actually translate from one language to another?"
(mark sullivan, president of pacific telephone and telegraph, 1953)

television stations and government agencies can play a tone via your television that is inaudible to you, but which can be identified by your smartphone, which responds by letting whoever generated the tone know who and where you are. if there are multiple people in the room, their phones will confirm that everyone is in the same place.

the average person checks their mobile phone 150 times each day.

google is working on an instant translation app for your phone, so that you can speak to and understand anyone from anywhere, and vice versa.

it takes 1 ton of gold ore to extract 1 gram of gold - the same amount that you extract by recycling 41 cell phones.

if you read the fine print in your mobile phone's manual, it will tell you that holding the phone to your ear exceeds the rf radiation limit allowed by the fcc.

fear of being without your smartphone is known as 'nomophobia', and apparently we all have it.

the first fax machine was invented 25 years before the telephone.

worldwide, more people have access to cell phones than to toilets.

you are more likely to be fatally struck by lightning if you're on the phone, even if the phone is mobile.

it's easy to forget that more than half of the world has still never made or received a phone call.

1 in 6 cell phones have poo on them. a simple fix: don't touch your phone in the bathroom!

1 in 6 cellphones have traces of fecal matter on them. the reason? they were used in the bathroom.

according to pew research, 2 out of 5 americans adults with cell phones sleep near them so they don't miss a text or an email - messages primarily from work.

according to the better business bureau, the mobile phone industry receives more complaints than any other - more than 36,000 reported complaints in 2013. (and remember, those are just the ones reported to the bbb.)

the camera click that you hear when taking a picture with your phone is difficult (or depending upon which country you live in, impossible) to turn off to discourage you from taking upskirt photos.

to keep their phone calls from being intercepted by police, mexican drug cartels set up their own telephone network, with their own cell towers. it covers thousands of miles.

the telephone was invented by antonio meucci, a brilliant but poor italian immigrant. alexander graham bell, who shared a lab with meucci, copied his designs and patented them when meucci couldn't afford to renew his own patent. bell put 99% of the shares of his new company - bell telephone - in his wife's name 2 days before they were married. meucci sued. the supreme court agreed to hear the case and fraud charges were initiated against bell, but meucci died before the case was heard.