'Multi-purpose' mobiles

Nearly 300 UK school and university students were disqualified from exams last summer because of cheating with mobile phones, the BBC reports. That's a 15.7% increase over the previous year. "Some students had attempted to receive answers via text messaging - particularly in more factual subjects such as maths and science.
Others had inadvertently taken handsets into the exam hall." The latter could happen more and more, since there are now more mobiles than people in the UK, VNUNET.com reports. Meanwhile, get ready for ever-more-attractive, multi-purpose phones: "games and programs that let people connect, on their own terms, with anyone and everyone else," according to the vision of Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins, cited by the BBC. Watch for "mobile gaming leagues" and other phenomena that are as much about connecting people as playing games (and not about fancy graphics).