Although some of us have barely got to grips with texting and others would bin their mobiles if a certain Crazy Frog ever ding-ding-dinged to within a hundred metres of them, those who are more upwardly mobile eagerly await the latest offerings from phone companies and service providers, who are continually developing ways to persuade us to sign up for new types of ringtones and other features, available on ever-more sophisticated 3-G (third-generation) handsets.
The mobisode is just one example. Pronounced moh-bi-sohd, it's a very short episode of a TV series which can be downloaded and viewed on a 3G phone. In November 2004 the phone company Vodafone announced that it had commissioned Fox TV to produce 24 one-minute-long episodes of the hit TV series 24, specially recorded on digital video and shot to take account of a mobile phone's two-inch screen. As described in SNT Report.com (2.2.05)"The scene veers abruptly from seduction to murder. In one of the shortest, smallest television premieres ever, a woman deftly snaps her lover's neck, then steals his identity to access secret government data."
Sounds riveting - with reportedly around 10 million downloads per week of this and other mobisodic dramas and soap operas, at least it might engross people sufficiently to stop them engaging in inane phone conversations on the train.
Now that the word ringtone is a permanent fixture in our language (the OED records it as early as 1986), mastertone is rapidly gaining the same prominence. Mastertones (also known as true tones, realtones, or ringtunes) are a more sophisticated type of ringtone: instead of a tinny-sounding electronic warble, they're actually digital clips of real music, so every time your phone rings those surrounding you are treated to the latest Destiny's Child or Coldplay single.
Other words bandied around by the mobilescenti in recent months include:
micromoment: although this word has a life outside mobile-phone technology (it just means 'a very brief moment'), in the context of telecommunications it refers to a five-minute download of a music video.
IMEI: a unique 15-digit number that all mobile phones have for security; if the phone is stolen, the network operators can bar the number to prevent it from being used [abbreviation of International Mobile Equipment Identity]
Bluesnarfing: the illicit accessing of data from an electronic device such as a mobile phone, PDA, or computer using a Bluetooth® short-range wireless interconnection. The word made headlines when Bluesnarfers targeted the actress Paris Hilton and embarassingly made the electronic contacts list on her mobile available on the Net. The word is a blend of Bluetooth® plus snarf, a mainly North American word meaning 'eat or drink quickly or greedily' or 'grab something without permission'.
And finally, it's not only the information on your phone that's open to theft. Mobiles, PDAs, MP3 players, and similar gadgets are so desirable and stealable that the UK police have coined the acronym CRAVED [concealable, removable, available, valuable, enjoyable, or disposable] for such items, so make sure yours doesn't get snarfed.
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