Red Bull, the makers of Red Bull Energy Drink, are branching out – a lot. They are bringing online a line of Red Bull mobile phones – that’s right, the Red Bull cell phone. Red Bull says that the Red Bull Mobile phone service will bring you “the latest handsets, competitive tariffs and a complete package of mobile communication features. Even more, it gives unlimited access to the world of Red Bull. Welcome to our playground.”

Now here’s an interesting idea. Officials in several cities in Mexico have outfitted the cities’ taxi drivers with government-provided pre-paid Grupo Iusacell cell phones, to be used to provide on-the-spot reporting of incidents such as accidents, fights, and crimes, as well as public hazards such as public lights being out, and water leaks. Dubbed the “Taxista Vigilante” program, by all accounts it is working exceedingly well.

Ah, the cell phone. That ubiquitous little device that so many drivers now take for granted – that kids tote to school (little Johnny may not be able to read, but boy can he text) – that everybody, absolutely everybody has. Including prisoners and inmates. And cell phones in jail and prison have become a huge problem.

While much of the world yesterday heard or read about the results of the U.N. probe into the conflict in Gaza, and how the U.N. has proclaimed that both Israel and Hamas are guilty of war crimes, an interesting technological fact was offered by Israel in defense of the allegations: in response to the claim that Israel bombed suspected Palestinian strongholds without regard for civilian life, an Israeli spokesperson pointed out that Israel had warned residents of Gaza by sending them MMS messages warning of the impending attacks.

A court in France – which does not have no-fault divorce, so absent an agreement to divorce you must prove that one of the spouses did something bad – has ruled that text messages can now be used as evidence of adultery.

Blockbuster Video has announced that users will be able to watch thousands of movies from the Block buster catalog on their cell phones in the near future. Part of Blockbuster’s On Demand service, Blockbuster says that compatible mobile phones will have “on-the-go download access to Block buster’s digital library of thousands of current BLOCKBUSTER OnDemand movies.”

Not content with tricking victims into giving up private identity information via email, phishers are increasingly turning to text messaging to scam account numbers, credit card numbers, social security numbers, and more from their targets.

This is just about the coolest thing that we’ve seen in a long time! This device consists of two bluetooth handsets, which you connect to your cell phone – just as you would any other bluetooth device – and you instantly have extension handsets for your mobile phone! The technology, known as “cell fusion” phones, can ensure that you never miss a cell phone call in your house again!

A large number of people wind up here at the Internet Patrol site every week looking for ways to track their lost or stolen cell phone. Unfortunately, those phones are rarely recovered. Now, a new application for the Google phone changes all that!

Cell phone tracking via GPS and location privacy is starting to emerge as a big issue, especially with more GPS enabled cell phones on the market. e911 rules require that your cell phone transmit your location data when you make a 911 call. But some people are finding that their GPS cell phones are transmitting their location all the time.

Oh goody. The anti-privacy folks at Flexi Spy, who brought you cell phone tapping software for Nokia 60, Blackberry, and Windows Mobile phones back in 2007, have just announced a new iPhone cellphone spying software version of FlexiSpy. Whee!

Yes, it’s true – we couldn’t make up a story like this. A 14 year old Wauwatosa, Wisconsin girl has been arrested for disorderly conduct after refusing to stop texting during math class, and then hiding her cell phone among her buttocks and claiming she had no cell phone on her. The girl, whose name is being withheld, but whose parents are named Brian and Lynn, is a student at Wauwatosa East High School.

Exploding cellphones are not an urban legend. In fact, another exploding mobile phone battery has killed another man (yes really). The incident, which happened over the weekend in China, is the second time in a bit over a year that a cell phone battery has exploded and killed someone. The last time that a cell phone battery exploded and killed someone, the force of the blast broke their ribs.

A new proposed Federal camera phone law would require all cell phone cameras to make a “click” sound when snapping a picture (to emulate the sound of a shutter snap), and would further require that there be no means of disabling the click sound. The proposed “Camera Phone Predator Alert Act”, introduced by Republican Congressman Peter King, from New York, is presumably aimed at reducing the instances of upskirting, and of people surreptitiously using their cell phone to snap pictures of credit cards and other identity-stealing activity.

In stark contrast to the United States, where mobile phones for kids seem routine, and cell phones designed for children are seeing increasing marketshare, the government of France has decided to ban cell phones for children.