For all practical purposes, it’s illegal for telemarketers to call mobile phones, but it does happen.
This summer Verizon Wireless went to court twice after receiving complaints that customers were getting calls pestering them about time-share condo deals and such. Federal regulations prohibit the use of auto-dialing equipment to call mobile phones, and that is the way most telemarketers make calls.
But rather than attempting to get criminal convictions, Verizon Wireless chose to bring civil actions against the telemarketers because the company thought that would be the quickest way to make the callers stop, said Mike McDermott, the company’s public policy director.
Customers got recordings making pitches and text messages, said McDermott.
One marketing firm settled with Verizon, agreeing to a cease and desist order. It also explained how the mobile phone numbers were obtained, said McDermott. The marketers went to obscure public documents to find the blocks of phone numbers assigned to wireless phone companies. They programmed those numbers into their auto-dialers, he said.
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The marketers targeted mobile phones because most owners haven’t registered their numbers with the government’s Do Not Call registry, said McDermott.
“We recommend that cell phone owners go to www.donotcall.gov and register their numbers,” he said. “We will be aggressive in protecting our customers’ privacy, going to court if necessary.”
McDermott also cautioned mobile phone owners against giving out their numbers to commercial operations.
“Your cell phone number could wind up in a database and you could get telemarketing calls,” he said.
If a person’s mobile number isn’t registered with Do Not Call, and if the telemarketer dials the number himself, there’s no ban on solicitors calling wireless phones, he said.
Wasps as sniffers: Using dogs to sniff out drugs, explosives or even spoiled agricultural products has become standard for authorities–but trained insects are less common.
Researchers from the University of Georgia and the U.S. Department of Agriculture believe they can remedy that, having developed a device they call the “wasp hound.”
Wasps are cheaper than dogs and more sensitive than some electronic sensors, said Glen Rains, a biological engineer with the University of Georgia. Training a wasp to home in on a certain odor can be accomplished in as little as five minutes using food rewards, the researchers have found.
“We’ve now developed a prototype device that puts the idea of using chemical-sensing wasps into a practical framework,” said Rains. “Its possibilities are astounding.”
The cup-sized device includes a tiny camera hooked to a computer that watches the wasps. When the insects’ movements indicate they’ve found the odor they’ve been trained to locate, the device sets off an alarm.
Researchers used tiny parasitic wasps as their trained sniffers rather than the larger wasps that sting if provoked. Should this method of chemical detection become commercialized, users would have to replenish their wasp supply periodically, Rains said, sort of like changing the batteries in a smoke detector.
Wasps aren’t the only creatures under study. Rats, honeybees, fish and even yeast have been recruited for experiments to detect various explosives and toxins.
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