Porno to go

Mobile technology is opening the doors to whole new categories of perversion.

Update

Yahoo predicts a mass migration to mobiles over the next 10 years.

Pay-by-phone technology takes a step forward with the introduction of a secure mobile signature. Still to be seen if such an application carries water legally.

Danah Boyd posts an interesting article about how pricing plans affect texting culture (insofar as there is such a thing).

Mobile lust

Just in time for the holidays, Forbes Magazine offers a list of sexy mobile phones you can't get in the United States.

Trends

An AP/AOL poll shows teens use instant messaging and cell phones to say things they wouldn't say face-to-face. (Maybe this is a good way for parents to ask, "How was your day?") Meanwhile, businesses crack down on rude cell phone users.

Promising developments

Looks like Google has put to rest the long-rumored gPhone. But what it's offering instead could be far more revolutionary: Android, an open-source mobile phone platform based on the Linux operating system. Why should we care? Because Android could wrench control of the software on your mobile phone away from your carrier (since when does Verizon know anything about GUIs?) and put it in control of the real experts: the open-source development community. Flash Lite promises to do the same thing with content.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but the result could be an explosion of functionality and content on mobile devices that has been heretofore stifled by U.S. carriers' iron-fisted (and hamhanded) control over everything that appears on your handset's screen.

Potpourri

Opera Mini 4 is out, and it looks like it's borrowing a page from Apple's iPhone. It boasts full Web page views, along with other features. Check it out here. It's a free download.

Meanwhile, MobileCrunch reports that mobiles are elbowing out PC's in Japan, leading some to predict the personal computer's demise there. (We've all heard that one before.)

Finally, the first app for the rumored Googlephone has been leaked, and it's a doozy: It'll help you find that late-night beer you're craving. (No word on whether it'll work in Connecticut, where draconian Blue Laws shutter the package stores at 9 p.m.)