Hobi-klik

MotoGP

2011-11-05T11:06:00.000-07:00

Road Racing World Championship Grand Prix is the premier championship of motorcycle road racing currently divided into three distinct classes: 125cc, Moto2 and MotoGP. The 125cc class uses a two-stroke engine while Moto2 and MotoGP use four-stroke engines. In 2010 the 250cc two-stroke was replaced by the new Moto2 600cc four-stroke class. Grand Prix motorcycles are purpose-built racing machines that are neither available for purchase by the general public nor can be ridden legally on public roads. This contrasts with the various production categories of racing, such as the Superbike World Championship, that feature modified versions of road-going motorcycles available to the public.

Overview

A Road Racing World Championship Grand Prix was first organized by the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM) in 1949. The commercial rights are owned by Dorna Sports. Teams are represented by the International Road Racing Teams Association (IRTA) and manufacturers by the Motorcycle Sport Manufacturers Association (MSMA). Rules and changes to regulations are decided between the four entities, with Dorna casting a tie-breaking vote. In cases of technical modifications, the MSMA can unilaterally enact or veto changes by unanimous vote among its members.^[1] These 4 entities compose the Grand Prix Commission.
There have traditionally been several races at each event for various classes of motorcycles, based on engine size, and one class for sidecars. Classes for 50cc, 80cc, 125cc, 250cc, 350cc, and 500cc solo machines have existed over time, and 350cc and 500cc sidecars. Up through the 1950s and most of the 1960s, four-stroke engines dominated all classes. In part this was due to rules which allowed a multiplicity of cylinders (thus smaller pistons, thus higher revs) and a multiplicity of gears (thus narrower power bands, thus higher states of tune). In the 1960s, two-stroke engines began to take root in the smaller classes. In 1969 the FIM, citing high development costs for non-works teams, brought in new rules restricting all classes to six gears and most to two cylinders (four cylinders in the case of the 350cc and 500cc classes). This led to a mass walk-out of the sport by the previously highly successful Honda, Suzuki and Yamaha manufacturer teams, skewing the results tables for the next several years, with MV Agusta effectively the only works team left in the sport until Yamaha (1973) and Suzuki (1974) returned with new two-stroke designs. By this time, two-strokes completely eclipsed the four-strokes in all classes. In 1979, Honda on its return to GP racing made an attempt to return the four-stroke to the top class with the NR500, but this project failed, and in 1983, even Honda was winning with a two-stroke 500. The 50cc class was replaced by an 80cc class, then the class was dropped entirely in the 1990s, after being dominated primarily by Spanish and Italian makes. The 350cc class vanished in the 1980s. Sidecars were dropped from World Championship events in the 1990s (see Superside), reducing the field to 125s, 250s, and 500s.

Yamaha YZR-M1 MotoGP bike (2006)

MotoGP, the premier class of GP motorcycle racing, has changed dramatically in recent years. From the mid-1970s through 2001, the top class of GP racing allowed 500cc with a maximum of 4 cylinders, regardless of whether the engine was a two-stroke or four-stroke. Consequently, all machines were two-strokes, due to the greater power output for a given engine capacity. Some two- and three-cylinder two-stroke 500s were seen, but though they had a minimum-weight advantage under the rules, typically attained higher corner speed and could qualify well, they lacked the power of the four-cylinder machines. In 2002, rule changes were introduced to facilitate the phasing out of the two strokes, probably influenced by what was then seen as a lack of relevance: the last mass-produced 500cc 2-stroke model had not been available to the public for some 15 years.^{[original research?]} The rules permitted manufacturers to choose between running two-strokes engines (500cc or less) or four-strokes (990cc or less). Manufacturers were also permitted to employ their choice of engine configuration. Despite the significantly increased costs involved in running the new four-stroke machinery, given their extra 490cc capacity advantage, the four-strokes were soon able to dominate their two-stroke rivals. As a result, by 2003 no two-stroke machines remained in the MotoGP field. The 125cc and 250cc classes still consist exclusively of two-stroke machines. In 2007, the MotoGP class had its maximum engine displacement capacity reduced to 800cc for a minimum of 5 years. For the 2012 season the capacity will be increased again to 1000cc.^[2]

A typical MotoGP season.

The 2008 racing calendar consisted of 18 rounds in 16 different countries (Spain which hosted 3 rounds, Qatar, Turkey, China, France, Italy, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, Czech Republic, San Marino, Portugal, Japan, Australia and Malaysia). Exclusive to the MotoGP class, there was also a USA round at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in Monterey, California for the 800cc class only, this is because the paddock is not large enough to also include the other 2 classes. In 2008 a MotoGP event was held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the first time on a newly prepared track, and observers noted that the Speedway had hosted motorcycle racing before cars raced there. All three classes were scheduled to race but severe wind and rain prevented the 250cc class from racing. MotoGP racing at Indianapolis is counterclockwise, with a new Snake Pit complex past the start-finish line before heading down the Turn 1 short chute and into the infield section.
The grid is composed of three columns (four for the 125cc and 250cc classes) and contains approximately 20 riders. Grid positions are decided in descending order of qualifying speed, the fastest on the 'pole' or first position. Races last approximately 45 minutes, each race a sprint from start to finish without pitting for fuel or tyres.
In 2005, a flag-to-flag rule for MotoGP was introduced. Previously, if a race started dry and rain fell, riders or officials could red-flag (stop) the race and either restart or resume on 'wet' tyres. Now, if rain falls a white flag is shown, indicating that riders can pit to swap the motorcycle on which they started the race for an identical one, as long as the tyres are different (that is, intermediates instead of wets, or slicks instead of wets)[1]. Besides different tyres, the wet-weather bikes have steel brake rotors and different brake pads instead of the carbon discs and pads used on the 'dry' bikes. This is because the carbon brakes need to be very hot to function properly, and the water cools them too much. The suspension is also 'softened' up somewhat for the wet weather.
When a rider crashes, track marshals wave a yellow flag, prohibiting passing in that area; one corner back, a stationary yellow flag is shown and passing in this area of the track is prohibited; if a fallen rider cannot be evacuated safely from the track, the race is red-flagged. Motorcycle crashes are usually one of two types: lowsides and the more dangerous highsides, though increased use of traction control has made highsides much less frequent.
According to one estimate, leasing a top-level motorcycle for a rider costs about 3 to 3.5 million dollars for a racing season.^[3]
As a result of the 2008-2009 financial crisis, MotoGP is undergoing changes in an effort to cut costs. Among them are reducing Friday practice sessions; banning active suspension, launch control and ceramic composite brakes; extending the lifespan of engines; and reducing testing sessions.^[4]

Chronology

1949: Start of the world championship in Grand Prix motorcycle racing.
1957: Gilera, Mondial and Moto Guzzi withdraw at the end of the season.
1958: MV Agusta win the constructor's and rider's championships in all 4 solo classes.
1959: MV Agusta retain all eight solo titles. Honda enter the Isle of Man TT for the first time.
1960: MV Agusta retain all 8 championships again.
1962: First year of 50cc class.
1966: Honda win the constructor's championship in all 5 solo classes.
1967: Final year of unrestricted numbers of cylinders and gears.
1968: Giacomo Agostini (MV Agusta) wins both 350cc and 500cc titles.
1969: As 1968.
1970: As 1968.
1971: As 1968.
1972: As 1968.
1972: Death of Gilberto Parlotti at the Isle of Man TT, leading ultimately to the loss of its championship status.
1973: Deaths of Jarno Saarinen and Renzo Pasolini at the Italian round at Monza.
1974: The Suzuki RG500 is the first square-4 in the 500cc class.
1977: The British Grand Prix moves from the Isle of Man TT to the British mainland.
1980: Patrick Pons (Yamaha 500cc) and Malcolm White (passenger Phil Love) (sidecar) were both killed in the British GP at Silverstone.
1982: The Yamaha OW61 YZR500 is the first V4 in the 500cc class.
1982: Jock Taylor (passenger Benga Johansson)(Windle-Yamaha) was killed at the Finnish sidecar GP. Imatra was subsequently removed from the GP calendar.
1984: Michelin introduces radial tyres in GPs.
1987: Push starts are eliminated.
1988: Wayne Rainey wins the first 500cc race using carbon brakes, at the British GP.
1988: Alfred Heck (passenger Andreas Räcke) was killed in during free practice in the French sidecar GP.
1989: Iván Palazzese (Aprilia) killed in 250cc German GP at Hockenheim.
1990: 500cc grid switches from 5 to 4 bikes per row.
1992: Honda introduces NSR500 with big bang engine.
1993: Shinichi Itoh and fuel-injected NSR500 break the 200 mph (320 km/h) barrier at the German GP at Hockenheim.
1993: Nobuyuki Wakai (Suzuki) killed during the practice session of the 250cc GP in Spain.
1994: Simon Prior, passenger of Yoshisada Kumagaya, on an LCR-ADM, was killed in a crash involving seven outfits in the Sidecar GP at Hockenheim.
1998: 500cc switch to unleaded fuel.
2002: MotoGP replaces 500cc class, allowing 990cc 4-strokes to race alongside 500cc 2-strokes.
2003: Daijiro Kato dies in first race of the season; Suzuka banned because of safety issues at 130R (there had been a serious Formula One crash at the 2002 Japanese Grand Prix in the same section).
2004: MotoGP grid switches from 4 to 3 bikes per row.
2004: Makoto Tamada earns Bridgestone their first MotoGP victory at the Brazilian GP.
2005: MotoGP adopts flag-to-flag rule, allowing riders to pit and switch to bikes fitted with wet- weather tyres and continue if rain begins to fall mid-race.
2007: MotoGP restricted to 800cc 4-strokes.
2008: Dunlop drops out of MotoGP.
2009: Michelin drops out of MotoGP and Bridgestone become sole tyre providers.^[5]^[6]
2009: Kawasaki suspends MotoGP activities for 2009 and considers privateer team.
2010: Moto2 replaces 250cc class, allowing 600cc 4-strokes to race alongside 250cc 2-strokes.
2010: Moto2 rider Shoya Tomizawa killed in Misano.
2011: Moto2 restricted to 600cc 4-strokes.
2011: MotoGP Marco Simoncelli died in Sepang.^[7]
2012: Moto3 250cc 4-stroke single cylinder class scheduled to replace the 125cc 2-stroke class.
2012: MotoGP scheduled to raise the maximum engine capacity to 1000cc.^[8]

Tires

Tire selection is critical, usually done by the individual rider based on bike 'feel' during practice, qualifying and the pre-race warm-up laps on the morning of the race, as well as the predicted weather. The typical compromise is between grip and longevity—softer compound tires have more traction, but wear out more quickly; harder compound tires have less traction, but are more likely to last the entire race. Conserving rubber throughout a race is a specific talent winning riders acquire. Special 'Q' or qualifying tires of extreme softness and grip were typically used during grid-qualifying sessions until their use was discontinued at the end of the 2008 season, but they lasted typically no longer than one or two laps, though they could deliver higher qualifying speeds. In wet conditions, special tires ('wets') with full treads are used, but they suffer extreme wear if the track dries out.
In 2007 new MotoGP regulations limited the number of tires any rider could use over the practice and qualifying period, and the race itself, to a maximum of 31 tires (14 fronts and 17 rears) per rider. This introduced a problem of tyre choice vs. weather (among other factors) that challenges riders and teams to optimize their performance on race day. This factor was greeted with varying degrees of enthusiasm by participants. Bridgestone had dominated in 2007 and Michelin riders Valentino Rossi, Nicky Hayden, Dani Pedrosa, and Colin Edwards all acknowledged shortcomings in Michelin's race tires relative to Bridgestone. Rossi, disappointed with and critical of the performance of his Michelin tires, switched to Bridgestones for 2008 and won the World Championship in dominant fashion. Pedrosa switched to Bridgestones during the 2008 season.
In 2008 the rules were amended to allow more tires per race weekend—18 fronts and 22 rears for a total of 40 tires. The lower number of tires per weekend was considered a handicap to Michelin riders. The only MotoGP team using Dunlops in 2007, Yamaha Tech 3, did not use them in 2008 but switched to Michelin.
For 2009, 2010 and 2011, a 'spec' tire supplier, Bridgestone, was appointed by the FIM (Michelin no longer supplying any tires to MotoGP). For the whole season Bridgestone provided 4 different specifications of front tire, 6 of rear, and a single wet specification—no qualifying specification. For each round Bridgestone provided only 2 specifications for front and rear. Tires will be assigned to riders randomly to assure impartiality.^[9] Jorge Lorenzo has publicly supported the mono tyre rule.^[10]

Riders

Top riders travel the world to compete in the annual FIM World Championship series. The championship is perhaps most closely followed in Italy and Spain, home of many of the more successful riders early in the 21st century.
The premier class in the early 21st-century seasons was dominated by Italian Valentino Rossi, winner of the 2001-2005 and later the 2008 and 2009 titles. In an effort to beat Valentino's amazing consecutive victories on the 500-cc two-strokes and then the 990-cc four-stroke machines, other companies signed younger riders on newly designed 800-cc machines.

Specifications

The following shows the key specifications issues for each class. It was also introduced for the 2005 year, that under rule 2.10.5: 'No fuel on the motorcycle may be more than 15K below ambient temperature. The use of any device on the motorcycle to artificially decrease the temperature of the fuel below ambient temperature is forbidden. No motorcycle may include such a device.' This stops an artificial "boost" gained from increasing fuel density by cooling it.

[edit] 125cc class

125cc KTM Grand Prix motorcycle

125cc machines are restricted to a single cylinder and a minimum weight of 80 kilograms. From 2005 onwards, all riders in the 125cc class could not be older than 28 years or 25 years for new contracted riders participating for the first time and wild-cards.

Moto3 class

The 125cc class will be replaced in 2012 by the Moto3 class. This class will be restricted to single cylinder 250cc 4-stroke engines with a maximum bore of 81 mm.[2]

Moto2 class

Moto2 is the new 600cc 4-stroke class to replace 250cc 2-stroke class. Engines are produced by Honda;^[11] tyres by Dunlop and electronics will be limited and supplied only by FIM sanctioned producers with max cost set at 650 EUR. Carbon-fibre brakes will be banned and only steel brakes will be allowed. However, there will be no chassis limitations. From 2010 onwards, only 600 cc four-stroke Moto2 machines are allowed.^[12]

MotoGP class

MotoGP is the 800cc class. The FIM has altered the specification for the class at several points in its history. At the beginning of the new MotoGP era in 2002, 500cc two-stroke or 990cc four-stroke bikes were specified to race. The enormous power advantage of the larger displacement four-stroke engine over the two-stroke eliminated all two-strokes from competition; the following season no two-stroke bikes were racing. In 2007 the maximum engine capacity was reduced to 800cc without reducing the existing weight restrictions.
MotoGP-class motorcycles are not restricted to any specific engine configuration. However, the number of cylinders employed in the engine determines the motorcycle's permitted minimum weight; the weight of the extra cylinders acts as a form of handicap. This is necessary because, for a given capacity, an engine with more cylinders is capable of producing more power. If comparable bore to stroke ratios are employed, an engine with more cylinders will have a greater piston area and a shorter stroke. The increased piston area permits an increase in the total valve area, allowing more air and fuel to be drawn into the engine, and the shorter stroke permits higher revs at the same piston speed, allowing the engine to pump still more air and fuel with the potential to produce more power, but with more fuel consumption too. In 2004 motorcycles were entered with three-, four-and five-cylinder configurations. A six-cylinder engine was proposed by Blata, but it did not reach the MotoGP grids. Presently four cylinder engines appear to offer the best compromise between weight, power, and fuel consumption as all competitors in the 2009 series use this solution in either 'V' or in-line configuration.
In 2002, the FIM became concerned at the advances in design and engineering that resulted in higher speeds around the race track. For purposes of increasing safety, regulation changes related to weight, amount of available fuel and engine capacity were introduced. The amended rules reduced engine capacity to 800cc from 990cc and restricted the amount of available fuel for race distance from 26 litres in year 2004 to 21 litres in year 2007 and onwards. In addition, the minimum weight of 4 cylinder bike used by all participating teams was increased by 3 kg.
The highest speed for a MotoGP motorcycle in 125cc category is 249.76 km/h (155.193 mph) by Valentino Rossi in 1996 for Aprilia and the top speed in the history of MotoGP is 349.288 km/h (217.037 mph), set by Dani Pedrosa riding a Repsol Honda RC212V 800cc during Free Practice 1 at the 2009 Italian motorcycle Grand Prix.^[13]
On December 11, 2009, the Grand Prix Commission announced that the MotoGP class would switch to the 1000 cc motor limit starting in the 2012 season. Maximum displacement will be limited to 1000 cc, maximum cylinders would be limited to 4, and maximum bore would be capped at 81 mm.^[14] Carmelo Ezpeleta, the CEO of Dorna Sports indicated that the projected changes were received by the teams favorably.^[15]

Weights

Minimum Weight - MotoGP Class
Number of cylinders	2002 Minimum	2007 Minimum	2010 Minimum
2	135 kg (300 lb)	137 kg (300 lb)	135 kg (300 lb)
3	135 kg (300 lb)	140.5 kg (310 lb)	142.5 kg (314 lb)
4	145 kg (320 lb)	148 kg (330 lb)	150 kg (330 lb)
5	145 kg (320 lb)	155.5 kg (343 lb)	157.5 kg (347 lb)
6	155 kg (340 lb)	163 kg (360 lb)	165 kg (360 lb)

In 2005, fuel tank capacity was reduced by 2 litres to 24 litres
In 2006, fuel tank capacity was reduced by a further 2 litres to 22 litres
From 2007 onwards and for a minimum period of five years, FIM has regulated in MotoGP class that two-stroke bikes will no longer be allowed, and engines will be limited to 800cc four-strokes. The maximum fuel capacity will be 21 litres.

Engine Specifications

Configuration: V2, V4 or Inline-4 (MotoGP class), Inline-4 (Moto2 class), 1-cylinder (125 cc class).
Displacement: 800 cc (MotoGP class), 600 cc four-stroke (Moto2 class), 125 cc (125 cc class).
Valves: 16-valve (MotoGP, Moto2), none (two-stroke engine) (125 cc).
Valvetrain: DOHC, 4-valves per cylinder (MotoGP).
Fuel: Unleaded (no control fuel) 100 Octane.
Fuel Delivery: Fuel injection.
Aspiration: Naturally aspirated engine.
Power Output: 240 bhp (MotoGP class), >150 bhp (Moto2 class).
Lubrication: Wet sump.
Maximum Revs: 17500 - 18000 rpm.
Max Speed: 217 mph / 349 km/h (MotoGP).
Cooling: Single water pump.

Champions

The Riders' World Championship is awarded to the most successful rider over a season, as determined by a points system based on Grand Prix results.
Giacomo Agostini is the most successful champion in Grand Prix history, with 15 titles to his name (8 in the 500cc class and 7 in the 350cc class). The most dominant rider of all time was Mike Hailwood, winning 10 out of 12 (83%) races, in the 250cc class, in the 1966 season. Mick Doohan, who won 12 out of 15 (80%) of the 500cc races in the 1997 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season also deserves an honourable mention. Valentino Rossi is the most successful contemporary rider, having won 9 titles including 6 Moto GP titles, and 1 each at 500cc, 250cc and 125cc levels. The current (2011) champion is Casey Stoner.

Scoring system

**Current Points System**
Position	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15
Points	25	20	16	13	11	10	9	8	7	6	5	4	3	2	1

Mobile Phone

2011-10-29T09:09:00.000-07:00

A mobile phone (also known as a cellular phone, cell phone and a hand phone) is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator. The calls are to and from the public telephone network which includes other mobiles and fixed-line phones across the world. By contrast, a cordless telephone is used only within the short range of a single, private base station.

In addition to telephony, modern mobile phones also support a wide variety of other services such as text messaging, MMS, email, Internet access, short-range wireless communications (infrared, Bluetooth), business applications, gaming and photography. Mobile phones that offer these and more general computing capabilities are referred to as smartphones.

The first hand-held mobile phone was demonstrated by Dr Martin Cooper of Motorola in 1973, using a handset weighing 2 1/2 lbs (about 1 kg).^[1] In 1983, theDynaTAC 8000x was the first to be commercially available. In the twenty years from 1990 to 2010, worldwide mobile phone subscriptions grew from 12.4 million to over 4.6 billion, penetrating the developing economies and reaching the bottom of the economic pyramid.^[2]^[3]^[4]

History

An evolution of mobile phones

Radiophones have a long and varied history going back to Reginald Fessenden's invention and shore-to-ship demonstration of radio telephony, through theSecond World War with military use of radio telephony links and civil services in the 1950s.

The first mobile telephone call made from a car occurred in St. Louis, Missouri, USA on June 17, 1946, using the Bell System's Mobile Telephone Service. The equipment weighed 80 pounds (36 kg), and the AT&T service, basically a massive party line, cost US$30 per month (equal to $337.33 today) plus 30–40 cents per local call, equal to $3.37 to $4.50 today.^[5]

In 1956, the world’s first partly automatic car phone system, Mobile System A (MTA), was launched in Sweden. MTA phones were composed of vacuum tubes and relays, and had a weight of 40 kg. In 1962, a more modern version called Mobile System B (MTB) was launched, which was a push-button telephone, and which used transistors to enhance the telephone’s calling capacity and improve its operational reliability, thereby reducing the weight of the apparatus to 10 kg. In 1971, the MTD version was launched, opening for several different brands of equipment and gaining commercial success.^[6]^[7]

Martin Cooper, a Motorola researcher and executive is considered to be the inventor of the first practical mobile phone for handheld use in a non-vehicle setting, after a long race against Bell Labs for the first portable mobile phone. Using a modern, if somewhat heavy portable handset, Cooper made the first call on a handheld mobile phone on April 3, 1973 to his rival, Dr. Joel S. Engel of Bell Labs.^[8]

The first commercially automated cellular network (the 1G) was launched in Japan by NTT in 1979, initially in the metropolitan area of Tokyo. Within five years, the NTT network had been expanded to cover the whole population of Japan and became the first nationwide 1G network. In 1981, this was followed by the simultaneous launch of the Nordic Mobile Telephone (NMT) system in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.^[9] NMT was the first mobile phone network featuring international roaming. The first 1G network launched in the USA was Chicago-based Ameritech in 1983 using the Motorola DynaTAC mobile phone. Several countries then followed in the early-to-mid 1980s including the UK, Mexico and Canada.

The first "modern" network technology on digital 2G (second generation) cellular technology was launched by Radiolinja (now part of Elisa Group) in 1991 in Finland on the GSM standard, which also marked the introduction of competition in mobile telecoms when Radiolinja challenged incumbent Telecom Finland(now part of TeliaSonera) who ran a 1G NMT network.

In 2001, the launch of 3G (Third Generation) was again in Japan by NTT DoCoMo on the WCDMA standard.^[10]

One of the newest 3G technologies to be implemented is High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA). It is an enhanced 3G (third generation) mobile telephony communications protocol in the high-speed packet access (HSPA) family, also coined 3.5G, 3G+ or turbo 3G, which allows networks based on Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) to have higher data transfer speeds and capacity.

Before cellular networks

A mobile radio telephone.

Mobile radio telephone systems preceded modern cellular mobile telephony technology. Since they were the predecessors of the first generation of cellular telephones, these systems are sometimes retroactively referred to as pre cellular (or sometimes zero generation) systems. Technologies used in pre cellular systems included the Push to Talk (PTT or manual), Mobile Telephone System (MTS), Improved Mobile Telephone Service (IMTS), and Advanced Mobile Telephone System (AMTS) systems. These early mobile telephone systems can be distinguished from earlier closed radiotelephone systems in that they were available as a commercial service that was part of the public switched telephone network, with their own telephone numbers, rather than part of a closed network such as a police radio or taxi dispatch system.

These mobile telephones were usually mounted in cars or trucks, though briefcase models were also made. Typically, the transceiver (transmitter-receiver) was mounted in the vehicle trunk and attached to the "head" (dial, display, and handset) mounted near the driver seat.

They were sold through WCCs (Wireline Common Carriers, AKA telephone companies), RCCs (Radio Common Carriers), and two-way radio dealers.

Origins

Early examples for this technology:

Motorola in conjunction with the Bell System operated the first commercial mobile telephone service Mobile Telephone System (MTS) in the US in 1946, as a service of the wireline telephone company.
The A-Netz launched 1952 in West Germany as the country's first public commercial mobile phone network.
First automatic system was the Bell System's IMTS which became available in 1962, offering automatic dialing to and from the mobile.
The Televerket opened its first manual mobile telephone system in Norway in 1966. Norway was later the first country in Europe to get an automatic mobile telephone system.
The Autoradiopuhelin (ARP) launched in 1971 in Finland as the country's first public commercial mobile phone network.
The B-Netz launched 1972 in West Germany as the country's second public commercial mobile phone network (but the first one that did not require human operators to connect calls).

Radio Common Carrier

Parallel to Improved Mobile Telephone Service (IMTS) in the US until the rollout of cellular AMPS systems, a competing mobile telephone technology was called Radio Common Carrier or RCC. The service was provided from the 1960s until the 1980s when cellular AMPS systems made RCC equipment obsolete. These systems operated in a regulated environment in competition with the Bell System's MTS and IMTS. RCCs handled telephone calls and were operated by private companies and individuals. Some systems were designed to allow customers of adjacent RCCs to use their facilities but the universe of RCCs did not comply with any single interoperable technical standard (a capability called roaming in modern systems). For example, the phone of an Omaha, Nebraska–based RCC service would not be likely to work in Phoenix, Arizona. At the end of RCC's existence, industry associations were working on a technical standard that would potentially have allowed roaming, and some mobile users had multiple decoders to enable operation with more than one of the common signaling formats (600/1500, 2805, and Reach). Manual operation was often a fallback for RCC roamers.

Roaming was not encouraged, in part, because there was no centralized industry billing database for RCCs. Signaling formats were not standardized. For example, some systems used two-tone sequential paging to alert a mobile or hand-held that a wired phone was trying to call them. Other systems used DTMF. Some used a system called Secode 2805 which transmitted an interrupted 2805 Hz tone (in a manner similar to IMTS signaling) to alert mobiles of an offered call. Some radio equipment used with RCC systems was half-duplex, push-to-talk equipment such as Motorola hand-helds or RCA 700-series conventional two-way radios. Other vehicular equipment had telephone handsets, rotary or pushbutton dials, and operated full duplex like a conventional wired telephone. A few users had full-duplex briefcase telephones (radically advanced for their day).

RCCs used paired UHF 454/459 MHz and VHF 152/158 MHz frequencies near those used by IMTS.

Rural Radiotelephone Service

Using the same channel frequencies as IMTS, the US Federal Communications Commission authorized Rural Radiotelephone Service for fixed stations. Because RF channels were shared with IMTS, the service was licensed only in areas that were remote from large Bureau of the Census Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs).^[11]

Systems used UHF 454 MHz or 152 MHz radio channels to provide telephone service to extremely rural places where it would be too costly to extend cable plant. One such system was on a 454/459 MHz channel pair between the Death Valley telephone exchange and Stovepipe Wells, California. This specific system carried manual calls to the Traffic Service Position System (TSPS) center in Los Angeles. Stovepipe Wells callers went off-hook and were queried, "Number please," by a TSPS operator, who dialed the call. Dial service was introduced to Stovepipe Wells in the mid-1980s. The radio link has since been replaced by cable. The analog service has since been replaced by Basic Exchange Telephone Radio Service, a digital system using the same frequencies.

Features

A printed circuit board inside a Nokia 3210

All mobile phones have a number of features in common, but manufacturers also try to differentiate their own products by implementing additional functions to make them more attractive to consumers. This has led to great innovation in mobile phone development over the past 20 years.

The common components found on all phones are:

A battery, providing the power source for the phone functions.
An input mechanism to allow the user to interact with the phone. The most common input mechanism is a keypad, but touch screens are also found in some high-end smartphones.
Basic mobile phone services to allow users to make calls and send text messages.
All GSM phones use a SIM card to allow an account to be swapped among devices. Some CDMA devices also have a similar card called a R-UIM.
Individual GSM, WCDMA, iDEN and some satellite phone devices are uniquely identified by an International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number.

Low-end mobile phones are often referred to as feature phones, and offer basic telephony, as well as functions such as playing music and taking photos, and sometimes simple applications based on generic managed platforms such as Java ME or BREW. Handsets with more advanced computing ability through the use of native software applications became known as smartphones. The first smartphone was the Nokia 9000 Communicator in 1996 which added PDA functionality to the basic mobile phone at the time. As miniaturization and increased processing power of microchips has enabled ever more features to be added to phones, the concept of the smartphone has evolved, and what was a high-end smartphone five years ago, is a standard phone today.

Several phone series have been introduced to address a given market segment, such as the RIM BlackBerry focusing on enterprise/corporate customer email needs; the SonyEricsson Walkman series of musicphones and Cybershot series of cameraphones; the Nokia Nseries of multimedia phones, the Palm Pre the HTC Dream and the Apple iPhone.

Other features that may be found on mobile phones include GPS navigation, music (MP3) and video (MP4) playback, RDS radio receiver, alarms, memo recording, personal digital assistant functions, ability to watch streaming video, video download, video calling, built-in cameras (1.0+ Mpx) and camcorders (video recording), with autofocus and flash, ringtones, games, PTT, memory card reader(SD), USB (2.0), dual line support, infrared, Bluetooth (2.0) and WiFi connectivity, instant messaging, Internet e-mail and browsing and serving as a wireless modem. Nokia and the University of Cambridge demonstrated a bendable cell phone called the Morph.^[12] Some phones can make mobile payments via direct mobile billing schemes or through contactless payments if the phone andpoint of sale support Near Field Communication (NFC).^[13] Some of the largest mobile phone manufacturers and network providers along with many retail merchants support, or plan to support, contactless payments through NFC-equipped mobile phones.^[14]^[15]^[16]

Some phones have an electromechanical transducer on the back which changes the electrical voice signal into mechanical vibrations. The vibrations flow through the cheek bones or forehead allowing the user to hear the conversation. This is useful in the noisy situations or if the user is hard of hearing. ^[17]

Software and applications

A Toshiba TG01 phone with touchscreen feature

The most commonly used data application on mobile phones is SMS text messaging. The first SMS text message was sent from a computer to a mobile phone in 1992 in the UK, while the first person-to-person SMS from phone to phone was sent in Finland in 1993.

Other non-SMS data services used on mobile phones include mobile music, downloadable logos and pictures, gaming, gambling, adult entertainment and advertising. The first downloadable mobile content was sold to a mobile phone in Finland in 1998, when Radiolinja (now Elisa) introduced the downloadable ringtone service. In 1999, Japanese mobile operator NTT DoCoMo introduced its mobile Internet service, i-Mode, which today is the world's largest mobile Internet service.

The first mobile news service, delivered via SMS, was launched in Finland in 2000. Mobile news services are expanding with many organizations providing "on-demand" news services by SMS. Some also provide "instant" news pushed out by SMS.

Mobile payments were first trialled in Finland in 1998 when two Coca-Cola vending machines in Espoo were enabled to work with SMS payments. Eventually, the idea spread and in 1999 the Philippines launched the first commercial mobile payments systems, on the mobile operators Globe and Smart. Today, mobile payments ranging from mobile banking to mobile credit cards to mobile commerce are very widely used in Asia and Africa, and in selected European markets.

Power supply

Mobile phone charging service in Uganda

Mobile phones generally obtain power from rechargeable batteries. There are a variety of ways used to charge cell phones, including USB, portable batteries, mains power (using an AC adapter), cigarette lighters (using an adapter), or a dynamo. In 2009, the first wireless charger was released for consumer use.^[18]

Various initiatives, such as the EU Common External Power Supply have been announced to standardize the interface to the charger, and to promote energy efficiency of mains-operated chargers. A star rating system is promoted by some manufacturers, where the most efficient chargers consume less than 0.03 watts and obtain a five-star rating.

The world's five largest handset makers introduced a new rating system in November 2008 to help consumers more easily identify the most energy-efficient chargers

^[19]

Battery

A popular early mobile phone battery was the nickel metal-hydride (NiMH) type, due to its relatively small size and low weight. Lithium ion batteries are also used, as they are lighter and do not have the Voltage depression due to long-term over-charging that nickel metal-hydride batteries do. Many mobile phone manufacturers use lithium–polymer batteries as opposed to the older Lithium-Ion, the main advantages being even lower weight and the possibility to make the battery a shape other than strict cuboid.^[20] Mobile phone manufacturers have been experimenting with alternative power sources, including solar cells.^[21]

SIM card

Typical mobile phone SIM cardGSM mobile phones require a small microchip called a Subscriber Identity Module or SIM Card, to function. The SIM card is approximately the size of a small postage stamp and is usually placed underneath the battery in the rear of the unit. The SIM securely stores the service-subscriber key (IMSI) used to identify a subscriber on mobile telephony devices (such as mobile phones and computers). The SIM card allows users to change phones by simply removing the SIM card from one mobile phone and inserting it into another mobile phone or broadband telephony device.

A SIM card contains its unique serial number, internationally unique number of the mobile user (IMSI), security authentication and ciphering information, temporary information related to the local network, a list of the services the user has access to and two passwords (PIN for usual use and PUK for unlocking).

SIM cards are available in three standard sizes. The first is the size of a credit card (85.60 mm × 53.98 mm x 0.76 mm, defined by ISO/IEC 7810 as ID-1). The newer, most popular miniature version has the same thickness but a length of 25 mm and a width of 15 mm (ISO/IEC 7810 ID-000), and has one of its corners truncated (chamfered) to prevent misinsertion. The newest incarnation known as the 3FF or micro-SIM has dimensions of 15 mm × 12 mm. Most cards of the two smaller sizes are supplied as a full-sized card with the smaller card held in place by a few plastic links; it can easily be broken off to be used in a device that uses the smaller SIM.

The first SIM card was made in 1991 by Munich smart card maker Giesecke & Devrient for the Finnish wireless network operator Radiolinja. Giesecke & Devrient sold the first 300 SIM cards to Elisa (ex. Radiolinja).

Those cell phones that do not use a SIM Card have the data programmed in to their memory. This data is accessed by using a special digit sequence to access the "NAM" as in "Name" or number programming menu. From there, information can be added, including a new number for the phone, new Service Provider numbers, new emergency numbers, new Authentication Key or A-Key code, and a Preferred Roaming List or PRL. However, to prevent the phone being accidentally disabled or removed from the network, the Service Provider typically locks this data with a Master Subsidiary Lock (MSL). The MSL alsolocks the device to a particular carrier when it is sold as a loss leader.

The MSL applies only to the SIM, so once the contract has expired, the MSL still applies to the SIM. The phone, however, is also initially locked by the manufacturer into the Service Provider's MSL. This lock may be disabled so that the phone can use other Service Providers' SIM cards. Most phones purchased outside the U.S. are unlocked phones because there are numerous Service Providers that are close to one another or have overlapping coverage. The cost to unlock a phone varies but is usually very cheap and is sometimes provided by independent phone vendors.

A similar module called a Removable User Identity Module or RUIM card is present in some CDMA networks, notably in China and Indonesia.

Multi-card hybrid phones

A hybrid mobile phone can take more than one SIM card, even of different types. The SIM and RUIM cards can be mixed together, and some phones also support three or four SIMs.^[22]^[23]

From 2010 onwards they became popular in India and Indonesia and other emerging markets,^[24] attributed to the desire to obtain the lowest on-net calling rate. In Q3 2011, Nokia shipped 18 million of its low cost dual SIM phone range in an attempt to make up lost ground in the higher end smartphone market.^[25]

Display

Mobile phones have a display device, some of which are also touch screens. The screen size varies greatly by model and is usually specified either as width and height in pixels or the diagonal measured in inches.

Some mobiles have more than one display, for example the Kyocera Echo, an Android smartphone with a dual 3.5 inch screen. The screens can also be combined into a single 4.7 inch tablet style computer.^[26]

Central processing unit

Mobile phones have central processing units (CPUs), similar to those in computers, but optimised to operate in low power environments.

Mobile CPU performance depends not only on the clock rate (generally given in multiples of hertz)^[27] but also the memory hierarchy also greatly affects overall performance. Because of these problems, the performance of mobile phone CPUs is often more appropriately given by scores derived from various standardized tests to measure the real effective performance in commonly used applications.

Mobile phones in society

Market share

Quantity Market Shares by Gartner (New Sales)
BRAND			Percent
Nokia 2009			36.4%
Nokia 2010			28.9%
Samsung 2009			19.5%
Samsung 2010			17.6%
LG Electronics 2009			10.1%
LG Electronics 2010			7.1%
Research In Motion 2009			2.8%
Research In Motion 2010			3.0%
Apple 2009			2.1%
Apple 2010			2.9%
Others-1 2009			12.6%
Others-1 2010			9.8%
Others-2 2009			16.5%
Others-2 2010			30.6%
Note: Others-1 consist of Sony Ericsson, Motorola, ZTE, HTC and Huawei.(2009-2010)

Mobile phone subscribers per 100 inhabitants 1997–2007

Global mobile phone subscribers per country from 1980-2009. The growth in users has been exponential since they were first made available.

The world's largest individual mobile operator by subscribers is China Mobile with over 500 million mobile phone subscribers.^[28] Over 50 mobile operators have over 10 million subscribers each, and over 150 mobile operators have at least one million subscribers by the end of 2009 (source wireless intelligence). In February 2010, there were 4.6 billion mobile phone subscribers, a number that is estimated to grow.^[4]

Prior to 2010, Nokia was the market leader. However, during that year competition emerged in the Asia Pacific region with brands such as Micromax, Nexian, and i-Mobile and chipped away at Nokia's market share. Android powered smartphones also gained momentum across the region at the expense of Nokia. In India, their market share also dropped significantly to around 31 percent from 56 percent in the same period. Their share was displaced by Chinese and Indian vendors of low-end mobile phones.^[29]

In 2010 worldwide sales were 1.6 billion units, an increase of 31.8 percent from 2009. The top five manufacturers by market share were Nokia followed by Samsung, LG Electronics, ZTE and Apple. The last three replaced RIM, Sony Ericsson and Motorola who were previously among the top five list.^[30]^[31] Outside the top five a significant market share increase from 16.5 percent to 30.6 percent was achieved by many smaller and new brands.

In Q1 2011, Apple surpassed Nokia as the world's biggest handset vendor by revenue, as Nokia's market share dropped to 29 percent in Q1 2011, the lowest level since the late 1990s. In June 2011, Nokia announced lower expectations for sales and margin due to global competition in both low-and-high end markets.^[32]

By Q2 2011, worldwide sales grew 16.5 percent to 428.7 million units.

Top five manufacturers by market share in Q2 2011
Source	Nokia	SAMSUNG	LG	Apple	ZTE	Others	References
Gartner	22.8%	16.3%	5.7%	4.6%	3.0%	47.6%	^[33]
IDC	24.2%	19.2%	6.8%	5.6%	4.5%	39.7%	^[34]

Note: Vendor shipments are branded shipments and exclude OEM sales for all vendors

Other manufacturers outside the top five are Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM), HTC Corporation, Motorola, Huawei, Sony Ericsson. Smaller players includeAudiovox (now UTStarcom), BenQ-Siemens, CECT, Fujitsu, Kyocera, Mitsubishi Electric, NEC, Panasonic, Palm, Pantech Wireless Inc., Philips,Qualcomm Inc., Sagem, Sanyo, Sharp, Sierra Wireless, Just5, SK Teletech, T&A Alcatel, Trium, Toshiba, and Vidalco.

Media

In 1998, one of the first examples of selling media content through the mobile phone was the sale of ringtones by Radiolinja in Finland. Soon afterwards, other media content appeared such as news, videogames, jokes, horoscopes, TV content and advertising. Most early content for mobile tended to be copies of legacy media, such as the banner advertisement or the TV news highlight video clip. Recently, unique content for mobile has been emerging, from the ringing tones and ringback tones in music to "mobisodes," video content that has been produced exclusively for mobile phones.

In 2006, the total value of mobile-phone-paid media content exceeded Internet-paid media content and was worth 31 billion dollars (source Informa 2007). The value of music on phones was worth 9.3 billion dollars in 2007 and gaming was worth over 5 billion dollars in 2007.^[35]

The advent of media on the mobile phone has also produced the opportunity to identify and track Alpha Users or Hubs, the most influential members of any social community. AMF Ventures measured in 2007 the relative accuracy of three mass media, and found that audience measures on mobile were nine times more accurate than on the Internet and 90 times more accurate than on TV.^{[original research?]}

The mobile phone is often called the Fourth Screen (if counting cinema, TV and PC screens as the first three) or Third Screen (counting only TV and PC screens).^{[weasel words]} It is also called the Seventh of the Mass Media (with Print, Recordings, Cinema, Radio, TV and Internet the first six).

Use of mobile phones

In general

Mobile phones are used for a variety of purposes, including keeping in touch with family members, conducting business, and having access to a telephone in the event of an emergency. Some people carry more than one cell phone for different purposes, such as for business and personal use. Multiple SIM cards may also be used to take advantage of the benefits of different calling plans—a particular plan might provide cheaper local calls, long-distance calls, international calls, or roaming. A study by Motorola found that one in ten cell phone subscribers have a second phone that often is kept secret from other family members. These phones may be used to engage in activities including extramarital affairs or clandestine business dealings.^[36] The mobile phone has also been used in a variety of diverse contexts in society, for example:

Organizations that aid victims of domestic violence may offer a cell phone to potential victims without the abuser's knowledge. These devices are often old phones that are donated and refurbished to meet the victim's emergency needs.^[37]
The advent of widespread text messaging has resulted in the cell phone novel; the first literary genre to emerge from the cellular age via text messaging to a website that collects the novels as a whole.^[38] Paul Levinson, in Information on the Move (2004), says "...nowadays, a writer can write just about as easily, anywhere, as a reader can read" and they are "not only personal but portable."
Mobile telephony also facilitates activism and public journalism being explored by Reuters and Yahoo!^[39] and small independent news companies such as Jasmine News in Sri Lanka.
Mobile phones help lift poor out of poverty. The United Nations has reported that mobile phones—spreading faster than any other information technology—can improve the livelihood of the poorest people in developing countries. The economic benefits of mobile phones go well beyond access to information where a landline or Internet is not yet available in rural areas, mostly in Least Developed Countries. Mobile phones have spawned a wealth of micro-enterprises, offering work to people with little education and few resources, such as selling airtime on the streets and repairing or refurbishing handsets.^[40]
In Mali and some African countries, villagers sometimes had to go from village to village all day, covering up to 20 villages, to let friends and relatives know about a wedding, a birth or a death, but such travel is no longer necessary if the villages are within the coverage area of a mobile phone network. Like in many African countries, the coverage is better than that of landline networks, and most people own a mobile phone. However, small villages have no electricity, leaving mobile phone owners to have to recharge their phone batteries using a solar panel or motorcycle battery.^[41]
The TV industry has recently started using mobile phones to drive live TV viewing through mobile apps, advertising, social tv, and mobile TV.^[42] 86% of Americans use their mobile phone while watching TV.
In March 2011, a pilot project experimenting with branchless banking was launched by the International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank, and Bank Harapan Bali, a subsidiary ofBank Mandiri—the biggest bank in Indonesia and one of the cellular operators in Bali. Its aim is to increase the amount of bank customers. In Indonesia, only 60 million people have a bank account even though banks have existed for more than a hundred years, whereas 114 million people have become users of mobile phones in only two decades. Branchless banking has been successful in Kenya, South Africa and Philippines.^[43]

Sharing

In some parts of the world, mobile phone sharing is common. It is prevalent in urban India, as families and groups of friends often share one or more mobiles among their members. There are obvious economic benefits, but often familial customs and traditional gender roles play a part.^[44] For example, in Burkina Faso, it is not uncommon for a village to have access to only one mobile phone. The phone is typically owned by a person who is not natively from the village, such as a teacher or missionary, but it is expected that other members of the village are allowed to use the cell phone to make necessary calls.^[45]

Whilst driving

Texting in stop-and-go traffic in New York City

Mobile phone use while driving is common but controversial. Being distracted while operating a motor vehicle has been shown to increase the risk of accident. Because of this, many jurisdictions prohibit the use of mobile phones while driving. Egypt, Israel, Japan, Portugal and Singapore ban both handheld and hands-free use of a mobile phone; others —including the UK, France, and many U.S. states—ban handheld phone use only, allowing hands-free use.

Due to the increasing complexity of mobile phones, they are often more like mobile computers in their available uses. This has introduced additional difficulties for law enforcement officials in distinguishing one usage from another as drivers use their devices. This is more apparent in those countries which ban both handheld and hands-free usage, rather those who have banned handheld use only, as officials cannot easily tell which function of the mobile phone is being used simply by looking at the driver. This can lead to drivers being stopped for using their device illegally on a phone call when, in fact, they were using the device for a legal purpose such as the phone's incorporated controls for car stereo or satnav.

A recently published study has reviewed the incidence of mobile phone use while cycling and its effects on behaviour and safety.^[46]

In schools

Some schools limit or restrict the use of mobile phones. Schools set restrictions on the use of mobile phones because of the use of cell phones for cheating on tests, harassment and bullying, causing threats to the schools security, distractions to the students, and facilitating gossip and other social activity in school. Many mobile phones are banned in school locker room facilities, public restrooms and swimming pools due to the built-in cameras that most phones now feature.

Tracking and privacy

Mobile phones are also commonly used to collect location data. While the phone is turned on, the geographical location of a mobile phone can be determined easily (whether it is being used or not), using a technique known multilateration to calculate the differences in time for a signal to travel from the cell phone to each of several cell towers near the owner of the phone.^[47]^[48]

The movements of a mobile phone user can be tracked by their service provider and, if desired, by law enforcement agencies and their government. Both the SIM card and the handset can be tracked.^[49]

China has proposed using this technology to track commuting patterns of Beijing city residents.^[50] In the UK and US, law enforcement and intelligence services use mobiles to perform surveillance. They possess technology to activate the microphones in cell phones remotely in order to listen to conversations that take place near to the person who holds the phone.^[51]^[52]

Health effects

On 31st May 2011, the World Health Organization confirmed that mobile phone use may represent a long-term health risk^[53]^[54], classifying mobile phone radiation as a "carcinogenic hazard" and "possibly carcinogenic to humans" after a team of scientists reviewed peer-review studies on cell phone safety.^[55] One study of past cell phone use cited in the report showed a "40% increased risk forgliomas (brain cancer) in the highest category of heavy users (reported average: 30 minutes per day over a 10‐year period)."^[56] This is a reversal from their prior position that cancer was unlikely to be caused by cellular phones or their base stations and that reviews had found no convincing evidence for other health effects.^[54]^[57] Certain countries, including France, have warned against the use of cell phones especially by minors due to health risk uncertainties.^[58]

The effect mobile phone radiation has on human health is the subject of recent interest and study, as a result of the enormous increase in mobile phone usage throughout the world (as of June 2009, there were more than 4.3 billion users worldwide^[59]). Mobile phones use electromagnetic radiation in the microwave range, which some believe may be harmful to human health. A large body of research exists, both epidemiological and experimental, in non-human animals and in humans, of which the majority shows no definite causative relationship between exposure to mobile phones and harmful biological effects in humans. This is often paraphrased simply as the balance of evidence showing no harm to humans from mobile phones, although a significant number of individual studies do suggest such a relationship, or are inconclusive. Other digital wireless systems, such as data communication networks, produce similar radiation.

At least some recent studies have found an association between cell phone use and certain kinds of brain and salivary gland tumors. Lennart Hardell and other authors of a 2009 meta-analysis of 11 studies from peer-reviewed journals concluded that cell phone usage for at least ten years “approximately doubles the risk of being diagnosed with a brain tumor on the same ('ipsilateral') side of the head as that preferred for cell phone use.”^[60]

In addition, a mobile phone can spread infectious diseases by its frequent contact with hands. One study came to the result that pathogenic bacteria are present on approximately 40% of mobile phones belonging to patients in a hospital, and on approximately 20% of mobile phones belonging to hospital staff.^[61]

Future evolution: Broadband Fourth generation (4G)

Main articles: 4G and 5G

The recently released 4th generation, also known as Beyond 3G, aims to provide broadband wireless access with nominal data rates of 100 Mbit/s to fast moving devices, and 1 Gbit/s to stationary devices defined by the ITU-R^[62]

4G systems may be based on the 3GPP LTE (Long Term Evolution) cellular standard, offering peak bit rates of 326.4 Mbit/s. It may perhaps also be based on WiMax or Flash-OFDM wireless metropolitan area network technologies that promise broadband wireless access with speeds that reaches 233 Mbit/s for mobile users. The radio interface in these systems is based on all-IP packet switching, MIMO diversity, multi-carrier modulation schemes, Dynamic Channel Assignment (DCA) and channel-dependent scheduling. A 4G system should be a complete replacement for current network infrastructure and is expected to be able to provide a comprehensive and secure IP solution where voice, data, and streamed multimedia can be given to users on a "Anytime, Anywhere" basis, and at much higher data rates than previous generations.

In March 2011, KT from South Korea announced that they has expanded its high-speed wireless broadband network by 4G WiBro cover 85 percent of the population. It is the largest broadband network covered in the world, followed by Japan and US with 70 percent and 36 percent respectively.^[63]

In early 2011, 4G mobile phones were released by Motorola, HTC and Samsung.^[64]

Air Soft Gun

2011-05-18T03:42:00.000-07:00

Airsoft guns are replica firearms that propel plastic pellets (also known as BBs) by way of compressed gas or a spring-driven piston. Depending on the mechanism driving the pellet, an airsoft gun can be operated manually or cycled by either compressed gas such as Green Gas (propane+silicon mis), or CO₂, a spring, or an electric motor, but are ultimately fired from a piston compressing a pocket of air. All these products are designed to be non-lethal out-of-the-factory and to provide realistic replicas.

History

In 1980s Japan it was illegal to own a firearm but there was a large interest in them. Because of this interest, manufacturers started to produce realistic looking spring-powered guns. These guns fired several calibers of plastic or rubber BBs, but were eventually standardized into 6mm sizes. The early spring-powered weapons then morphed into gas-powered ones, using a variety of systems. The hobby then migrated to North America in the mid 1990s.^[1] Then low powered spring guns transformed into Classic airsoft. About ten years after this time, Japan hit a recession just as AEGs, or automatic electric guns, hit the market. Many old manufacturers were lost, leaving Tokyo Marui, inventor of the AEG, as the primary manufacturer. Marui then invented an improved Hop up system, further improving the accuracy and range of the weapons. In the early 2000s, Classic Army of Hong Kong entered the scene and gradually improved its quality of guns until it now rivals Tokyo Marui. A few years later countless Chinese brands flooded^[2] the market with cheap entry level weapons.

Manufacturers

Currently, a large number of airsoft weaponry manufacturers are on the market, these include AGM, A&K, Booth Elephant, Celcius Technology, Classic Army, CYMA, D-Boys, DeepFire, Double Eagle, Echo 1, G&G, G&P, HFC, ICS, Jing Gong, Jing Ping, King Arms, KJ Works, KSC/KWA, KWC, Mad Bull Airsoft, Marushin, Maruzen, Tokyo Marui, SRC, Systema Engineering, Wei-E Tech, Well, Western Arms and WG.^[3]^[4]. Companies, such as Aftermath, Crosman, Cybergun, Echo 1, and UTG, rebrand and distribute guns, sometimes with other accessories in countries where some manufacturers may not have an established distribution network. Many of the best-selling airsoft weapons are high detailed replicas of real lethal weapons, which are manufactured and designed by companies headquartered in Asian countries or territories like Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong and China, however, European and North American brands exist also. Beyond airsoft guns proper, those companies may produce other items like BBs, airsoft grenades and airsoft landmines like S-Thunder, as well as spare parts and a varied range of accessories for the replicas, like scopes and mounts.

Usage

Soldiers with the US Army 187th Ordnance Battalion prepared to clear a room during urban combat training at the battalion's Field Training Exercise site. The Soldiers were armed with airsoft weapons as part of a pilot program in 2009.

See also: Airsoft and Legal issues in airsoft

Airsoft is used almost solely for recreational purposes. There are airsoft clubs, teams and even sports associations devoted to airsoft events around the world. In many countries, every airsoft gun owner and active enthusiast must be affiliated with an accredited airsoft association or federation. Most airsoft players host games at a registered field where combat situations are simulated using airsoft weaponry like replicas of pistols, carbines (including submachine guns), rifles (including sniper rifles), grenades and landmines. Great variety and profusion of militaria is usually used. Historical reenactment of war situations is another favorite of many airsoft players and clubs. In addition, a number of companies such as Systema Engineering and Celcius Technology manufacture ultra-realistic high-velocity airsoft rifles designed specifically for the police and military for non-lethal training purposes.

Types of airsoft guns

Spring powered

Spring-powered airsoft guns are single-shot devices that use elastic potential energy (EPE) stored in a spring to compress air to launch an airsoft pellet down the barrel of the gun. The user must cock a spring gun prior to each shot. This is typically achieved by pulling back the slide (pistols), bolt (rifles), or the grip on a shotgun, which in turn compresses the spring and makes the gun ready to fire.^[5] Because of this, these guns are by definition incapable of automatic or semi-automatic fire. Spring-powered airsoft guns are generally not as powerful as gas and electric models, although some spring shotguns and sniper rifles can be very powerful and shoot at velocities of 400–700 FPS. These are not hard to find and are generally inexpensive, and don't usually last long because of the tension created by a powerful spring. However, all 'springers', as they are called, can be modified and upgraded to last longer and shoot better.

While most electric guns also use springs for propulsion of the BB, they are not considered to be in the same category as the single-shot spring-powered guns. Low-end spring guns tend to be much cheaper than their electric-powered equivalents due to their simplicity and lack of electrical components (spring assembly, electric motor, battery, and battery charger) and thus are widely available. These guns are less suited for competition because they are at a disadvantage against automatic guns in close combat and do not provide enough accuracy and power for long-range use. There are some exceptions, however, as higher-end spring-powered airsoft rifles can be quite expensive; these guns are typically suited for "marksman" applications in airsoft matches and provide competitive muzzle velocities. Additionally, pump shotguns are sometimes used, especially in CQB (Close Quarters Battle). In colder weather, spring pistols are more reliable than gas-powered pistols and even the batteries on AEPs (Automatic Electric Pistols) both of which can be adversely affected by extreme cold.

This represents one of the major advantages of spring-powered airsoft gun, as it can be fired in any situation, without reliance on an external source of power, such as batteries or gas. The lack of reliance on external power sources causes some players to favor spring powered guns. Spring guns are also less susceptible to the effects of water, where a battery-powered gun could malfunction when wet.

Spring-powered weapons are often cheaper than electric or gas powered weapons. They are also more readily available in most department stores. Because of their price and availability, spring guns tend to act as "training guns" to bring new players to airsoft games and are considered the primary weapon of "backyard skirmishes". Almost all airsoft players at some point owned a spring weapon, whether for its actual use in the sport or for the replica value since some airsoft weapons are only available as spring versions.

Electric guns

Electric guns, in their varying forms, use an electrically powered gearbox to compress a spring, which, when released, propels the BB out of the barrel.

Automatic electric guns

An illustration of the working of a Version 2 gearbox

A Dboys M4A1 AEG

Electric-powered airsoft guns typically use a rechargeable battery to drive an electric motor, which cycles an internal piston/spring assembly in order to launch pellets. Automatic, 3 round burst, and semi-automatic operation is possible which gives these guns the popular name "automatic electric guns" or AEGs.^[6] These guns often attain muzzle velocities between 150 and 650 ft/s and rates of fire of between 100 and 1500 rounds per minute. They are the most commonly used and widely available type of airsoft gun.

These type of guns were developed in Japan and the Japanese company Tokyo Marui dominates the market. In a Tokyo Marui AEG, the motor drives a series of 3 gears mounted inside a gearbox. The gears then compress a piston assembly against a spring. Once the piston is released, the spring drives it forward through the cylinder to push a pellet into the chamber, through the barrel, and forward from the muzzle. Many manufacturers have now more or less replicated this basic model, adding reinforced parts or minor improvements. These guns are powered primarily by nickel metal hydride (NiMH) with varying voltages and milliampere hours ratings. The most common battery is an 8.4 V large battery (between 2200-5000 mAh.) Also available are "mini" and "stick" batteries, which generally have 900-1600 mAh capacities. Voltages for NiMH batteries range from 7.2 V, all the way up to 12 V. The rule of thumb usually is the higher the mAh, the longer the battery lasts while the higher voltage, the higher Rate of Fire (RoF). Recently, however, Lithium-Polymer, or Li-po, batteries are becoming more popular in the airsoft world. These batteries can last longer and have higher mAh and Volts while at the same time, being small and light. Li-po batteries are usually at 11.1 V or 7.4 V and at varying mAh from 500 mAh to 6500 mAh.

External modifications, such as metal bodies and reinforced plastics that make AEGs look and feel even more realistic, have become very popular. AEG manufacturers such as Classic Army and Tokyo Marui produce replicas that are visually nearly identical to their real counterparts. Tokyo Marui, however, sticks with a durable ABS plastic, whereas Classic Army features full metal bodied guns and stronger furnishings. Most AEGs produced as of late are designed to be as visually realistic as possible.

The three most common AEGs on the field are the AR-15 series (M16 rifle, M4 carbine, etc.; sometimes referred to as the ArmaLite or Colt series), the Heckler & Koch MP5 series, and the AK or Kalashnikov series. Also increasing popular is the Heckler & Koch G36 and more recently, FN P90. Subsequently numerous parts for repairs and modifications are commonly available for these rifles. AEG models range from a simple pistol to an RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade) all the way to a Minigun.

Hybrid guns

Hybrid Airsoft guns are the newest type of airsoft guns on the market. Hybrid airsoft guns are basically standard AEGs or Gas Blowback Airsoft Guns with a "little extra reality" built in.

AEG Hybrid Operation

the magazine is loaded with shell cases, each containing a single plastic pellet. These shell casings can have a small red cap, the same as those found in any child's toy cap gun placed on the top of them. These guns feature an electrically powered, full blowback system and operate on a "round-per-shell" basis such that for every pellet fired, a shell casing is ejected and the cap is fired providing a realistic sound and smoke effect. Since its debut, the only Hybrid guns seen on the market are cheap non-scaled M4 series and AK series guns, as well as M1 Garand, Kar98, and other rifle models. These guns are the least common type of gun on the market today.

Gas Blow Back Hybrid Operation

Hybrid Gas Blow Back Airsoft guns are quite similar with hybrid AEGs and their opereations are similar with Gas Blow Back Airsoft Guns. A single 6mm pellet is still loaded to a shell casing. Then it is placed into a magazine. The Airsoft Replica itself also has a tank for compressed gas as propellant (Such as Green Gas). So as the slide/bolt is pulled back, it loads a shell into the chamber. As the trigger is pulled, it releases a small burst of propellant and the pellet is forced out the barrel.

Low powered electric guns

Dboys selective fire "Boys" Colt ninja electric rifle, approx. 3/4 scale, pictured with .12 gram Crosman ammunition and Cybergun

Called low powered electric guns (LPEGs) to distinguish them from the original, more expensive and more powerful AEGs even though their mechanical/electrical design and operation is similar. They are not to be confused with Mini Electrics (described below). Originally they were only of novelty value, often regarded below spring operated guns due to their construction and low velocities. Since there are spring action guns that can notably outperform the true low end LPEGs and can be found at comparable prices, they are generally considered to be better choices.

Medium powered electric guns

Some companies - like UTG with their popular MP5 and AK-47 models - have improved their quality to such an extent that some models are now considered simply as mid-ranged AEGs that are more affordable but still reasonably effective. Among airsofters, these are commonly called middle powered electric guns (MPEGs). Sometimes, MPEGs are copies or 'clones' of designs by full-price manufacturers like Tokyo Marui^{[citation needed]}. As of late 2008 a small number of MPEG brands such as Echo-1/Jing Gong, and CYMA are considered by many to approach the quality and match the performance of the originals, at less than half the price. "Fully-compatible" MPEGs imitate the Marui or Classic Army originals so precisely that standard upgrade parts will work with them, making it possible to hot-rod an MPEG to well beyond stock out-of-the-box AEG performance.

Electric blowbacks

Electric blowbacks, also known as EBBs, are high-end AEGs which generally run from a rechargeable 9.6 volt battery. Most models utilizing this system are rifles. EBBs simulate the blowback action of a real pistol or rifle but generally have less of a kick. Essentially an AEG in design, EBBs are just as powerful. However, a drawback to having the blowback feature is that the battery is quickly depleted, additionally blowbacks can cause extra stress on the gear box which may result in the gearbox's shorter life span. The blowback system can be disabled with some tinkering.

Electric blowback can also refer to a feature in some higher-end guns which offers more realistic operation. Companies such as G&G^{[citation needed]} now offer guns such as the combat machine M4 which has moving parts linked directly to the main mechanism of the gun, such as the bolt. Echo 1 has recently released a Blowback MP5SD. Also APS (accuracy pneumatics shooting) makes EBB M4A1, M4 Commando, and the AK47. The M4's also have 3 others with an ris unit. These weapons perform identically to similar non-blowback offerings, with the added realism of reciprocating bolts and some recoil. Most models incorporate pneumatic blowback systems but some feature mechanical systems.

Mini electrics

Recently, the company UHC, well known for its spring guns, began manufacturing a range of electric guns in miniature size that fire only full automatic. They differ from LPEGs in that they are not replicas of real firearms, being miniaturized version of real firearms, mostly made of black or clear plastic.

They have a small ammo capacity, usually between 50 and 100 rounds, but they have good range and a functional hop-up. They have become very popular in recent years, and are now being manufactured by Tokyo Marui. These “minis,” as they are referred to, are not a viable option in games against AEGs since their small ammo capacity, short range and poor far range accuracy leave their wielder at a large disadvantage. Mini electric guns are able to compete with spring pistols at close ranges however, primarily due to their higher rate of fire.

Automatic Electric Pistols

Automatic Electric Pistols, abbreviated AEPs, were first introduced by Tokyo Marui in 2005 with their Glock 18C (followed later by a Beretta 93R model). They were the first handguns to incorporate an electric powered system that is capable of fully-automatic operation.

In cold weather, AEPs are often considered better sidearms than gas powered pistols, because batteries are not as badly affected by frigid weather. Gases like CO₂ and green gas are stored in liquid form and require heat in order to vaporize. A gas pistol at 10°F will usually only get one to two usable shots from a full magazine, and even they will be at reduced power because of the lowered pressure of the gas.

Because the AEP gearbox and battery are smaller, the velocity of AEP BBs (usually between 200 to 280 ft/s (85.3 m/s)) is relatively slow by the standards of airsoft simulations, rendering them useful only for close-range simulation. However, the advanced hop up units on these new guns tend to compensate for the low power and can produce an effective range comparable to those of an AEG. CYMA has made a clone Glock 18C, which is a lower priced alternative.

An AEP differs from electric blow-backs because the AEP has a fixed slide (in which there is no external movement of the slide during operation), while an EBB simulates the "blow back" action in the slide experienced in a real pistol or Gas Blow Back (GBB). An AEP, however, has much more power and accuracy.

One of the newer AEP-styled guns is the Marui replica of the Heckler & Koch MP7. It is considerably larger than either of the other guns, and can be upgraded to a much higher power through the use of an external battery, but uses the same system as the AEP, so the classification is ambiguous. It is slightly more powerful than the others and is a suitable choice for CQB (Close Quarter Battle) games due to its small size and decent barrel- to gun-length ratio.

Some semi-automatic pistols can be modified to be automatic pistols. To make them more effective, they use rechargeable batteries supplied with the gun, and can be replaced with a larger battery to make their ROF higher.

Due to restrictions on size, either the electric motor or batteries have to occupy space in the hand grip, reducing the available space for a magazine. Because of this no AEP uses a full size magazine found in most gas powered pistols.

In addition, most AEPs are constructed almost entirely of plastic and have a light, toy-like feeling to them.

Training Weapons

An airsoft gun made by Celcius Technology (Hong Kong). This Training Weapon model is a replica of the M4A1 and has also a G&P Trijicon ACOG scope replica.

High profile, top quality airsoft guns manufacturers such as Japan's Systema Engineering (PTW) and Hong Kong's Celcius Technology (CTW) developed a truly professional concept of airsoft guns and accessories intended for military and law enforcement training. These airsoft guns are made of aircraft grade aluminum combined with stainless steel parts that gives strength, stability, excellent weather protection, and easy maintenance. Using sophisticated electronics and ingenious mechanics, the training weapons offer the most realistic replicas and a proper display of the most accurate military firepower for an airsoft gun. The advanced high performance AEGs engineered and built by these companies are training weapons which are among the most expensive items that an airsoft enthusiast can buy.

Gas powered airsoft guns

These guns are capable of automatic and semi-automatic operation. The most common gases used are "green gas" and Propane which requires an adaptor, HFC-134a.^[7] Less commonly used gases include "red gas" (which is actually HCFC-22), CO₂ and nitrogen/high pressure air. It is unlawful to use HCFC-22 as a propellant in the US. HCFC-22 is a Class II ozone depleting substance and its use as a aerosol propellant has been banned since January 1994 under section 610(d) of Clean Air Act.^[8]

A gas blowback Heckler & Koch USP Compact replica, made by KSC.

Red gas is usually avoided unless the airsoft gun has undergone modification, as its relatively high critical pressure can cause damage to the airsoft gun, such as breakage of the slide or bolt. CO₂, nitrogen, and high pressure air are less common because they need to be stored at higher pressures than "green gas" or HFC-134a.

The first ever gas powered airsoft guns were commonly referred to as 'classic' guns, owing to their age. These guns were most commonly powered by liquid propellants such as R-12 (Which was marketed by the Japanese as FLON-12 or DuPont tradename Freon 12)CFC-12 feed system with a majority of the configurations containing two tanks, one containing the CFC-12 and one used as an expansion tank, and the gun itself. CFC-12 was a commonly used refrigerant for car air conditioning and refrigerators.

It is considered a highly potent ozone depleting substance and listed as a Class I Ozone Depleting Substance by the US EPA. Its use as a general purpose aerosol propellant has been banned by the US EPA since March 1978 under 43 FR 11301 for use in aerosol use with a very few exceptions.^[9] Its use is also banned in many countries under United Nations treaties. On Dec 31, 2008, the use of CFCs for medical inhalers were banned.

The use of Later users modified these old guns to be powered by regulated CO₂ canisters or nitrogen/high pressure air bottles to increase power and consistency. However, these guns have largely been superseded by the newer and more versatile AEGs, or automatic electric guns. One of the reasons for this is because the most commonly available propellant, R-12, is costly. Additionally, at high flow rates, liquid propellants tend to cool down, eventually freezing. As cooldown progresses, the rate of fire gradually decreases until the gun ceases operation. The user would then be forced to wait for the propellant to warm up again. CO₂ is not affected as badly by this tendency, and nitrogen/high pressure air is immune to it. Furthermore, if liquid propellant is introduced into the gun's mechanism, rubber parts can freeze and eventually damage the gun. However, it is unlikely for this to occur since once the gas is released from the containing cylinder it instantly turns back into its gaseous state, and expands rapidly. It is doubtful whether the retained pressure behind the BB before it begins to accelerate down the barrel is enough to keep the gas in a liquid form. Also, any gun that is expected to be exposed to the intense cold of de-pressurizing gas should have materials that can handle it.

Gas power tends to be used in airsoft pistols where size constraints make electric-powered mechanisms impractical. Other instances where gas is favored are where adjustable velocities are required or where a blowback feature is desired. A blowback feature is a mechanism which cycles a slide or bolt to better simulate a real firearm's operation. Because of the mechanical complexities involved with distributing and regulating gas, these guns have largely given way to electric guns for less specialized applications, however, they still remain favorable amongst most airsofters. They are not just limited to pistols; submachine guns, sniper rifles and assault rifles commonly use gas mechanisms. Whilst the submachine gun replicas typically feature a blowback mechanism similar to the pistol replicas, sniper rifle replicas usually omit the blowback mechanism in favor of reduced recoil and increased muzzle velocity.

Along with using gas to power guns, it is also applied for use in replica grenades. These grenades are both projectiles, fired from a grenade launcher such as the M203 or GP-25, or throwable. The shells work on the system of an internal piston, filled with gas. Either a series of BB's or in some cases a rubber or soft foam head is seated in or on top of the shell. When the pressure is released the projectile(s) are shot from the launcher sent downrange.

In the case of the throwable grenades, inside the grenade there is a similar piston to the one used in the shells, but is on a literal "timer" that allows the user to clear the area of effect. BB's or powder act as the projectile in the case of these grenades. Currently both types of grenades are not very common, mostly because grenade launchers are quite expensive and the throwable grenades are not very reliable.

Classic guns

Classic airsoft guns are usually older variety airsoft guns which are gas powered. Unlike the gas pistols of today, they can run on either an internal tank using conventional airsoft gas or use an external CO₂ tank much like a paintball gun. They generally cost more than the standard AEG but provide a more realistic approach to airsoft. Some models, such as those made by the Sun Project, feature a type of "recoil" provided by these guns. While these guns can become more powerful than AEGs, almost all users operate them at AEG power. These replicas often are fitted with a LRB (Long Range Barrel) instead of a traditional hop-up unit. The LRB turns the entire barrel into a hop-up system, giving a consistent spin on the BB. The rate of fire on these can be regulated by the amount of air being fed through the system, versus the motor strength of an AEG.

Sights

Optical sights are fairly common for use on rifles; mostly red dot sights and holographic sights for short-range use, and telescopic sights for longer-range use. These range from inexpensive sights designed for use on pellet guns and .22 rifles, to mid-range sights, usually inexpensive replicas of actual rifle sights (such as replicas of the famous M68 Aimpoint), to actual sights designed for use on rifles, including the EOTech Sights, and the Trijicon ACOG TA01NSN. Most of these sights are mounted on a MIL-STD-1913 Rail, however some guns including replicas of AK47s, MP5s, and G36s have special mounts for specific sights.

[edit] Magazines

KSC GLOCK magazines for their gas blowback models. Interesting features: the valve up top which releases gas when depressed by the hammer, and the lack of GLOCK logo on the right-hand magazine, as it came with a KWA GLOCK

Magazines are usually realistic looking replicas of real firearms' magazines and as such are made of the same materials like stamped metal or high impact plastic. They occasionally feature markings and/or engravings that match or mimic their real counterparts.

Airsoft magazines are divided into the following classes according to the number of pellets they hold:

Standard

Standard magazines are the type of magazine provided by Tokyo Marui and some other manufacturers with their guns. They are known as "Standard" or "Standard-cap" as they are the standard magazine for many weapons. Many contain around 68 BBs (the standard amount for a Tokyo Marui magazine) and are normally loaded by inserting pellets down a shaft, compressing a spring held inside that will later feed the pellets into the gun.

Standard magazines offer quiet operation (no rattle or manual winding of high-capacity magazines) and are sometimes the only option available for certain airsoft gun models. They are also useful to help players limit their ammunition consumption and simulate more realism by simulating the 20-40 rounds in a real rifle.

Standard magazines almost only come with Tokyo Marui guns whereas some companies like Classic Army or ICS supply high-capacity magazines with their guns. However, most magazines will not feed every single pellet, leaving 2-3 pellets at the end of the magazine or in the feed tube of the hop-up chamber (some players may circumvent this problem by inverting the gun to allow gravity to feed the pellets instead).^[10]

Medium capacity (Mid-cap)

These kinds of magazines are either bought or modded to accommodate from 50-190 BB's Traditionally, they still function like a standard/locap magazine and as such keep the advantage of quiet operation over high-capacity magazines (that require a winding mechanism), but minimize the disadvantage of a standard magazine's lower number of rounds. Increasingly, however, winding magazines are being released to the market and can be placed into this category due to their 200 rounds or less capacity.

High capacity (High-cap)

High-cap mags hold more shots than a mid-cap (about 200-1000), but a wheel has to be wound every 50-100 shots. High-caps are loaded by pouring BBs into the tank and either winding the wheel on the bottom of the mag or operating an electric motor.

Drum/Box Magazine

Drum and Box Magazines usually have the greatest ammunition capacity of all airsoft magazines; ranging from 2000 to 5000 rounds. These magazines replicate the ammunition boxes used by belt-fed support weapons such as M249s and M60s. Drum Magazines tend to replicate magazines like the Beta C-Mag and the equivalent for weapons such as G36s, AK-47s and MP5s. Internally these magazines work very similarly to High-Cap magazines and most have a push button operated electric motor to wind the spring that drives the feeding system.

Low capacity (low-cap)

Low-caps are identical in operation compared to standard magazines, but they carry the same amount of ammunition that the real version of the magazine can carry, which is often much less than the standard magazine, e.g. an M-16 Real-cap will hold 30 rounds instead of the 68 of a standard magazine. Some ultra-realistic groups require the magazines to be weighted to actual firearm specs.^[11]

These tend to be used solely by those wanting the most realistic MilSim ("MILitary SIMulation") games. They also offer the stealth of no rattling rounds, but their main use is for the realistic qualities.

Single Stack

Single stack magazines are reserved for pistols. The magazines hold anything from 7 to 28 shots depending on the weapon type. The BBs are stacked on top of each other, hence the term "single stack".

"Double Stack"

"Double stack" magazines are reserved for pistols. Unlike the single stack magazines, these are loaded in a staggered column, similar to many real firearm magazines. This allows for more BBs to be loaded without extending the length of the magazine. The term "double stack" or "double column" is a common misnomer.

Performance

Airsoft guns shoot plastic pellets at velocities from 100 ft/s (30 m/s) for a low-end spring pistol, to 500 ft/s and beyond for heavily-upgraded customized sniper rifles. Most non-upgraded AEGs using the Tokyo Marui system are in the middle, producing velocities from 270 to 300 ft/s (80 to 90 m/s) with the exception of companies such as G&G, G&P, Cybergun, Echo1, Aftermath Airsoft, D-boys, Cyma and Jing Gong which manufacture guns that produce velocities of over 328 ft/s (or 1J with a .2g pellet) stock. The internal components of most guns can be upgraded which can increase the pellet velocity significantly. Using heavier pellets (.25g, .3g, etc.) will significantly reduce the gun's muzzle velocity, but can increase accuracy at range and reduce susceptibility to wind drift. Conversely, lighter pellets may travel further but are less accurate. High-velocity AEGs often employ heavier pellets, as the velocity penalty does not affect them as much, while the accuracy benefits remain. Most high-end AEGs, such as Classic Army and Tokyo Marui, should not be loaded with anything lighter than 0.2 g pellets, as the lighter pellets (0.12 g, 0.15 g) are typically made for low-end guns, and are not built to the same quality (such as surface smoothness). The stresses the pellets go under upon firing could shatter lighter or poorly made pellets as they leave the barrel, potentially damaging both the weapon and the target.

Airsoft guns can be modified to increase pellet velocity, rate of fire, or reliability. For an electric airsoft gun, the pellet velocity can be increased by simply upgrading the mainspring. Doing this will increase the air pressure subjected to the pellet produced during operation. But due to the higher forces at play, it is advised that other parts should be upgraded together with the mainspring in order to maintain a high level of reliability. The rate of fire is increased by using a battery with a higher voltage, high speed ratio gears and/or a high speed motor. Rates of fire can be increased to over 20 rounds per second with very few upgrades, but with careful selection and extreme modification of gearbox components, rates of fire in excess of 50 rounds per second are not unheard of. In the case of gas guns, a higher pellet velocity can be achieved through the use of different types of gases and/or changing the valve. Some gases have detrimental effects to some plastic components inside the airsoft gun.

Airsoft guns commonly come with mounts or rails on which the airsofter can add external accessories. Some common customizations added are flashlights, scopes and lasers. Since some airsoft guns have the exact external frame as real guns, you can use these external parts meant for real guns, but the opposite does not apply. In no way can an airsoft rifle be modified to shoot real ammunition. In most cases, add-ons are more for aesthetics rather than performance. However, some scopes have scope rings (which are not usually included in airsoft gun packages) that are used to enhance accuracy.

Maintenance and lubrication

One should wipe his/her airsoft gun with a clean cloth after use, remove any dirt, oil and other contaminants. On the inside of the chamber and the barrel a cotton swab should be used to remove any dirt or possible shrapnel from shattered pellets/BB's. After every 3,000 to 4,000 shots fired, the airsoft gun should be lubricated, by placing a few drops of silicon-based oil into all moving parts of the gun, including the bolt, magazine, and chamber. It is important to not use too much oil, and wipe excess oil off the gun since excess oiling can lead to jams and will accumulate dirt and grime inside a gun. Stored airsoft guns should be placed in a cool, clean room. Storing a gun that is cocked is not recommended because it will wear out the spring.^{[citation needed]}

One of the most important parts of proper airsoft gun maintenance, is to use quality BBs. Some BBs, like the BBs most airsoft guns come with, are too light or carry surface imperfections that can damage the gearbox of a airsoft gun. Using BBs that are at least .2g or heavier is the most beneficial for the airsoft gun parts. One should never re-use BBs, as once fired they become chipped, scarred or covered with contaminants that can jam the airsoft gun. The use of metallic BBs, or any foreign objects, may damage the airsoft gun.

Airsoft guns, like any mechanical device are prone to heat and friction which cause wear. The airsoft gun owner can take steps to reduce wear and get the most life out of his/her airsoft gun as possible. A proper maintenance program that includes regular airsoft lubrication is very important to getting the most out of an airsoft gun. Silicone greases are widely used in airsoft gun parts, internals and mounts in order to avoid corrosion, abrasion and general aging of the materials. A dry-set lubricant is delivered with a solvent carrier to penetrate the mechanism. The solvent evaporates, leaving a clear film that lubricates but does not attract dirt and grit as much as a traditional "wet" lubricant. Airsoft safe lubricants use non-petroleum based, inert propellants that will not harm the rubber and plastic parts on the airsoft gun.

Trademark problems

Some airsoft guns can be such accurate replicas that they violate intellectual property laws (specifically those regarding trademarks), most notably some models from Tokyo Marui bearing Colt or Heckler & Koch trademarks that may not be imported into the United States. Certain companies such as Classic Army or ICS avoid this problem by licensing their replicas from the original manufacturers like ArmaLite by license from ActionSportGames or Olympic Arms. The airsoft company ActionSportGames has licensed trademark rights from many well-known firearm manufacturers, such as Armalite, DanWesson, CZ, Steyr, STI, B&T, Franchi etc..

House Resolution 607

On January 22, 2007, House Resolution 607: Military Toy Replica Act was sponsored by Rep. Rob Andrews (D-NJ), which states:

Directs the Secretary of Defense to require that any contract entered into or renewed by the Department of Defense include a provision prohibiting the contractor from requiring toy and hobby manufacturers, or merchants to obtain licenses from, or pay fees to, the contractor for the use of military likenesses or designations on items provided under the contract.

This would have meant that airsoft manufacturers producing airsoft guns based on those used by the Department of Defense would not have to pay licensing fees for importation into the United States, allowing legal airsoft versions of U.S. Military guns, with trademarks intact.^[12]

This bill never made it past subcommittee, and has not yet been reintroduced.^[13]

Safety concerns

world trends of 2010

2009-11-24T19:13:00.000-08:00

Ruthless capitalism went out of fashion way before the crisis hit

In 2010, prepare for ‘business as unusual’. For the first time, there’s a global understanding, if not a feeling of urgency that sustainability, in every possible meaning of the word, is the only way forward. How that should or shouldn’t impact consumer societies is of course still part of a raging debate, but at least there is a debate.

Meanwhile, in mature consumer societies, companies will have to do more than just embrace the notion of being a good corporate citizen. To truly prosper, they will have to ‘move with the culture’. This may mean displaying greater transparency and honesty, or having conversations as opposed to one-way advertising, or championing collaboration instead of an us-them mentality. Or, it could be intrinsically about generosity versus greed, or being a bit edgy and daring as opposed to safe and bland.

As always, the future is unevenly distributed: one only needs to look at the Googles and the Amazons and the Zappos and the Virgins of this world to get a feel for 'business as unusual'. So not surprisingly, the trends in this briefing all touch on doing things differently, driven by changing consumer preferences and desires. Time to study and learn from those brands that you think are already mirroring today's more diverse, chaotic, networked society, and then outdo them ;-)

A defining trend for 2010, 2011, 2012, and so on: urbanization on steroids. We'll let the numbers speak for themselves:

"Less than 5 per cent of the world’s population lived in cities a century ago. In 2008, for the first time in humanity, that figure exceeded 50 per cent. In the last two decades alone, the urban population of the developing world has grown by an average of 3 million people per week.”
“By 2050, it will have reached 70 per cent, representing 6.4 billion people. Most of this growth will be taking place in developing regions; Asia will host 63 percent of the global urban population, or 3.3 billion people in 2050.” (Source: the Global Report on Human Settlements 2009, October 2009.)

Where will this lead us? We’ve dubbed this extreme push towards urbanization ‘URBANY', representing a global consumer arena inhabited by billions of experienced and newly-minted urbanites. The significance?

A forever-growing number of more sophisticated, more demanding, but also more try-out-prone, super-wired urban consumers are snapping up more ‘daring’ goods, services, experiences, campaigns and conversations.
And thanks to near-total online transparency of the latest and greatest, those consumers opting to remain in rural areas will be tempted to act (and shop) online like urban consumers, too.

This of course creates fertile grounds for B2C brands keen on pushing the innovation envelope in any possible way. As Alex Steffen, editor of WorldChanging stated last year: “I’m certainly not saying that all innovation is urban, or that the suburbs are brain dead or anything. I am saying that compact, wired and wealthy urban communities seem to me to be becoming the epicenters of innovation these days, and that is going to change what innovations emerge.”

Preparing for URBANY and more sophisticated consumers is one thing, running with this trend is another. So here's a hands-on sub-trend to get you going: URBAN PRIDE.

Basically, in thriving mega-cities, whose economic and cultural power already often surpass that of entire nations, inhabitants’ identities will be closely tied to a city's culture, its brand, its heritage, its 'being'. This means that for big brands, delivering city-specific products, services and communications that truly incorporate a city's character, will be a great, human and fun way to pay respect to urban citizens around the world.

So, in 2010 and beyond, you basically can’t go wrong to appeal to urbanites’ pride. Some random examples:

The Absolut Cities Series first launched in New Orleans in 2007, when the brand developed a special mango and black pepper blend inspired by the city. Later in 2007, Absolut rolled out the City Series to Los Angeles, and in August 2009, Absolut released the taste of Boston - a black tea and elderflower vodka that has a backdrop reminiscent of Fenway Park's Green Monster.

Since August 2009, people using five Bank Machine ATMs in East London have been able to opt to have their prompts and options given to them in Cockney rhyming slang.
Guerlain launched a series of city-themed perfumes in July 2009, exclusively available at UK department store Harrods for GBP 130. Paris - Moscow is a combination of musk, fruit and wood; Paris - New York mixes vanilla, cinnamon and cedar; and jasmine, violet and green tea combine to create Paris - Tokyo.

Live reviews from aboard the maiden flight of BA’s new all-business service between London City and JFK

We recently highlighted NOWISM*, and while that mega-trend in its entirety should be on your radar for the next 12 months, let’s dive into one sub-trend that will be truly disruptive: the rise of REAL-TIME REVIEWS.

In short, with even more people sharing, in real time, everything they do**, buy, listen to, watch, attend, wear and so on, and with even more search engines and tracking services making it easy to find and group these ‘live dispatches’ by theme, topic or brand, 2010 will see ready-to-buy consumers tapping into a live stream of (first-hand) experiences from fellow consumers.

* Consumers’ ingrained lust for instant gratification is being satisfied by a host of novel, important (offline and online) real-time products, services and experiences. Consumers are also feverishly contributing to the real-time content avalanche that’s building as we speak.

** As more people are reviewing and contributing, the sheer mass of opinions will lead to a real-time stream of information, findable and viewable to all. In addition, online access and device convergence will allow more on-the-spot reviews. Twitter is the much-deserved poster child for real-time reviews: it has established itself as the real-time snapshot of what people are thinking/feeling/experiencing and yes, reviewing, around the world.

Next: Just because they can (Twitter's Direct Messages come to mind), consumers who will need more specifics after reading a review, will want to get in direct touch with the reviewer. And because of the self-selecting nature of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, these direct conversations will actually be welcomed by the reviewer, too. By posting reviews for his peers, he or she is almost angling for a follow-up. This will lead to real conversations between like-minded customers and potential buyers, without the brand even being able to monitor what's being said about its products, let alone being able to respond.

So, in 2010, expect numerous services to capitalize on this burgeoning ‘global brain', and its endless real-time reviews and verdicts.

Oh, and how to deal with REAL-TIME REVIEWS? Either outperform so reviews will be positive, or adopt a radical 'beta-mindset' (re-read our FOREVERISM briefing for more on this) which means you involve customers in your development processes from day one, eliminating the possibility of out-of-the-blue bad reviews upon launch.

Love this stuff? Then do re-read our TRANSPARENCY TRIUMPH and NOWISM briefings, too. No rest for the wicked

Luxury. Is it a family of six? Owning a SUB instead of a SUV? Needing nothing at all? You decide.

In 2010, luxury, and what it means to a bewildering number of ‘consumer segments’, will remain in flux.

So how will luxury brands fare in the next 12 months? What will define luxury over the next few years? The answer is ‘luxury will be whatever you want it to be'. After all, what constitutes luxury is closely related to what constitutes scarcity. And, beyond the basic needs, scarcity is in the eye of the beholder, especially those beholders who are desperately trying to be unique. Now that there are so many more ways to be unique than just buy the biggest and the most expensive, how about luxury constituting:

Anything commissioned? Providing 'access'? Secrets? Stories? Time with one's loved ones? Time for oneself? All things local? Peace and quiet, if not escape? Eco-friendly? Human-friendly? Animal-friendly? Caring? Empathy? Perks? Craft? Friends? Having a larger-than-life perspective? Households of six or more? An audience? Eccentricity? Appointment-only? Relevant information? Extreme personalization? Not having or wanting to consume? Being opinionated? Anything premium? Fuck-you money? Curation if not the absence of any kind of choice? Philanthropy? Bespoke goods and services? Knowledge? Skills? Frugality? Health? Etiquette & manners? Or a mix of any of these?

So don't worry about missing out on the next big thing in luxury, focus on defining it. How? By finding and coining the right (status) trigger for the right audience. Just declare that the end is nigh for anything that’s getting a little too affordable, too accessible, too polluting, or just too well-known. Then introduce something very different (if not the opposite), appealing to the in-crowds who are ready to jump ship anyway ;-)

P.S. We’re not saying ‘traditional’ luxury is going to disappear. Case in point: LIMITED LOCATIONS, a (F)LUXURY sub-trend that ties in nicely with aforementioned URBAN PRIDE.

We know you all know about limited editions as an enduring luxury-strategy; it is an easy way to appeal to consumers’ need for exclusivity and scarcity, amidst a 'Sea of Sameness'. So why not introduce LIMITED LOCATIONS to extend the scarcity theme to the distribution channel?

In 2010, just sell something special, something premium, something desirable in just one (geographical) location. Which means forgoing a chain-wide rollout or selling to all from a borderless e-shop. The limitation this will put on distribution opportunities will be compensated for by enthusiasm, PR and premium prices.

For shoppers, it brings back the thrill of (literally) having to go places to pick up something for others or themselves. Think about it, what better cure for retail blandness than to turn a Stockholm or Istanbul flagship store into a true destination again? Or what if every one of your stores/outlets/venues had its own unique experience and assortment?

Like aforementioned URBAN PRIDE, turning locations into destinations is something that will mainly benefit bigger brands, helping them become less cookie-cutter, less bland, as niche brands almost practice LIMITED LOCATIONS by default.

Examples from brands already having fun with LIMITED LOCATIONS:

Fashion brand Bape sells some of its limited edition lines only in stores in the Kagoshima, Harajuku, Nagoya and Matsuyama regions of Tokyo.
Burberry’s Blue Label is a line of Burberry stores exclusive to Japan that features a more fitted, sassier version of Burberry styles.
Le Labo fragrances, with fragrance boutiques in New York, LA and Tokyo, and mini-shops in department stores in cities like London, Las Vegas and Berlin, produces an exclusive scent for each major city it sells in, restricting the fragrance's availability to that city alone.
At Heathrow's Terminal 5, a number of brands have designed exclusive products for their airside stores. Travelers can purchase a range of one-off items, including a pendant from Bulgari, a silver model of the terminal itself from Links of London, and an exclusive Krispy Kreme T5 doughnut.

More people than ever will be living large parts of their lives online in 2010. Yet, those same people will also mingle, meet up, and congregate more often with other ‘warm bodies’ in the offline world.
In fact, social media and mobile communications are fueling a MASS MINGLING that defies virtually every cliché about diminished human interaction in our ‘online era’.

So, forget (for now) a future in which the majority of consumers lose themselves in virtual worlds. Ironically the same technology that was once seen to be—and condemned for—turning entire generations into homebound gaming zombies and avatars, is now deployed to get people out of their homes.

Basically, the more people can get their hands on the right info, at home and on the go; the more they date and network and twitter and socialize online, the more likely they are to eventually meet up with friends and followers in the real world. Why? Because people actually enjoy interacting with other warm bodies, and will do so forever. A list of MASS MINGLING facts and drivers:

Social media is all about other people to begin with.
From a recent Pew report: "When we examine people’s full personal network – their strong ties and weak ties – internet use in general and use of social networking services such as Facebook in particular are associated with having a more diverse social network. Again, this flies against the notion that technology pulls people away from social engagement."
The most popular and/or hyped online services, from Foursquare to Google Latitude to Loopt to FireEagle, are currently all about following, finding, tracking, connecting to, and ultimately (spontaneously) meeting up with interesting people (friends and strangers). For some users of these services, 'life-streaming' is now a reality, especially when combined with their blogs, tweets, and Facebook updates pages.
Terabytes of online (local) content is about informing and alerting people to make the most of their time with others in the real world.
Last but not least: The mobile web has bridged the gap between either being offline in the real world, or being online but in one location (mostly living rooms and offices). Thanks to a dozen years of predicting an imminent, mass-breakthrough of mobile internet, no one gets really excited about the prospect of no longer being stuck when online. However, it will dominate 2010, and it will fuel MASS MINGLING like there's no tomorrow, as online will be offline by default, and vice versa.

Next for MASS MINGLING will be even more impromptu, temporary meet-ups of strangers, mobs and crowds with similar interests, hobbies, political preferences, causes and grievances. Many of these (temporary) meet-ups will revolve around generating public attention, or getting something done. And here too, Twitter will lead the way (tweetmobs, anyone?).

The opportunity is obvious: Anyone involved with anything that helps people get and stay in touch, that gets people from A-Z, or that accommodates those people before, during or after meeting-up with others, should not only rejoice in MASS MINGLING, but make it even easier for customers to meet up in any possible way, too.

Now, there are thousands of MASS MINGLING examples as it is, so we'll stick with just one fun one that is still in 'concept':

UK network Channel 4 announced the ongoing development of a Facebook app for the hit show 'Come Dine With Me'. The app will give fans of the show, in which amateur chefs hold competing dinner parties for one another, the tools to host their own parties with their Facebook friends.

The numerous green opportunities we highlighted in our ECO-BOUNTY briefing are still up for grabs. From ECO-STURDY to ECO-ICONIC to ECO-TRANSIENT. So what else is building in the Green Arena in 2010? How about ECO-EASY:

While the current good intentions of corporations and consumers are helpful, serious eco-results will depend on making products and processes more sustainable without consumers even noticing it, and, if necessary, not leaving much room for consumers and companies to opt for less sustainable alternatives to begin with.

Which will often mean forceful, if not painful, government intervention, or some serious corporate guts, or brilliantly smart design and thinking, if not all of those combined.
Think anything from thoroughly green buildings, to a complete ban on plastic bags and bottles, to super-strict bluefin tuna quota — anything that by default leaves no choice, no room for complacency, and thus makes it 'easy' for consumers (and corporations) to do the right and necessary thing.

Some recent, random and hands-on ECO-EASY examples, from governments to B2C brands, to get you going (or better, to copy or build on):

The small town of Bundanoon in Australia's New South Wales has banned the sale of bottled water for environmental reasons. The community voted to replace branded water bottles with empty bottles labeled "Bundy on tap" that can be filled and refilled with water from taps and fountains on the main street.
In September 2009, French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced plans to introduce a carbon tax to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in France. Polluters will have to pay EUR 17 per ton of carbon emitted, which includes not only businesses but individual households as well. The tax will cover 70% of the country's carbon emissions and bring in about EUR 4.3 billion of revenue annually.
The government of Mexico City recently passed a law restricting businesses from giving out plastic bags that are not biodegradable. Mexico City becomes the second large metropolitan area in the Western Hemisphere to outlaw the bags. San Francisco enacted an ordinance in March 2007 that gave supermarkets six months and large chain pharmacies about a year to phase out the bags.

UK sandwich chain Pret a Manger decided to stop selling tuna sandwiches after the Earth Day 2009 release of End of the Line, a documentary exposing over-fishing of the world's oceans.

Consumers weaving their web of instant checking, tracking and alerting

If INFOLUST (consumers lusting after relevant information) is the enduring mega trend, then TRACKING and ALERTING are its du jour sub-trends.

First of all, 'TRACKING & ALERTING is the new searching', as it saves consumers time, makes it impossible to forget or miss out, and thus ultimately gives them yet another level of control. Count on everything being tracked and alerted on (there's more than FedEx packages!): from friends (MASS MINGLING!) to enemies to fuel prices to flights to authors to pizzas to any mentions of oneself.

Oh, and ALERTING, when done well, is of course the ultimate in INFOLUST: relevant information finding consumers, based on (voluntarily revealed) preferences.

The real opportunity in 2010? TRACKING and ALERTING is something that consumers actually need and want, that delights them, that they crave. They are quite literally asking for relevant information, even giving you permission to provide them with more. What’s not to like? Learn from examples below, then start adding to the current information overload in meaningful ways ;-)

A Box Life is an initiative by the Columbia sportswear company to promote the reuse of boxes used to ship purchases made from their online store. The program allows consumers to track the path and life of their boxes through Columbia's A Box Life website. Customers can enter a box's unique tracking number or QR code and see where it's been, how far it has traveled and find out about the other people who have passed the box on. In just over one month after A Box Life's launch in 2009, over 66% of all Columbia's orders were being shipped in reused boxes.
Fitbit is a small device the user can wear around the clock for continuous, automatic and comprehensive fitness reporting. With a 3D motion sensor the Fitbit tracks the user's activity in three dimensions and converts that data into useful information. Once this is uploaded onto the Fitbit website, users can view detailed data about their fitness-related activities; they can also enter data about what they've eaten and participate in collaborative fitness goals.
In an effort to be more transparent, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has introduced an online tracking program which allows New Yorkers to view city agency performance and the expenditure of the USD 5 billion in federal stimulus money that New York received.
Launched in San Francisco in early August 2009, Curtis Kimball's mobile Crème Brûlée Cart has attracted more than 8,000 Twitter followers, who rely on his tweets to find out exactly where he'll be, and what flavors are on the menu.
The Warm Cookie Radar from Specialty's Cafe & Bakery sends customers email alerts when batches of just-baked cookies have rolled out of the oven.
Kogi Korean BBQ sells its Korean/Mexican fusion food primarily through two trucks that are always on the move to new locations in the Los Angeles area. To know where to find them, customers must follow Kogi on Twitter.
In 2009, the Brazilian transit authority starting using Twitter to update São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro's motorists and pedestrians of any traffic incidents or transport news. The feed broadcasts tweets from the authority itself, as well as allowing users to share their own experiences of the city's traffic and transport.
MediClim is a free service in the US and UK for people suffering from arthritis, asthma and cardiovascular disease. Subscribers sign up on the website and complete a brief medical questionnaire. On days with weather conditions that are expected to trigger health problems, subscribers receive an email, or an alert through MediClim's Facebook application, with notification of the conditions and their possible impact.
Launched in October 2009, Lufthansa's MySkyStatus lets passengers keep their friends and loved-ones up-to-date on their travel progress. The online service sends automatic status updates on location, altitude, departure and arrival to passengers' Twitter and Facebook pages.
The NetHaggler browser plugin allows consumers to capture the details of any product from participating online retailers and then choose whether to Tag, Nag or Haggle. Tagging simply allows users to set an alert when the product reaches a certain price. If the user chooses to Nag, then their preferred price will be sent to the retailer who will respond with a yes, no, or counter offer. Haggling is similar, but allows NetHaggler to aggregate demand and negotiate a bulk discount. Note: for more pricing-related alerts, see our TRANSPARENCY TRIUMPH briefing.

And yes, ‘Augmented Reality’ (A field of computer research which deals with the combination of real-world and computer-generated data, where computer graphics objects are blended into real footage in real time. Source: Wikipedia) adds yet another layer of convenience to existing TRACKING and ALERTING services. It never ends.

GENERATION G(ENEROSITY). It was big in 2009, and it will be even bigger in 2010. In particular all things EMBEDDED GENEROSITY. It incorporates all giving initiatives that make giving and donating painless, if not automatic (after all, pragmatism is the religion ;-).
On top of that, with collaboration being such an integral part of the zeitgeist, expect lots of innovative corporate giving schemes that involve customers by letting them co-donate and/or co-decide.

So check out these innovative, corporate EMBEDDED GENEROSITY examples that are worth copying or improving on in 2010:

Australian Baby Teresa manufactures and sells a variety of 100% cotton onesies for babies, and, for each one purchased, donates another to a baby in need somewhere in the world.
IKEA’s SUNNAN LED desk lamp is powered by solar cells. The product retails for USD 19.99, and for every unit sold in IKEA stores worldwide, another one will be donated to UNICEF to give to children without electricity in refugee camps and villages in remote areas.
Still going strong, Procter & Gamble and UNICEF have joined forces for the fourth year running, in an effort to raise money for tetanus vaccines. Each time a pack of the Pampers or Fairy brands bearing a "1 Pack = 1 Life-Saving Vaccine" logo is purchased, P&G will donate the cost of one vaccine to UNICEF.
TOMS Shoes donates a pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair they sell online. As of August 2009, TOMS has given over 150,000 pairs of shoes to children in need. TOMS shoes plans to give 1 million shoes by 2012.
Sage Hospitality is encouraging consumers to complete 8 hours of volunteer service in exchange for 50% - 100% off published room rates in their 52 hotels. To take advantage of the 'Give a Day, Get a Night' scheme, customers must present a letter from the organization they worked for.
Give a Day, Get a Disney Day aims to celebrate and inspire volunteerism. Disney is working with HandsOn Network to highlight a variety of volunteer opportunities with participating organizations across the United States, Puerto Rico and Canada. Starting in January 2010, those who contribute their time can have it verified by HandsOn and they'll receive a voucher from Disney for one day admission to a Walt Disney World or Disneyland theme park.
Servus, a Canadian credit union, began handing out CDN 200,000 in ten-dollar bills, giving 20,000 people the opportunity to create a Feel Good Ripple by spending the money on someone else. By pledging CDN 200,00 to the effort, the company hopes to start a ' kindness movement' that will positively affect at least 20,000 people. Servus is distributing the bills through its branches throughout Alberta, and asking participants to write up stories of their kindness online.
Campbell's Help Grow Your Soup campaign aims to raise money to maintain farm buildings in need of refurbishment. The campaign asks consumers to vote for one of ten barns in need of work, and for every vote until January 2010, 1 USD will be donated, (up to USD 250,000) to restore the five barns which receive the most votes.
In October 2009, Twitter’s owners announced that they will begin selling wine through their label, called Fledgling Wine. The wine will be bottled from August 2010 and USD 5 of every bottle sold will go to Room to Read, a charity that organizes literacy programs for children around the world.
Chicago's Hotel Burnham launched the charity based initiative 'Casual Blue' in 2009. A USD 10 room credit is given to patrons who leave a pair of (old) jeans, which are then donated to local charities.

What insights can we possibly add to the avalanche of intelligence available on where social media is going? Here’s one modest attempt: the importance of owning and making the most (financially) of personal profiles.

And no, we’re not referring to companies / advertisers making money from personal profiles (jeez....), even though they’re dying to ‘mine’ personal data to serve up 'relevant' ads; we're putting our money on data and profile mining by its rightful owners, i.e. consumers. Hence the MYNING, not MINING. Opportunities:

Now that hundreds of millions of consumers maintain some kind of online profile/presence, who's going to set up an intermediary representing consumers who are willing to disclose (parts of) their purchasing intentions, and then invite companies to put in bids?
With personal profiles (which are the nucleus of one's personal brand) representing an ever-greater emotional and financial value, expect a burgeoning market for services that protect, store, and, in case of emergencies/death, arrange handing over of one's digital estate to trusted others.

Examples:

For guarding personal brands, check ReputationDefender and ClaimID.

For storing, protecting and handing-over individual data, check out Swiss DNA Bank, which launched in August 2009, offers ultra-secure DNA storage that meets Swiss banking regulations. For a one-time fee of USD 399, customers can store both their self-swabbed DNA and up to 1 GB of digital data, forever. The DNA and the web servers are held in a former Swiss military underground nuclear shelter in Gstaad. Customer's heirs can buy access to their relatives' shared data for USD 69. For consumers eager to keep confidential info out of the wrong hands, the digital data storage can also be purchased individually for USD 299.
Similar digital afterlife services worth checking out: LegacyLocker, Death Switch and Slightly Morbid.

P.S. We'll dedicate an entire Trend Briefing to PROFILE MYNING in the near future, so please stay tuned.

Let’s face it: 2010 will be rawer, more opinionated, more risqué, more in your face than ever before. Your audiences (who are by now thoroughly exposed to, well, anything, for which you can thank first and foremost the anything-goes online universe) can handle much more quirkiness, more daring innovations, more risqué communications and conversations, more exotic flavors and so on than traditional marketers could have ever dreamed of. In short; audiences in mature consumer societies no longer tolerate being treated like yesteryear’s uninformed, easily shocked, inexperienced, middle-of-the-road consumer.

We've dubbed this MATURIALISM (mature materialism), and, to go full circle, it is closely linked to BUSINESS AS UNUSUAL, to URBANY, to PROFILE MYNING, if not all trends in this Trend Briefing.

So, in 2010, the question is how far you can/should go as a brand, when mirroring societal beliefs that are about anything but being meek. And no, we’re not saying you have to be rude or nasty or inconsiderate; this is about being a tad more daring and diverse if you want to move with the culture.

Designed by Moscow-based creative agency Firma, "BDSM", "Fetish" and "Toys" are concept lollipops created for Chupa Chups with a decidedly adult feel (pictured above).

In a high-profile stance against Proposition 8 (which prohibits gay marriage in California) American Apparel released their Legalize Gay t-shirt in November 2008, which was originally printed to give to protesters at rallies and marches. However, popularity and support of the shirt was so overwhelming that the brand released the shirt for general sale.

The Icecreamists is a UK ice cream brand that has positioned itself using premium, X-rated flavors. The Sex Pistol is the most recent flavor, which is available exclusively at The Icecreamists' pop-up shop, open in London's Selfridges department store from September to November 2009, it is deemed so potent that sales are limited to one per customer.

Philips recently unveiled the latest addition to its ‘relationship care’ line of adult toys. The Dual Sensual Massager includes devices for both partners in a relationship.
Wine Cellar Sorbets sells a range of unique sorbets with varietal wines as the main ingredient. The range features traditional vineyard flavors including Sangria Rojo, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Rosé, Riesling and Champagne.

Parisian designer, Nicole Locher, has launched a collection of women's tops with embroidered messages including "I Aint Your Fucking Sweetheart", "Little Slut", "Don't You Fucking Look At Me.

In mid-2009, Air New Zealand launched an ad campaign designed to highlight the airline's transparent prices, which include checked baggage and refreshments. The ad features a range of airline employees going about their business dressed in nothing but body paint.

While the ‘risqué’ part of MATURIALISM makes for fun material (we obviously couldn't resist), the trend will equally become about more mature, real conversations with customers, it will be about educating consumers about the products and services you sell, how to make the most of them (yes, STATUS SKILLS come to mind), or about displaying the same transparency and openness about your processes and actions as individual consumers now display about their own lives, for all to see.

Afraid to offend and even lose some customers when jumping on the MATURALISM wagon in 2010? Just think of those future, less-uptight generations you’ll definitely lose if you don’t ;-)