What Can Your Cell Phone Do?

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What Can Your Cell Phone Do? We know cell phones can do a lot of cool things, but can you believe everything you hear? Reporter: Alison Struve Email Address: astruve@wsaw.com What Can Your Cell Phone Do?

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We know cell phones can do a lot of cool things, but can you believe everything you hear?

Here's an email you may have seen pop up in your e-mail lately:

THINGS YOU NEVER KNEW YOUR CELL PHONE COULD DO.

There are a few things that can be done in times of grave emergencies.
Your mobile phone can actually be a life saver or an emergency tool for
survival. Check out the things that you can do with it:

FIRST Subject: Emergency The Emergency Number worldwide for Mobile is
112. If you find yourself out of the coverage area of your mobile;
network and there is an emergency, dial 112 and the mobile will search
any existing network to establish the emergency number for you, and
interestingly this number 112 can be dialed even if the keypad is
locked. Try it out.

SECOND Subject: Have you locked your keys in the car? Does your car have
remote keyless entry? This may come in handy someday. Good reason to own
a cell phone: If you lock your keys in the car and the spare keys are at
home, call someone at home on their cell phone from your cell phone.
Hold your cell phone about a foot from your car door and have the person
at your home press the unlock button, holding it near the mobile phone
on their end. Your car will unlock. Saves someone from having to drive
your keys to you. Distance is no object. You could be hundreds of miles
away, and if you can reach someone who has the other "remote" for your
car, you can unlock the doors (or the trunk).
Editor's Note: "It works fine! We tried it out and it unlocked our car
over a cell phone!"

THIRD Subject: Hidden Battery Power Imagine your cell battery is very
low. To activate, press the keys *3370# Your cell will restart with this
reserve and the instrument will show a 50% increase in battery. This
reserve will get charged when you charge your cell next time.

FOURTH
How to disable a STOLEN mobile phone? To check your Mobile phone's
serial number, key in the following digits on your phone: * # 0 6 #
A 15 digit code will appear on the screen. This number is unique to your
handset. Write it down and keep it somewhere safe. When your phone gets
stolen, you can phone your service provider and give them this code.
They will then be able to block your handset so even if the thief
changes the SIM card, your phone will be totally useless. You probably
won't get your phone back, but at least you know that whoever stole it
can't use/sell it either. If everybody does this, there would be no
point in people stealing mobile phones.

FIFTH
Cell phone companies are charging us $1.00 to $1.75 or more for
411 information calls when they don't have to. Most of us do not carry a
telephone directory in our vehicle, which makes this situation even more
of a problem. When you need to use the 411 information option, simply
dial:
(800) FREE 411, or (800) 373-3411 without incurring any charge at all.
Program this into your cellphone now. This is the kind of information
people don't mind receiving, so pass it on to your family and friends.

We tried 112, but our call couldn't be completed.

We also tried to unlock a car door through the phone, but couldn't get it to work.

Typing in *3370# depends on your phone manufacturer, but we couldn't increase battery power with any phones we tried.

* # 0 6 # will bring up a 15-digit code on some phones, but it may not be necessary to provide it to your cell phone company.

If your phone is lost or stolen, it may be easier to just report it.

And 1(800) FREE 411 does work, but it may not provide as complete directory assistance as the regular 411, according to Cellcom Manager John Schult.

Schult says if you hear a rumor about cellphones, it's always a good idea to call your cell phone company to see if it's true.