"Factoids," "Kirt's Cogitations," and
"Tech Topics Smorgasbord"
are all manifestations of my rantings on various subjects relevant (usually) to
the overall RF Cafe theme. All may be accessed on these pages:
Using a list on Wikipedia as my
source,
the following table presents cellphone manufacturer host countries in descending order
(see Wiki list for more details). Even though the majority of mobile phones
are manufactured in countries like China and Taiwan, most are not designed there - although China has
the single largest number of companies: 24 (17%). The United States comes
in second with 15 (10%) cellphone companies. India is home to 13
(9%), Japan hosts 8 (6%), and Russia has 7 (5%). There are a
total of about 144 that are not marked as discontinued. Stand-out names, at least as translated into
English, include 'Technology Happy Life' from China, 'Ringing Bells' from India, 'John's Phone' from
The Netherlands (and 'myPhone' from Poland, in case your name is not John).
In the list of U.S. companies, I was surprised to learn that Caterpillar - the earth moving equipment
people - makes a mobile phone. CAT
phones are ruggedized devices with special features like thermal imaging cameras. The Wikipedia list
has Garmin (GPS) in the U.S. list, but it appears they had maybe one failed
cellphone a few years ago and decided to stick with what they know.
RF Cafe began life in 1996 as "RF Tools" in an AOL screen name web space totaling
2 MB. Its primary purpose was to provide me with ready access to commonly needed
formulas and reference material while performing my work as an RF system and circuit
design engineer. The World Wide Web (Internet) was largely an unknown entity at
the time and bandwidth was a scarce commodity. Dial-up modems blazed along at 14.4 kbps
while typing up your telephone line, and a nice lady's voice announced "You've Got
Mail" when a new message arrived...
All trademarks, copyrights, patents, and other rights of ownership to images
and text used on the RF Cafe website are hereby acknowledged.
"
