It appears that efforts to get mobile phone and communications providers to find common ground for a new generation of SIM cards have stalled. The European Telecommunications Standards Institute reported after its meeting in France last week that a decision – i.e. actually coming to a consensus – had to be postponed.

"The committee decided to delay any vote on the subject in the interest of trying to achieve a broad industry consensus, which is in keeping with the preferred decision making process at ETSI," the organization reportedly said in a statement.

Industry insiders point to a power struggle between Nokia and Apple, as the two companies are supporting two different – and opposing – standards for the new SIM card standard. Not surprisingly given the company’s do-it-ourselves-and-keep-it-our-brand ethic, Apple is backing its own design and aims to license it cost-free to other companies, but Nokia wants the industry to use its smaller SIM. Nokia also reportedly argues that its design more closely adheres to the trade group’s standards.

From this Network World story: "'Apple's royalty-free nano-SIM is an empty promise, because the company doesn't have any essential patents related to its nano-SIM proposal,' a Nokia spokesman said."We are not aware of any Apple Intellectual Property which it considers essential to its nano-SIM proposal. In light of this, Apple's proposal for royalty-free licensing seems no more than an attempt to devalue the intellectual property of others."

Whatever happens with the next generation of cards, for the time being, unlocked cell phones are the best way to keep yourself free of the proprietary turf wars over the thin pieces of plastic. With an unlocked phone, you can travel in and out of the country – even hopscotch throughout the world if you like – without going through the hassle of being tied to one provider and having to switch SIM cards every time you make a move.

Two student groups at Texas Tech – the Tech Activities Board and the Veterans Association — have organized a month-long drive for cell phones beginning in April, according to this piece in the Lubbock Avalanche Journal. The drive will benefit a unique non-profit started by two teens in 2004 called Cell Phones For Soldiers. The group provides deployed and returning troops free means of communication with family while they’re serving in the military, either via donated phones or calling cards purchased with funds garnered through selling donated phones.

Senior Jeffrey Poole, event organizer for the collegiate Veterans Association, told the paper that any kind of cell phones are appreciated, whether old, used or broken. Once they collect the used cell phones, the students will send them to the non-profit, which will in turn sell them to a refurbishing company called ReCellular Inc. There, they’ll be recycled or refurbished and sold. According to Cell Phones for Soldiers, each donated device valued at $5 will provide 2.5 hours of talk time on a prepaid calling card.

“It’s just something we can all relate to being veterans in the Veterans Association,” Poole told the paper. “A lot of us who have been deployed understand what it’s like being thousands of miles away from your family and loved ones. It’s really difficult not being able to communicate with them, and a free phone card really helps.” He himself was deployed to Iraq in 2008 and 2009.

According to its web site, Cell Phones for Soldiers has raised more than $7 million and provided more than 114 million minutes of free talk time. They mail around 12,000 calling cards each week, and they’ve also helped the planet by recycling more than 8.3 million cell phones that would have gone into landfills.

Texas Tech is just one group that has enlisted its members to collect used cell phones for the non-profit – they have myriad organizations and schools helping them, and their reach is only growing.

In what analysts say is a slap in the face to Nokia, an executive of Rovio, the maker of Angry Birds, said the latest edition of the world’s most popular mobile-phone game won’t appear on Microsoft’s Windows platform.

“We’re the No. 1 app in the Windows Phone app store, but it’s a big undertaking to support it, and you have to completely rewrite the application,” Peter Vesterbacka, chief marketing officer of the game’s maker, Rovio, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. The company this week began selling the new “Angry Birds Space” game for the iPhone and devices running Google’s Android platform.

According to the Bloomberg story, Rovio Chief Executive Officer Mikael Hed told Reuters the company was “working towards” getting “Angry Birds Space” on the Windows Phone 7 operating system, and a company spokesman said in e- mailed statement that the company is working toward offering its games on “all relevant platforms.” Nonetheless, observers think the move is a vote of no confidence in Nokia, which is betting on Windows’ operating system to resurrect its plagued smart phone business. Apparently, merely being residents of the same geographical area didn’t help Nokia score when it came to the game manufacturer that is making news with its intent to become an “entertainment brand” complete with amusement parks throughout Europe.

Consumers obsessed with Angry Birds – those who just can’t fathom owning a mobile device that doesn’t allow them to fling birds at hapless, hidden pigs – will surely skip the Windows phones (and Nokia), and head for greener pastures. If they don’t find what they want at the right price in either big box stores or at their carriers’ shops, they might have better luck with used cell phones. Depending on the dealer, the selection can be better and the price lower. As long as they can play their beloved game, they likely won’t care where they find their new device – or whether or not it’s truly “new.”

Toss out the Tickle Me Elmo doll and the Legos – Such relics apparently can’t compete with mobile devices like iPads and smart phones. According to a recent survey by LeapFrog, two-thirds of children now own a camera, gaming or mobile device and nearly a fifth of parents surveyed said their children know more about the modern devices than they did. Six percent of the 2,000 people questioned own a tablet and 70 per cent of children regularly play with their parents’ laptop or computer. For a laugh – and a very salient point about the generations of tomorrow – check out this video of a one-year-old playing with a magazine as if it’s a broken iPad.

The LeapFrog survey found that “UK children under 10 spend almost an hour a day using technology-based products at home rather than opting for more traditional games like toy soldiers or dolls.” Half of British families say they use technology to bond, while 39 per cent said they use it as an educational tool for their kids.

Since kids as young as toddler-aged are playing with their parents tablets and phones and the average age that children get their first personal device is skewing younger and younger all the time, buying them used cell phones is a good way to allow them to practice their digital skills without having to dish out top-dollar for the latest phone with all the bells and whistles. Another advantage: They’re likely to break or drop the device at least once (though the baby above is remarkably gentle with the iPad), and most shops that sell used cell phones also do cell phone repair. It’s all well and good to usher the children into the digital age, but there’s no use in spending exorbitant amounts of money to do so, just like there’s no point spending a fortune on clothes they’ll soon grow out of.

Even in Canada – long a devotee of native RIM BlackBerry – Steve Jobs has made his impact and shot to the top. Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM) has lost its top spot for smart phone shipments in its local market for the first time, now number two after Apple and its unstoppable iPhone.

According to a recent Bloomberg story, RIM, based in Waterloo, Ontario, shipped 2.08 million BlackBerrys last year in Canada, compared with 2.85 million units for Apple, data compiled by IDC and Bloomberg show. In 2010, the BlackBerry topped the iPhone by half a million, and in 2008, the year after the iPhone’s debut, RIM outsold Apple by almost five to one. BlackBerry – among the largest consumer brands to come from Canada — had enjoyed loyalty among locals, but its downward slide is reflective of the iPhone’s user-friendly features and wealth of apps Paul Taylor, a fund manager at BMO Harris Private Banking in Toronto told Bloomberg. Even though many Canadian banks and government agencies remain loyal to RIM, Apple’s launch to the top is still an important market shift.

For companies and individuals switching to the iPhone and finding the brand new models to be pricey – not to mention the service plans – making the switch by beginning with used cell phones can be a less costly route. Lightly used iPhones can be just as user friendly and capable but less expensive, especially when you buy your first phone and aren’t entitled to a discounted upgrade.

Movies are becoming more widely available and it’s becoming increasingly easy to stream them. Just last week, the news broke that Amazon and Google have even begun offering two new movies separately for video on-demand  customers – weeks before they’re released in theaters!

Amazon’s The Hunter (starring Wilem Dafoe), from Magnolia Pictures, goes for  $9.99 for a 48-hour rental through its Amazon Instant Video service, and Google is renting Dark Tide (starring Halle Berry) from Lionsgate for $9.99 before its March 30 arrival in theaters. Magnolia, owned by Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, often releases independent films on disc and electronically prior to theatrical launch, while “Lionsgate has aggressively mixed up release windows for select titles, including recently bowing action film Abduction, starring Twilight actor Taylor Lautner, on VOD ahead of its packaged media release.”

As this trend continues, more and more people will be watching movies on their tablets and smart phones in airports and on planes and trains. And this converges with another trend – people seem to want their smart phones to come with bigger and bigger screens, which manufacturers are making at a feverish pace. The average screen consumers now want is 4 inches in diameter.

It’s possible to find such screens through businesses that carry used cell phones and refurbished cell phones, often a good way to save some money. CellularTrendz, for instance, has the LG Thrive P506, the Motorola Droid X2 and the myTouch 4G – all phones with fairly large phones. Pick one up and watch some new movies before they even reach theaters!

A collaborative program in Myrtle Beach unites local schools, community members and a telephone cooperative to re-use cell phones, coming together to minimize waste and lower petroleum use for plastics, as well as help low-income students and homeless people who don’t have cell phones. The program began with recycling  phone directories but has come to include used cell phones.

“Nicole Hyman, senior marketing coordinator for Horry Telephone Cooperative, said most all public and private schools in Horry and Georgetown counties, numerous businesses and individuals participate in the directory and cell phone recycling program,” the article reports. “"Our goal for this campaign is to continue this joint effort that supports area schools and the environment - both of which are crucial to our children's future. During the course of a year, a large number of schools in our service area request support for new technology in the classroom. This recycling partnership presents an excellent opportunity for schools to win technology prizes for classroom use and creates environmental awareness by involving students, parents, and communities.”

Cool program. But you don’t need an official one like it to do the same in your own community. Recycling used cell phones in the interest of reducing waste, helping the environment and ensuring people less fortunate have one – not just for socializing and logistics but for safety – is easy. Most people have at least two or three old phones laying around – collect a few and make someone’s day!

If you missed it, Wal-Mart named T-Mobile its 2011 “Supplier of the Year” for the entertainment and wireless category. We hate to use Wal-Mart as some sort of market genius on-high, but we have to admit that the behemoth has some serious sales clout, provides cheap plans and gadgets for the lower income masses – and most people, when it comes down to it – plus, since the company makes so much money it's obviously creating value in the marketplace and has some things to show for it.

Last October, Wal-Mart and T-Mobile started offering a $30 unlimited web and text monthly 4G prepaid service plan (granted, some people have taken issue with the “unlimited” characterization – like this guy who points out data could garner exorbitant charges), presumably to satiate a growing demand for the service. As a result, Wal-Mart’s and T-Mobile’s sales of these plans have surged.

If you’re a prepaid plan fan – or a T-Mobile fan in general – keep in mind that buying used cell phones for use with the carrier is an option that gives you more flexibility and choice. Plus, it enables you to avoid something. Remember the feeling you had the last time you shopped at Wal-Mart and were seduced into buying so much stuff you didn’t really need just because it was so cheap, arriving home with bags full of plastic gadgets? It’s called something like guilt. Buyer’s remorse, but not just because you wasted money on things you didn’t need, also because of the toll all of that plastic and garbage takes on the planet. With used cell phones, you get the same satisfied, at-least-I’m-doing-my-part feeling you have when you toss glass in the recycling bin.

For any business owner, but especially a small business owner, cutting costs is key, especially in the current market (recovery or not).  TriNet recently released a white paper called, “An Executive’s Guide to Cutting HR Costs,” which outlines ways to do just that.

“Most small business executives want to focus on their core business—usually the founder’s area of expertise,” the paper begins, “Still, the economics of profit and loss demand that entrepreneurs must deal with what they may view as the “HR troll”—the all-important but dreaded management of human capital and the programs that are as important to the healthy life of the company as food and water are to the human body. You can ignore what’s good for you for only so long.  And then it catches up with you.”

The two components that keep HR costs lower? Increasing productivity and minimizing human capital expenses (hiring the right people, improving their performance with motivational compensation, complying with the law – failing to keep the worksite safe and incurring on-the-job injuries followed by lawsuits is bad for business – and offering competitive benefits that are communicated effectively).

That’s a complex set of moving parts, and managing them requires experience, study and a skilled management team. But what’s one simple, mechanical detail on which most people’s productivity depends? Their phones. Another – and exceedingly simple – way to save money by cutting expenses is to supply your employees with used cell phones or refurbished cell phones. They’re cheaper to begin with, and when you find a skilled retailer and repair shop like CellularTrendz, you know that when something minor breaks, you can have it repaired quickly and inexpensively instead of having to replace the entire phone. What’s that expression? Keep. It. Simple. Stupid. Yeah, that’s it: We’re all for constantly evolving HR management principles, but when you can cut expenses without using too many brain cells, why not do it?