No self-respecting person is going to toss out their address book into the street for one and all to peruse at their leisure. It would invite too horrendous a violation of privacy. So, it is only natural that we are loathe to trust our retired "keitai" to the tender mercies of the communal trash, especially considering the bountiful quantities of personal information that we leave in our phone's care. Getting rid of the hardware is easy enough, but how do we make sure that data kept on them disappears into oblivion, too? Exacerbating the issue is that technology and fashion attributes of mobile phones are changing at such a pace that a handset is lucky if it remains in employment after a year. This is feeding a constantly rising mountain of discarded but not disposed of phones. NTT DoCoMo as one of the chief keitai providers is naturally at the center of the dilemma. But it has burnished its credentials as a good corporate citizen by operating a recycling system for the secure disposal of no longer wanted handsets, and the erasure of the information stored on them. This recycling system has been available at DoCoMo stores for a couple of years, saving 40 tons of copper and more than 100 kg of gold in 2005. The system is now being extended with the help of the am/pm convenience store chain. The pair are teaming up to provide antitheft cell phone recycling bins in the convenience stores all over the country, providing a somewhat better option than a plastic bag on the sidewalk outside your apartment block.

Chained to the phone: Quite the opposite of the concept of disposing of keitais is a new cell phone strap from Strapya. This distinctive beastie sports a little metallic handcuff set, complete with keys, that you can use to attach you phone to your belt, preventing any accidental recycling. Those of a broader mind might see the potential for bondage sessions, at least with fingers. The dodgy items are available for 580 yen at item.rakuten.co.jp/keitai/43-904760.

Who needs Swatch?: One technology trend that shows no signs of losing steam is that of taking television on the road with an endless plethora of portable video-playing gadgets. Metallic Video is making a timely entry with its watch that can play videos and music on its 128x128 OLED screen, which is about the size of the face of a regular men's watch, operating off its 2-gigabyte internal memory. The entertaining timepiece will soon be available at www.geekstuff4u.com.