When's the most embarrassing moment possible for your cell phone to ring? During a church service? How about a college lecture? A funeral, maybe? Nope, nope, and nope. Try being the poor sap whose phone not only rang, but quacked, during a recent press conference by President Obama.

During a live broadcast of a speech about gay rights yesterday, a White House correspondent's cell phone quacked like a duck. After a look of disbelief (and who can blame him?), Obama asked, "Who's duck is back there?" The press corps laughed, but then the president delivered a real zinger when he said, "Where do you guys get these ringtones, by the way? I'm just curious." Ouch, burned by the President. [From: Wonkette]

In case you haven't heard, the country isn't exactly rolling in the money these days. Some fortunate Verizon customers in Florida might get an unexpected kickback, however, thanks to a court-ordered refund from the wireless provider after it falsely charged customers for products they didn't want.

According to Broadband, Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum reached an agreement with Verizon and Alltel (now owned by Verizon) to repay customers $30 million for ringtones, music, wallpaper, and other items they didn't want (or understand) they were purchasing. McCollum says online scammers were charging users as much as $19.99 a month for content that customers believed was free. As part of the agreement, Verizon is also required to change some of its practices to ensure customers aren't fooled by these kinds of scams in the future.

We hate it when someone's cell phone blasts a popular song while we're eating in a restaurant or shopping at the grocery store. In our opinion, it's rude, tasteless, and annoying; just silence the phone, please. But a new claim by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) might make folks think twice about turning down that T.I. ringtone while in public.

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), ASCAP said in a legal brief that every time a music ringtone sounds in public, the phone's user is in violation of copyright law for 'performing publicly' without a license. Even though you've paid money for the ringtone, more is owed, ASCAP claims, in the form of a 'public performance' royalty. AT&T and Verizon contend that all parties involved with a given song's creation (songwriters, publishers, musicians) receive money for each download, making everybody square. ASCAP, though, says that's not the case.

According to the Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL), a new study in the Journal of Environmental Psychology claims that ringtones can have a damaging effect for memory retention, especially in the classroom. Apparently, distractions, such as ringtones, can have the most impact on the memory during times when the mind is absorbing new information (during a class, business meeting, or while studying, for example). The study, conducted in part by WUSTL postdoctoral psychology fellow Jill Shelton during her time at LSU, is titled: 'The distracting effects of a ringing cell phone: An investigation of the laboratory and the classroom setting.' No longer just an everyday nuisance, ringtones are apparently now memory blockers, too.

One of the experiments included having a cell phone ring loudly for 30 seconds in a classroom while a group of students listened to a lecture. Later tested on the material, that group of students scored 25-percent worse than another, non-distracted group that had listend to the same lecture. The case also observes that certain auditory distractions are worse than others. Shelton told WUSTL, "Depending on how familiar people are with these songs, it could lead to an even worse impairment in their cognitive performance." In other words, the more you know a song, the more distracted you will be.

Maybe it's just that a blaring polyphonic version of 'Single Ladies' reminds students of better times gone by. [From: Washington University, via Textually]

You know how Stewart Copeland plays that insanely slick triplet hi-hat part in "Message in a Bottle," and every time you hear it you wonder how it's possible for him to stay so perfectly in time? And you know how his drums fit so perfectly in the pocket with Sting and Andy Summers on pretty much anything The Police ever touched despite the fact they all hated each other?

Well, Copeland's "soundtrack" for the BlackBerry Bold -- commissioned by RIM -- should rid you of all of those amazing memories real fast. The drummer provided six ringtones, an alarm sound, and a Bold "theme" for the company's new device, yet not one of them is remotely pleasant to listen to.

In a word or two? They stink. [From: apc via CrackBerry; Photo courtesy of spisharam]

We've learned that cell phones ringing out loud can land you in trouble. For example, two Atlanta men were recently fined $200 because their mobiles spouted tunes in court, irritating the judge to the point of holding them in contempt. The answer? Set that cell phone to vibrate!

Yes, rules of courtesy and decorum suggest that you not subject those around you to obnoxious ring tones. So we send our compliments to Abbie Hawkins, a British hotel worker who thought she had silenced her phone, which she apparently carries around in her bra. We've seen other women do this, so we're not shocked by the practice.

But imagine Hawkins' shock when the twitching item in her undergarment turned out not to be her cell phone, but instead a live bat. Yes, a bat. With wings. (And fangs?) Perhaps it was receiving a text message from a Transylvanian baron?

Yes, the 19-year-old hotel receptionist spent a good part of the day carrying around a live bat in her bra, thinking it was her cell phone. The bat apparently crawled into her underwear while it was hanging on a clothesline outside her home. Small enough to go unnoticed by Hawkins, the bat apparently decided to go for a snug ride to work with the girl.

According to a quoted bat expert, the animals roost anywhere that appears dark and safe.

Hawkins, saying she felt bad for the little creature, released it outside. Let the Batphone jokes begin. [Source: Telegraph]

Who knew? There's now a ringtone hierarchy! On the Ringtone A-list, a new feature on AT&T's Web site, you can find out what ringtones your favorite celebs are using. Then you can buy them!

So who makes the cut onto the Ringtone A-list? As of now, Lupe Fiasco, Leona Lewis, most of the cast of 'The Hills,' and some people we've never heard of.

And what tunes are they rocking? Lupe Fiasco has chosen his own hit song as his favorite ringtone, which to us sounds like the cell phone equivalent of voting for yourself in school elections. Leona Lewis irritates friends and neighbors when "My Heart Will Go On" sounds off each time her manager calls. And the kids from 'The Hills?' They just do their Natasha-Bedingfield-meets-Kanye-West-meets-Linkin-Park thing.

We had a ringtone once, it was "Upgrade U" by Beyoncé. Now we just leave our phone on vibrate. [Source: AT&T, via Textually]

Sometimes we just can't help it -- we have to try things out for ourselves. So when Apple launched its new ringtone service for iPhones today, we had to give it a spin. We're not usually advocates of buying ringtones (since just about every single smartphone in the Universe lets you use MP3 files that you already own as ringtones), but we're talking iPhone here. Yes, we're suckers.

The process began with a painless iTunes update.


Annoying Thing Number One
Once installed, we went to the iTunes store to find some music that a) we like and b) actually has a ringtone available. Enter annoying thing number one: Unfortunately, most of our favorite songs haven't been made into ringtones: Nothing from The Jam, The Kooks, and the only Smiths song available as a ringtone is a quiet one that would get no one's attention (Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want).

Annoying Thing Number Two
We finally found a song we'd like as a ringtone, "Hey" by Oingo Boingo. So here comes annoying thing number two. We already owned the CD in question, but since we didn't buy it on iTunes, we had to re-buy the song before we could even then go and buy the ringtone. In the end, we paid for the song three times (once for the CD, once for the iTunes track, and once to turn it into a ringtone).

Annoying Thing Number Three
So we bought song, and the song was downloaded to our iTunes library. Now what? Here comes annoying thing number three. Turned out we had to tell iTunes to check which songs are "cleared" for ringtones. After doing so, a little bell showed up next to our purchased song and looked like we were ready to go, buuuut it forced us through a terms of service so we knew what we were getting into with ringtones. This was just a formality, but a time-consuming one at that.


The built-in iTunes ringtone editor is actually pretty cool - you can create ringtones up to 30 seconds of any part of the song. It's easy to set your in/out points and turn on and off fade in/out. After some tinkering, we were happy with our ringtone.


Annoying Thing Number Four
The joy ended quickly -- here comes annoying thing number four. Yes, another Buy button, this time for the ringtone itself. Time to pay for our song...again (even though we did all the work). So, we hit the Buy button, and, after a few seconds, the new ringtone showed up in our new Ringtones panel.,

So we synced our iPhone and hope for the best. Done! Yes! But...wait.

Annoying Thing Number Five
Here comes annoying thing number five. After a five-minute sync, our computer told us that "Hey!" was not copied to the iPhone because the computer was not authorized to play it. Yay for multi-layered DRM copy protection! Even though we bought the song on that computer, it was still not authorized. So we authorized both files (the song and the ringtone, mind you) and gave it another spin, crossing our fingers.


Success! We had our ringtone!

Was it worth it? We spent $1.98 to buy the song twice (once as a full song and once as a ringtone) and trundled through five annoying things, but we now have one our favorite songs as a ringtone on our iPhone. Should you try it? If you have the cash and must have that one song as a ringtone, go for it. Otherwise, you're stuck with Apple's pre-loaded ringtones until they add more (which we're confident will happen at some point).

Related Links:

• Apple Adds Wi-Fi and Ringtones to iTunes
• iPhone Hacked for Custom Ringtones
• Apple Offers $100 to Slighted iPhoners

Soon enough, you'll be be able to add video ring tones to the mix. Sending your own ring tone to a friend's phone is a cool idea, but think of the potential problems here. How many jokesters will choose the loudest, most irritating ring tone possible just to prank their friends? And don't get us started on the sorts of images people can expect to see flashing on their phones. This could certainly turn into one of the most interesting, but most frequently disabled, new features on cell phones in years.

From MobileTechNews