Mobile Religion

Disclaimer: This text has no intention of offending any religious belief. I just find interesting the new uses of mobile phones

Once merely a useful tool for keeping in touch, the mobile phone is fast becoming an instrument of spiritual enlightenment.

• For followers of Islam, companies such as LG Electronics and Dubai-based Ilkone Mobile Telecommunications make phones that aid Muslims in their daily practice by indicating the direction of Mecca, providing the call to prayer or even incorporating the Quran within the phone. Even those with a regular phone can augment it with a religious ring tone or download a lunar calendar.

• Indian operator BPMobile lets customers send prayers by SMS to a Bombay temple where they are offered to the Hindu god Ganesh.

• In the United States and several European countries subscribers can receive a daily text message from the pope. The Pope's Thought of the Day

• In the United States people can subscribe to a daily service called The Seven Spiritual Laws, which features the holistic teachings of Deepak Chopra. Currently available from two U.S. mobile operators, the service provides daily aphorisms as well as diet tips and an inspiring image.

• In Israel you can download "Psalms in his Palm" and excerpts from scripture through PilotYid.com, a Judaism-oriented service for users of Palm OS devices.

• In China, people burn paper effigies of material goods, including mobile phones, to ensure their dead relatives are fairing well in their parallel lives.

• On a recent field trip around Asia, Genevieve Bell, senior researcher at Intel, saw people getting their mobile phones blessed by a Buddhist monk. "Because they are wearing them on their bodies, they didn't want them to be bad for them," she says.