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On Tech Brief today: How to use cellphones when there is no coverage, an Apple backup device recall, and a new way of viewing Mars.

• Chances are that you've found yourself completely out of mobile phone range on a number of occasions. Help may be at hand though, as :

"The three-person team, led by Flinders University's Paul Gardner-Stephen... headed into the remote, sparsely populated Arkaroola Sanctuary over the weekend to test their Serval Project with hacked Android phones. Results were promising, with Gardner-Stephen chatting with a colleague on another mobile phone several hundred metres (about a quarter of a mile) away.

"The Serval Project involves fitting phones with open-source software called Distributed Numbering Architecture (DNA) that essentially turns phones' Wi-Fi capability into a mini tower and lets them connect with other phones to form their own network. The software lets people use their existing phone numbers so they can be reached easily."

Leslie Katz says the researchers see enormous potential in their system for helping out in disaster relief, or situations where no telephone network exists:

"By integrating DNA with hardware called 'mesh potatoes' developed by Village Telco, Gardner-Stephen and his team say they will be able to provide telephone access to millions of people who currently lack affordable telephone coverage, as well as help those affected by disasters like earthquakes, tsunamis, and the like."

• One thing you might hope to have with a back-up gadget is reliability. However, :

"Owners of units whose serial number lies within the range of XX807XXXXXX - XX814XXXXXX can get them repaired or replaced free of charge, by post or in person - though to save your data you'll have to take it to an Apple Store or authorised retailer so that they can retain the data from the hard drive."

Charles Arthur says that the problem came to light in part thanks to a collective effort to track serial numbers for broken Time Capsules, run by Pim van Bochoven:

"Van Bochoven's Time Capsule Memorial Register was launched in October of the same year [2009] to provide a crowdsourced official record of the serial numbers and lifespans of broken devices, which totalled 2,500 doomed devices before he stopped updating the site in February 2010, having reached 2,500 dead devices (plus a number of "prank" submissions from Windows users, whose attempts were evident from the incorrect serial numbers offered - come on, people)."

It's been a difficult time for Apple lately. The recall comes at the same time as news that the respected . The magazine praised the phone for many of its new features, but carried out tests, confirming that the phone does lose reception when held in a particular way. It also offered a low-cost fix:

"We did... find an affordable solution for suffering iPhone 4 users: Cover the antenna gap with a piece of duct tape or another thick, non-conductive material. It may not be pretty, but it works."

• Google has launched a supposedly easy-to-use software package to help novices create applications for phones running its Android operating system. :

"I spent around 90 minutes this morning cranking away on a few test applications in App Inventor, and while I'm very excited about it, this is not going to be a walk in the park for 'ordinary people'. Unless you're looking to make an extremely basic application -- think 'Hello World' -- you're going to have to read through the documentation, and in some cases even the existing tutorials won't be enough. That said, this will be absolutely perfect for the classroom environment for which it's been tested in."

Jason Kincaid's is well worth a read for any budding novice app creators.

• It is sometimes suggested that citizen journalists will be able to fill the void left by local newspapers, which are increasingly closing their doors as a result of advertising money being transferred to the web. Ars Technica has been examining :

"Summing up, the authors paint a fairly grim picture of the state of local news. 'Despite hopes for a thriving genre of citizen journalism as at least a partial replacement for legacy journalism, those hopes have not been realized,' they conclude. 'In content and coverage, CitJ [citizen journalism] lags behind legacy web sites on a variety of dimensions considered indicative of news quality.'"

But John Timmer is not convinced by the conclusions:

"For starters, it appears that fans of traditional media should celebrate the results: legacy sites have identified many of the promising participatory features of citizen journalism, and embraced them. Discussions, content hosting, and online interactivity all feature prominently on the legacy sites now.

"The authors' judgement may also be overly harsh when it comes to citizen journalism. Even if a given site is limited by a lack of features or resources, savvy users can easily recognize the limitations and use the site accordingly, supplementing it with other sources as needed."

Finally, Mars Daily :

"Today, Microsoft Research and NASA are providing an entirely new experience to users of the WorldWide Telescope, which will allow visitors to interact with and explore our solar system like never before. Viewers can now take exclusive interactive tours of the red planet, hear directly from NASA scientists, and view and explore the most complete, highest-resolution coverage of Mars available."

WorldWide Telescope users have a choice of downloading and installing a piece of software to access the detailed images, or going via a web application.

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