Last summer an Israeli start up company, Tawkon secured $1.5 million seed capital to create mobile apps able to measure the cellular radiation emitted by your phone.
Tawkon’s apps will work for Android phones, BlackBerry handsets and the iOS platform but not for iPhones as Steve Jobs, Apples’ CEO who died two months later from cancer, made it quite clear that the app would not be welcome in its App Store. Last March, Tawkon had sent an email to Jobs in the hopes of gaining approval for distribution of the application through Apple’s App Store. The response they got was:
‘No interest.’
Sent from my iPhone
The only way for iPhone users to get the app is to have their iPhones ‘jailbroken’ – that is, their proprietary operating system software modified to allow them to use non-proprietary software. However, ‘jailbreaking’ your iPhone could void your warranty.
According to Mike Barrett at Activist Post:
The company instituted the ban because it felt the app would be confusing to customers, though the ban was likely due to the fact that the app could only decrease sales for Apple’s iPhone. Whether Apple’s decision was driven by profit or not, there are some valid questions and concerns regarding the app’s accuracy.
Using a complex proprietary algorithm, Tawkon estimates the amount of radiation emitted by cell phones at any moment. As a way to measure the amount of radiation being emitted and ultimately picked up by the user, the company considers factors like current antenna strength, and whether a headset is being used or speakerphone is currently selected. The problem, however, is that the app depends on radiation baseline figures provided by device manufacturers. The app itself has no way of actually measuring radiation emissions, so it must rely on the publicly posted radiation emission quotes by manufacturers in order to estimate a device’s radiation output at all times.
Even so, the concept is a good one, and let us hope that more accurate devices soon hit the market – and ideally via the Apple App Store.
Meanwhile, Dr Olle Johansson has just forwarded an advert for a new Android Smart watch which will incorporate the technology in your smart phone into your watch. Great – hands free access to your Facebook page, Google maps, whatever else you may need. But also, as Dr Johansson points out, radiation will be directed, via your Smart watch, straight into your tissues and thence into your bloodstream. Is this really a very good idea?….
Its well know that the SAR ratings provided by ‘phone manufacturers for there devices are very approximate and therefore of little use in determining the level of radiation the user of a ‘phone will receive over a given period of time. There is no practical way an app built into a ‘phone can measure the radiation the user will receive from the ‘phone. The wattage of the phones transmissions can be measured, but the biological effect on the user depends on several factors such as the design of the ‘phones antenna, how the user holds it and the proximity of the base station.