BlackBerry Bold Tops Radiation Ranking 189
geek4 writes with this excerpt from eWeek Europe: "Data from the Environmental Working Group places the BlackBerry Bold 9700 as the mobile device with the highest legal levels of cell phone radiation among popular smartphones. Research In Motion's BlackBerry Bold 9700 scores the highest among popular smartphones for exposing users to the highest legal levels of cell phone radiation, according to the latest 2010 Environmental Working Group ranking. Following the Bold 9700 are the Motorola Droid, the LG Chocolate and Google's HTC Nexus One. The rankings still put the phones well within federal guidelines and rules."
Uh (Score:2, Interesting)
The rankings still put the phones well within federal guidelines and rules.
Wait... so I guess that makes this a complete non-story?
Or maybe we should have an enthralling debate about how these devices are within legal spec.
Or perhaps it's flamebait: We're supposed to bring out the apple fanboys and where the iphone ranks.
Current FCC regulations permit SAR levels of up to 1.6 W/kg for partial body (head) exposure, 0.08 W/kg for whole-body exposure and 4 W/kg for exposure to the hands, wrists, feet and ankles.
The BlackBerry Bold 9700 scores an overall 1.55 SAR in the new rankings. The Motorola Droid came in at 1.50 while the LG Chocolate scored a 1.46, the Nexus One ranked a 1.39 and the Apple iPhone 3G scored a 1.19.
Ok, I read some of the article. I guess we can talk about how close the Blackberry is to the upper bound. It still seems like a boring, non-story.
Just to head this off... (Score:1, Interesting)
electromagnetic radiation != atomic radiation
"Cell phone radiation" just means that the things are electromagnetically noisy and prone to interfere with other nearby electronics through induced currents.
Re:not a big deal (Score:3, Interesting)
It's useful because now I have a device with a new function -- warding off the 'cell phones cause cancer!' crazies. Just wave my 9700 at them, and they'll run screaming for their tinfoil-insulated houses (which keep out the pain-causing wifi signals, of course).
Actually. . . (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh boy.
I can't count the number of times I've run across this particular piece of rationalization. Probably because, on the surface, it makes an emotional kind of sense.
Yes, non-ionizing radiation doesn't burn anything. But that's not the problem. Nobody is claiming it IS the problem. The only people who are convinced that anybody is claiming this as the problem simply aren't paying attention. Sorry. I don't mean to come down hard on you, but the EM spectrum is useful in electronics because it vibrates, not because it burns things. Cells, when vibrated on the EM spectrum, react. It's that simple. There is a ton of information available to anybody who wants to know what is really going on here.
Basically, it comes down to this:
Cells respond, evidently by their very nature, to coherent electromagnetic signals in the 1 to 500Hz range. They do all kinds of weird things depending on the pulse rate and power and how the Earth's magnetic field interacts with the signal. Cells have been observed to reproduce many times faster or slower than normal when exposed to different radio frequencies. -Or to open up their membrane walls allowing foreign particles to enter which would not normally be able to pass. Very low power signals can do this and a great deal more.
There are a number of observed mechanics, one of which is called, "Cyclotronic Resonance". Here's an example. . .
As I am sure you know, everything has a natural sympathetic frequency. This is understood. Cyclotronic Resonance is a type of resonance which occurs when both a radio frequency and a steady magnetic field are present. For instance, when you produce a 60Hz frequency, (as in wall-socket current), and combine it with a steady magnetic field of 0.2 Gauss, (as supplied by the Earth's magnetic field), the Lithium Ion resonates and becomes excited. It also moves on a spiral vector. The result is that any trace quantities of Lithium which happen to be in the blood stream of an organism will cease to sit still and will instead energize and move, enabling them to penetrate the blood brain barrier with greater frequency than normal. It was noted that rats exposed to these conditions exhibited behavior consistent with a medicinal dose of lithium drug as compared to the control rats. It should be noted that Lithium is the active ingredient in many anti-depressants.
That's just one small example. There are many others. But you're NOT going to read about them in the main stream press. You just won't. I'd explain why but that's a whole other post. (Typically, people who believe in the whole idea that "non-ionizing" means "Safe" also tend to have trouble believing that the media can be anything less than honest. Or that corruption exists. Or that any group might have a vested interest in mass-medicating a population. Just as one example.)
But there is some excellent information out there. -A good book on this is, "Cross Currents" by Robert O. Becker. [amazon.com]
Scary?
Of course it is.
Good luck.
-FL