Radiation Detecting Android Phone Coming To Japan 133
itwbennett writes "Softbank, Japan's third largest carrier, has teamed up with Sharp to create a radiation detector chip for the latest model in the company's popular, bare-bones Pantone line of smartphones. The chip 'can detect gamma radiation in the air at doses of between 0.05 and 9.99 microsieverts per hour,' according to an IDG News Service report. 'The phone then uses its GPS to place readings on a map. Due to go on sale in July, it runs Android 4.0 and features standard functionality for Japanese handsets, including mobile TV, touch payments and infrared transmission.'"
That's seems awfully sensitive to me (Score:5, Interesting)
Seems to me that's it's too low on both the top end and bottom end. You couldn't use it for detecting real hotspots on the top end and it's so sensitive on the bottom end that even exposure to direct sunlight will have everyone panicking. I think it's more likely to cause irrational behavior than help.
Re:That's seems awfully sensitive to me (Score:2, Interesting)
I think it's more likely to cause irrational behavior than help.
It's made to capitalize on irrational post-Fukushima fear. There's no legitimate reason for anyone (who's not a researcher or a nuclear plant employee) to be carrying a radiation detector around with them all the time.
The device is made to be extra-sensitive because if it didn't pick up something, people would feel silly for having bought one. (Which they should.)
Re:That's seems awfully sensitive to me (Score:5, Interesting)
This phone is a ruse, to captalise by make people think they can manage this. In other words, it is a comfort item, not an actual safety measure.
It also works as a propaganda item. "Testing radiation levels is the new normal, it's even on my phone, see!" The management of public perception is far easier than the management of spent fuel in reactor 4.
The real, long-term prospect for anyone living in the Fukushima shadow is too horrible to contemplate.
The new, official story - just made public - [reuters.com] is that the initial release from TEPCO was 2.5 X higher than was admitted at the time. If this is what they are recalcitrantly admitting to, after incontrovertible evidence, how bad is it really? After all, the utility and the government both demonstrate they cannot be trusted to prefer health and safety over saving-face.
So? Buy a phone and whistle past the graveyard...
Re:Geiger (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe because it (probably) doesn't use a Geiger counter?
A Geiger counter is just one of many radiation detectors (or particle detectors).
Re:That's seems awfully sensitive to me (Score:4, Interesting)
Samt thing happened on 9/11 where the government claimed the air was safe to breathe, but then people started getting sick, so the government had to admit it lied. What use is having regulation if the politicians or bureaucrats simply ignore them (or lie)? Regulations don't work because the regulators aren't doing the job