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."
Oh good (Score:4, Funny)
Perhaps this means it'll get signal where I live?
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> Perhaps this means it'll get signal where I live?
Unfortunately now. All the energy going into your head is not going to reach the base station, so this is going to hurt your reception. It is just bad engineering, and they should really try to do better. This is not rocket science - the equations are very well understood and design tools are readily available.
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s/now/not/
Since when does a phone only radiate to the head? (Score:2)
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The SAR they talk
Brand-name Power (Score:2)
The solution? Stop putting in the Bold (tm) chunk of americium inside the earpiece. :3
Re:Brand-name Power (Score:5, Funny)
Why do you hate Americium?
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Re:Brand-name Power (Score:4, Funny)
I hope this doesn't turn into a boron and predictable thread of chemistry puns.
A post like that is like a big Neon sign just asking for it to happen though.
Re:Brand-name Power (Score:4, Funny)
I hope this doesn't turn into a boron and predictable thread of chemistry puns.
A post like that is like a big Neon sign just asking for it to happen though.
I zinc you guys must beryllium, like, so bored this evening.
Manganese puns get any lamer?
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Re:Brand-name Power (Score:4, Funny)
The apparent contradiction in your statement presents an interesting antimony. Personally I think all the good puns argon, but I've lead the way before, and I will again, although I'm not nearly as good at this as my friend Nick. When he gets going nickel bark them out like he was Rin-Tin-Tin. I do feel like I have one on the tip of my tungsten... Copernicium.
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Oh, this kind of thread comes up periodically, compounding the pun-ishment, as though it were an elemental aspect of /.
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I always thought it was Unafordium.
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.
Radiation Blues (Score:3, Insightful)
It's flamebait for the "cell phones cause cancer" crowd: the word "radiation" is a dead giveaway.
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I thought it was flamebait for why the iPhone drops 30% of calls [engadget.com].
By any other name (Score:2)
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Stupid people? The same people that think microwaves are a mutagen?
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>>What else would you call it? It is electromagnetic energy that radiates from the device.
Because most people don't know the difference between EM radiation and ionizing radiation. They hear the word "radiation" and think of the scary trifoil symbol, not "anything that can possibly radiate from something".
lol, where's the iPhone? (Score:4, Funny)
You poor fanboys, your precious toy didn't even make the list. Weak is the signal, weak as the user.
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Finally something new added to the old stuff! (Score:2)
It took about time, I was already growing roots waiting for this to come up. .. go on! Start that prelife crisis right now .. come on!
Makes me feel old
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You must have ran out of energy before telling them to get off your lawn..... I'll do it for you.
GET OFF HIS LAWN!
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This won't be forgotten for his entire life when he finds out! The abuse .. the horror .. the terror!
Slashdot ... news for evil stuff, that matters. How apocalyptic ..
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Wow, when I do that I get modded troll (not that I care anyway).
The iTrollerators must be sleeping, wrapped in their cozy reality distortion field. ;)
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Ah, they get RDF not EMI/RFI.
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I believe all the iPhone troubles, to be the fault of AT&T, since nowhere else in the world do iPhones seem to have as much as trouble!
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That's the problem with anecdotal evidence.
I've never had signal strength problems with my iPhone here in Australia, nor has anyone I know complained about it.
Re:lol, where's the iPhone? (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the URL with the full list of phones (yes, including the iPhone if you're curious): http://www.ewg.org/cellphoneradiation/Get-a-Safer-Phone?allavailable=1 [ewg.org]
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The problem is not with the phone, its that damn AT&T network in the USA. I hope people remember, Apple supposedly went to Verizon first [usatoday.com]
From what I understand, Verizon is the best US network, and the iPhone is a very desirable phone (anywhere in the world), if the two met, it would be a marvellous thi
Re:lol, where's the iPhone? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not as much hate as annoyance over all this horrible hype it constantly gets. Yes, we get it, you like it. But couldn't you just shut up about it? It's not new, I know it exist so no need to tell me, and there are more interesting things to talk about.
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I'd like more things like the cyborg composer [slashdot.org] and laser mosquito zapper [slashdot.org]. Generally I have very little interest in products news unless it's something with a significant improvement.
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much of it from bitter people who for whatever reason cannot have an iPhone
You mean all those people with enough common sense to realise it's overpriced shiny crap ? They must be so bitter and twisted, having to live in the real world instead of "Jobs Worlds".
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It's not raw hate, we just don't understand why it's so fucking special it has to be mentioned every single fucking time there's a discussion about cell phones. Have you seen similar phenomena about any other phone?
not a big deal (Score:4, Insightful)
Someone compiled a list, then sorted it numerically by some quantifiable characteristic.
Something came in at #1. what a surprise. this doesn't mean #1 is that that good or great or bad or harmful, as noted in the summary itself
"The rankings still put the phones well within federal guidelines and rules."
stupid
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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).
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no comprende (Score:5, Insightful)
Then why is it a story?
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Well, guess who profits from this?
See, there you got the reason why this is a story.
(For the uninformed: Apple pays lots of money to have at least a story about Apple on Slashdot every week.) ;)
(And I’m in no way saying that this would make them worse than anybody else doing it. They’re just better at it.
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Then why is it a story?
Because we know from the meatpacking, pharmaceutical, and genetically modified crop industries just how much those lobbyist-paid federal regulators have (hah) public safety at heart. So we want to see the numbers and decide for ourselves.
Re:no comprende (Score:5, Informative)
Three reasons come to mind:
1. Even though it's within limits, there are people who intentionally look for units that emit the least RF possible, so that if it does turn out there was a risk they are minimizing their risk. It's at least more rational than sleeping in a Faraday cage and suing neighbors for WiFi radiation or wearing tinfoil underwear. If you need a cell phone but have some concerns about RF exposure, picking the cell phone that emits the lowest levels of RF just seems like a rational middle ground.
2. Some will intentionally seek out phones with high RF because more RF means the radio has more juice or the antenna is more efficient, which means it'll get "more bars in more places". I know my Blackberry Curve 8310 gets awesome signal in a lot of places that iPhones don't, so I'm sure that also means it's putting out more RF and/or has a more efficient antenna.
3. If it's GSM, one of the side effects is the annoying clicky-buzzing sound every nonshielded electronic device within ten yards emits. Less RF means less of that interference.
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ummm...in slashdot we prefer to stick to car analogies for a reason. To keep our breakfast in where it belongs, and not splattered on the table from whence it came.
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Then why is it a story?
I know. Why would anyone want to make the most popular smartphone (among business users) look bad? It just doesn't make sense.
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So? (Score:2)
Re:So? (Score:4, Insightful)
Note: I do not believe that cell phones cause cancer, but just because something is legal doesn't mean it's safe.
Re:So? (Score:4, Informative)
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This link would have been nice in the article... (Score:5, Informative)
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This link [ewg.org] would have been even better. You see they have 1.58 W/kg. You have over a dozen phones above 1.5. Somebody always has to be the highest. Actually, the model number they cite is not the worst, although the worst is still a Blackberry.
True, they are several times worst than the best; but is that meaningful? If the standard for poison X in the water is 100 ppm, and your city water has 2 ppm and mine has 20 ppm that's a factor of 10 but it doesn't mean anything if you believe that the standard i
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Another thing about this research is it is compiled from the manufacturers' own data - though obviously any attempt to falsify could be picked up, I don't know how many third parties have measured the radiation.
I see from the list of phones at EWG that there are phones called a Motorola Brute, and a Samsung Slash. Why do American phones always have better names? Our Droids are Milestones, for goodness sake....
Peter Judge
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Sweet (Score:2, Informative)
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
That is awesome. Now you know what cell will have the strongest possible signal!
Of course the unspoken assumption being made is that this cell phone radiation, aka radio waves, are somehow a bad thing or undesirable.
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I hate “we all know this” statements in situations that only exist because not everybody knows this.
Microwave radiation from mobile phones can by definition (=frequency=energy) not ionize anything. It can only heat things up. In case of human flesh that is 0.1-0.2 degrees Celsius. (Warning: Only the rotation causes the strong heating in microwave ovens. Not the resonance or radiation energy itself.)
Do you know what Van-den-Waals bondings are? Look up their bonding energy. Now take the above quan
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Did you just say that the main reason your water gets hot in the microwave is because it's going around in a circle and not the...ummm.. microwaves? Cause I'm thinking I could lower my energy bill if you're not a complete crackpot. /sarcasm
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Yes, the sarcasm was because he wrote: "Only the rotation causes the strong heating in microwave ovens." On first pass, I thought he meant the actual plate rotating in the oven, not the microwaves rotating the water molecules.
A better joke would have been to put a smaller gear in the bottom of the microwave so the plate turns faster...
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and you know if it can denature proteins.
yeah, but there seems to be something else going on, some effect on DNA. There was that one study about the 1800MHz DNA breakage, the one about the protein expression in skin cells, and the one about a protective effect against Alzheimers in mice. And those are just a few I happen to recall.
While you're right about non-ionizing radiation, we want to be careful not to say, "this isn't gamma radiation, so it has no effects".
Whooo Hooo! (Score:2)
We're number ONE!....
Oh wait....
Blackberry's next plan (Score:2)
They'll come out with one that is just exactly at the Government limit on radiation, and call it the "Zesty".
Then they'll come out with one well above the limit and call it the "Extra Crispy"
Radiation yes, but non-ionizing radiation folks... (Score:5, Informative)
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
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Oh boy, yourself.
Your post displays all the hallmarks of pseudoscience: elevated language to bamboozle the layman, accusations of censorship from the media, bald assertion of "common sense" causal connections, and a complete lack of rigorous data. A simple search-and-replace on your post could turn it into a defense of intelligent design, magnetic healing, or homeopathy: the thought process is the same. You adopt all the trappings of science without the rigor that makes the exercise worthwhile. You're no be
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Please take a deep breath and count to ten before trying to absorb what I'm about to say. . .
You're making a lot of unfounded accusations and demands and you are generally being very uncivil. If you have questions, I'd be happy to answer them. However, demands made from a place of strong emotion and combativeness. . , not so much.
You have demanded layered proof with very specific protocols. I have in fact offered exactly enough of this to fill a book and indeed provided a link to that book. But will you
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I was interested to see, after your initial post and the challenge to show evidence, whether you had any substance behind your position.
You offered nothing.
The challenger nailed your deficiencies. You show no awareness of the substance of those deficiencies.
You may know much _about_ science, but you have no stomach for its underlying rigors and the tightly measured increments by which it informs our understanding of the universe. You _know_ (certainly believe) much more than science tells us. For a sc
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And you offer NOTHING.
It doesn't matter if you repeat it more than once or type it in all-caps, this assertion is still false. Sorry. The universe doesn't respond to the power of 'tantrum.' I'm not trying to insult you. I'm just looking at what you have provided.
Here's the truth:
I in fact offered two things. 1) A logical explanation which even a low-level science student can grasp. 2) A book which I have told you contains the full narrative behind that explanation along with all the materials necessary to verify its asserti
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That is not a study. A book on how cancer might be caused by cellphone radiation proves nothing. You need a real, large-scale experiment to determine whether it is actually happening.
You are falsely assuming the content of a book you have not read.
Do you honestly wish me to lay out a few hundred pages of white paper study in order to back up my statements? Despite the fact that what the poster actually wants is not proof, but rather to invalidate my argument by demanding an impossible amount of paper work for a casual poster to supply, (the same tactic corporate lawyers use to defeat private individuals; they create legal demands which are so cripplingly expensive to meet that they win
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So what your saying is that cell phones have been "proven" by science to be safe? I don't think so. Far too many of our conveniences could potentially be unsafe. You have to protect yourself. More information is always better.
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Has soap been "provenGene Ray are two prominent physicists with divergent views on then nature of time.
That's bullshit. It's exactly the strategy that advocates of intelligent design, telekinesis, spirit communication, and homeopathy use. They know they can't win in a fair fight so they try to rig the game. The cell phone radiation people are of the same stock.
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Grr. I somehow managed to mangle the comment the first time I tried to post it.
Has soap been "proven" by science to be safe? We can't really be sure, can we?
If I were to stand on a street corner and claim that soap causes melanoma by "attacking epidermal lipids", you'd think me to be a crazy man. I'd have to present strong, damning evidence of my claim to counter a long history of use before you'd even begin
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You will [be] standing out in the sun every day...
Hi, Welcome to /.
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Best phone for Alzheimers? (Score:2)
List of Cell Phones (Score:2)
CNET has a nice list of just about every cell phone model out there and how much radiation they put out.
http://reviews.cnet.com/2719-6602_7-291-1.html [cnet.com]
Click through the pages for lists by manufacture.
Cell Phone Radiation (Score:2)
Is that anything like delta radiation? A tachyon field? The omega particle?
I also like this, from the summary: "the highest legal levels." Hm.
NYC has highest amount of poison in water!! (Score:2)
This might affect you! Visit my site to read more about this shocking news and give me ad views!
Darn. Nokia N900 is no in the list... (Score:2)
Having a lower radiation would have helped me to gulp the linuxopensource cost :-/
Nobody knows where to find its figure?
If you're worried about this... (Score:2)
...then I can only assume you spend all your time in a sealed, pitch-black room. Light is radiation, y'know.
Awesome! (Score:2)
Loser! (Score:2, Funny)
You're just a Motorola Droid.
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Actually, "atomic radiation" includes:
* electromagnetic radiation (gamma rays)
* electrons (beta particles)
* neutrons
* He2+ particles (or alpha particles, if you prefer)
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He probably meant ionizing radiation. That covers x-rays too.
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and:
!atomic != !safe
What is your point?
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The 1100 watts of microwaves from your microwave are of the riht band(s) to act on the water molecules in your body. Your cell phone and other wireless devices do not use these bands. The vast majority of the EM that is emitted by these devices goes right through you without doing anything. Now I should also add that the perforated sheet of metal that lets you see t
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Actually there's nothing special about the band used in microwaves. It's not tuned for water, since that would be a *much* higher frequency. They chose that frequency since it was in an unlicensed part of the spectrum so it wouldn't interfere with anything. Of course this was well before 2.4GHz started to be used for everything like it is now.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave#Power [wikipedia.org]
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> Electromagnetic radiation in any amount has effects on human biology.
There's no evidence to suggest that all electromagnetic radiation has biological effects. Radiation of appropriate energy could theoretically be scattered, or absorbed and re-emitted, or just pass straight through a person, and leave them in a state no different to if they hadn't been exposed at all. Some radiation has effects, but there's also some that almost certainly doesn't.
> Many not well understood.
You can't meaningfully cou
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Any kind of DNA damage done by the frequencies used by cellphones would be due to heating, but the power levels are much too low for that to occur.
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You need to take it to the next level - the tinfoil body suit is proven effective.
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I got a Nexus One. Glad to get off the BB. I didn't have battery problems, but their bluetooth is terrible. Especially when paired with a plantronics headset. I have 3 headsets. Bought about 1 per year and finally just gave up and went wired. Which I like for the lower radiation anyway. I do wired everything, even home network. The only wireless I give up and completely accept is a cordless phone. (I know wifi and bluetooth are basically the same here)
My black berry lived at least a month after goin