Apple and Google are using smartphones running their software to build gigantic databases for location-based services, according to new research following the Guardian’s revelations that iPhones and devices running Android collect location data about owners’ movements.
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Samy Kamkar, a hacker and researcher, has shown that Android phones, which run on software written by Google, collect the location data every few seconds and store it in a local file, but also transmit it to Google several times an hour.
Coverage of the iPhone tracking “feature” has ranged from concern to outrage. “I don’t know about you, but the fact that this feature exists on an iPhone is a deal-killer,” wrote PCMag Columnist John Dvorak, shortly after news broke. PCMag Executive Editor Dan Costa drew a softer line, writing, “Apple may not be actively tracking you, but it did turn your phone into a tracking device without telling you.”
Apple Inc.’s iPhones and Google Inc.’s Android smartphones regularly transmit their locations back to Apple and Google, respectively, according to data and documents analyzed by The Wall Street Journal—intensifying concerns over privacy and the widening trade in personal data.
Google and Apple are gathering location information as part of their race to build massive databases capable of pinpointing people’s locations via their cellphones. These databases could help them tap the $2.9 billion market for location-based services—expected to rise to $8.3 billion in 2014, according to research firm Gartner Inc.
In the case of Google, according to new research by security analyst Samy Kamkar, an HTC Android phone collected its location every few seconds and transmitted the data to Google at least several times an hour. It also transmitted the name, location and signal strength of any nearby Wi-Fi networks, as well as a unique phone identifier.
One in 5 reported feelings of withdrawal like an obsession while 11 per cent pronounced they were confused or felt like a failure. Nearly one in 5 (19 per cent) reported feelings of trouble and 11 per cent felt isolated. Just 21 per cent pronounced they could feel a advantages of being unplugged.
Some students even reported highlight from simply not being means to hold their
phone.
One member reported: “I am an addict. we don’t need alcohol, heroin or any other derailing form of amicable depravity.
“Media is my drug; though it we was lost.’
Another wrote: ‘I literally didn’t know what to do with myself. Going down to a kitchen to pointlessly demeanour in a cupboards became unchanging routine, as did removing a drink.”
Susan Moeller. lead researcher of a University of Maryland study, said: ‘Technology provides a amicable network for immature people currently and they have spent their whole lives being “plugged in”.
Malte Spitz was surprised by how much detail Deutsche Telekom had about his whereabouts.
(New York Times) — A favorite pastime of Internet users is to share their location: services like Google Latitude can inform friends when you are nearby; another, Foursquare, has turned reporting these updates into a game.
But as a German Green party politician, Malte Spitz, recently learned, we are already continually being tracked whether we volunteer to be or not. Cellphone companies do not typically divulge how much information they collect, so Mr. Spitz went to court to find out exactly what his cellphone company, Deutsche Telekom, knew about his whereabouts.
The results were astounding. In a six-month period — from Aug 31, 2009, to Feb. 28, 2010, Deutsche Telekom had recorded and saved his longitude and latitude coordinates more than 35,000 times. It traced him from a train on the way to Erlangen at the start through to that last night, when he was home in Berlin.
Mr. Spitz has provided a rare glimpse — an unprecedented one, privacy experts say — of what is being collected as we walk around with our phones. Unlike many online services and Web sites that must send “cookies” to a user’s computer to try to link its traffic to a specific person, cellphone companies simply have to sit back and hit “record.”
Scientists, Led by Karolinska Institute’s Olle Johansson, PhD, Recommend Global Governments Adopt New Exposure Guidelines for Electromagnetic Radiation—Pointing to Biological Hazards and Risks to the Genetic Code from Unchecked Proliferation of Wireless Technologies
February 3, 2011. The scientific journal Reviews on Environmental Health has published a report by international scientists calling for greatly reduced exposure limits for electromagnetic radiation from power line and telecommunications technologies, including cell phones and wireless technologies. The statement, called The Seletun Scientific Statement, was written by seven scientists in five countries, based on a large and growing body of science showing biological effects. They saygovernments should take decisive action now to protect biological function as well as the health of future generations.
The Seletun Scientific Statement represents a Consensus Agreement among the scientists including “10 Key Recommendations to Protect Public Health” (see Video of Olle Johansson, PhD of Karolinska Institute, below.) The warnings strongly emphasize the global population is at risk, and that there is serious disruption to biological systems now occurring.
International Scientists Recommend Global Governments Adopt New Exposure Guidelines for Electromagnetic Radiation, Pointing to Biological Hazards and Risks to the Genetic Code from Unchecked Proliferation of Wireless Technologies
Health Effects Occur at Exposure Levels Many Orders of Magnitude Below Existing Public Safety Standards Around the World, Scientists Say
In November 2009, a Scientific Panel comprised of international experts on the biological effects of electromagnetic fields met in Seletun, Norway, for three days of intensive discussion on existing scientific evidence and public health implications of the unprecedented global exposures to artificial electromagnetic fields (EMF) from telecommunications and electric power technologies. This meeting was a direct consequence of on-going discussions already from the mid-90ties, when cellular infrastructure began to rapidly proliferate, and stretching through, among many, the Benevento, Venice and London Resolutions from this decade, and involving important conclusions drawn from the 600-page Bioinitiative Report published August 31, 2007, which was a review of over 2,000 studies showing biological effects from electromagnetic radiation at non-thermal levels of exposure, which partly was published subsequently in the journal Pathophysiology.
From all of the above, it has become obvious that new, biologically-based public exposure standards, taking into account long-term as well as non-thermal exposures, are urgently needed to protect public health world-wide.
Therefore international scientists gathered in Norway with the objective of developing guidance for global governments on this important emerging public health issue. The Seletun Scientific Panel today announces a Consensus Agreement including 10 Key Recommendations to Protect Public Health. The text below is based on the recent paper published in Reviews on Environmental Health 25 (4), 2010. The original paper can be requested via Olle Johansson, Karolinska Institute, [email protected].
Background
EMF exposures (static to 300 GHz) result from the use of electric power and from wireless telecommunications technologies for voice and data transmission, energy, security, military and radar use in weather and transportation.
The Seletun Scientific Panel recognizes that the body of evidence on EMF requires a new approach to protection of public health; the growth and development of the fetus, and of children; and argues for strong preventative actions. These conclusions are built upon prior scientific and public health reports documenting the following:
1) Low-intensity (non-thermal) bioeffects and adverse health effects are demonstrated at levels significantly below existing exposure standards for telecommunications and power utility technologies in developed and developing countries.
2) ICNIRP and IEEE/FCC public safety limits are inadequate and obsolete with respect to prolonged, low-intensity exposures common today.
3) New, biologically-based public exposure standards are urgently needed to protect public health world-wide.
4) It is not in the public interest to wait. Instead, governments should take decisive action now to protect biological function as well as the health of future generations.
Strong concern has been voiced by the public, and by scientists as well as public health and environmental policy experts, that the deployment of technologies that expose billions of people world-wide to new sources of EMF pose a pervasive risk to public health, and may pose a serious risk to future generations. Such exposures did not exist before the “age of industry and information”. A rapidly accumulating body of scientific evidence of harm to health and well-being constitute warnings that adverse health effects can occur with short-term and prolonged exposures to very low-intensity EMF at biologically active frequencies or frequency combinations.
The Seletun Scientific Panel has adopted a Consensus Agreement that recommends preventative and precautionary actions that are warranted now, given the existing evidence for potential global health risks. We recognize the duty of governments and their health agencies 1) to educate and warn the public, 2) to implement measures balanced in favor of the Precautionary Principle, 3) to monitor compliance with directives promoting alternatives to wireless, and 4) to fund research and policy development geared toward prevention of exposures and development of new public safety measures as well as new, safer communications technologies.
10 Key Points:
1. The Global Population Is At Risk. Global populations are not sufficiently protected from electromagnetic fields (EMF) from emerging communication and data transmission technologies that are being deployed worldwide, affecting billions of people;
2. Sensitive Populations Are Currently Vulnerable. Sensitive populations (for example, the elderly, the ill, the genetically and/or immunologically challenged) and children and fetuses may be additionally vulnerable to health risks; their exposures are largely involuntary and they are less protected by existing public safety standards; and they may amount to 40-50% of the population;
3. Government Actions Are Warranted Now Based on Evidence of Serious Disruption to Biological Systems. The Seletun Scientific Panel urges governments to adopt an explicit statement that “the standard for judging and acting on the scientific evidence shall be based on prudent public health planning principles rather than scientific certainty of effect (causal evidence)”. Actions are warranted based on limited, or weak, scientific evidence, or a sufficiency of evidence – rather than a conclusive scientific evidence (causation or scientific certainty) where the consequence of doing nothing in the short term may cause irreparable public health and economic harm, where the populations potentially at risk are very large, where there are alternatives without similar risks, or where the exposures are largely involuntary;
4. The Burden of Proof for the Safety of Radiation-Emitting Technologies Should Fall on Producers and Providers Not Consumers. The Seletun Scientific Panel urges governments to make explicit that the burden of proof of safety rests with the producers and providers of EMF- producing technologies, not with the users and consumers.
5. EMF Exposures Should Be Reduced in Advance of Complete Understanding of Mechanisms of Action. EMF exposures should be reduced now rather than waiting for proof or understanding of mechanisms of harm before acting. This recommendation is in keeping with traditional public health principles, and is justified now given abundant evidence that biological effects and adverse health effects are occurring at exposure levels many orders of magnitude below existing public safety standards around the world;
6. The Current Accepted Measure of Radiation Risk—the Specific Absorption Rate (‘SAR’)—Is Inadequate, and Misguides on Safety and Risk. SAR is not an adequate approach to predict many important biologic effects in studies that report increased risks for cancer, neurological diseases, impairments to immune function, fertility and reproduction, and neurological function (cognition, behaviour, performance, mood status, disruption of sleep, increased risk for auto collisions, etc);
7. An International Disease Registry Is Needed To Track Time Trends of Illnesses to Correlate Illnesses with Exposures.The Seletun Scientific Panel recommends an international registry be established to track time-trends in incidence and mortality for cancers and neurological and immune diseases. Tracking effects of EMF on children and sensitive EHS populations is a high priority. There should be open access to this information;
8. Pre-Market Health Testing and Safety Demonstration of All Radiation-Emitting Technologies. There is a need for mandatory pre-market assessments of emissions and risks before deployment of new wireless technologies. There should be convincing evidence that products do not cause health harm before marketing;
9. Parity Needed for Occupational Exposure Standards. The Panel discourages use of more lenient public safety standards for workers, as compared to the general public. Separate safety limits are not ethically acceptable. Workers include women of childbearing age and men who wish to retain their fertility;
10. Functional Impairment Designation for Persons with Electrohypersensitivity. The Panel strongly recommends that persons with electrohypersensitivity symptoms (EHS) be classified as functionally impaired rather than with ‘idiopathic environmental disease’ or similar indistinct categories. This terminology accepts responsibility for the environmental cause of the related health challenges and will encourage governments to make adjustments in the living environment to better address social and well-being needs of this subpopulation of highly sensitive members of society.
New Recommended Exposure Standards
The Seletun Scientific Panel recommends global governments adopt the following exposure guidelines to protect public health and the health of future generations
Extremely Low Frequency Fields:
Exposure Limit Recommended. Based on the available evidence, the Seletun Scientific Panel recommends a 0.1 uT (1 mG) exposure limit for extremely low frequency (fields from electrical power) for all new installations, such as powerlines, indoor electric appliances, house-hold items, TVs, radios, computers, and telecommunication devices, based on findings of risk for leukemia, brain tumours, Alzheimer’s, ALS, sperm damage and DNA strand breaks. This exposure limit does not include a safety margin, but starts right at the level where hazardous effects are found. The new recommendation is approx. 1,000 – 10,000 times lower than the current ICNIRP/IEEE standards;
Set-Back Distance. For all newly installed, or newly upgraded electrical power distribution, the Panel recommends a 0.1 uT (1 mG) set-back distance, from residences, hospitals, schools, parks, and playgrounds schools (and similar locations occupied by children) ; this set-back distance easily can amount to 50 meters or more;
Maximum 24-Hour Exposure Limit. For all newly constructed residences, offices, schools (and other facilities with children), and hospitals there shall be a 0.1 uT (1 mG) max. 24 hour average exposure limit;
Radiofrequency and Microwave Radiation:
Regarding radiofrequency/microwave radiation, the present guidelines, such as IEEE, FCC, and ICNIRP, are not adequate to protect humans from harmful effects of chronic EMF exposure. It is now instead recommended that:
• For whole-body (in vivo experiments) or cell culture-based exposure, 33 µW//kg. It is approx. 2,400 times lower than the current ICNIRP/FCC standards. No further safety margin or provision for sensitive populations, such as immune-compromised patients or persons with the functional impairment electrohypersensitivity, is incorporated. This may need to be lowered in the future.
• Based on power density measurements, the Seletun Scientific Panel finds sufficient evidence for a whole-body scientific benchmark for adverse health effect exists down to 0.17 mW/m2 (also 0.000017 mW/cm2 = 0.017 µW/cm2). It is approx. 50,000 – 60,000 times lower than the current ICNIRP/FCC standards.This may need to be lowered in the future.
• The Scientific Panel acknowledges that numeric limits derived here for new biologically-based public exposure standards are still a billion times higher than natural EMF levels at which all life evolved. It is a serious mistake to believe that we have always lived in man-made electromagnetic fields, such as from electrical power, radio, TV, computers, and wireless telecommunication, and therefore should not worry. It was not long ago when people thought that X-rays, radioactivity, strong ultraviolet light and radar were completely without harm. Nowadays we know much better!
“Science is about protecting free and open inquiry. It’s about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology. It’s about listening to what scientists have to say, even when it’s inconvenient – especially when it is inconvenient!”
– Barack Obama
President of the United States
____________________
The Seletun Scientific Panel is comprised of 7 scientists from 5 countries, including Olle Johansson, PhD, Karolinska Institute, Chair, Adamantia Fragopoulou, Yuri Grigoriev, Lukas Margaritas, Lloyd Morgan, Elihu Richter, and Cindy Sage.
Quotes from Members of the Seletun Scientific Panel:
“Personally, I am very concerned for grave consequences that may ensue if exposure guidelines are not changed by global governments. I therefore urge them to immediately strongly reduce the guidelines for exposure to radiofrequency radiation (RF) and extremely low-frequency electromagnetic1 fields (ELF-EMF) for the reasons given above. It is high time to ask ourselves: What happens when we, 24-hours around the clock, wherever we are, allow ourselves and our children to be used as guinea-pigs, whole-body-irradiated for the rest of our lives?” In not doing so our politicians and health administrators may put us all at stake, since this is the largest human full-scale experiment ever!”
“Current US and ICNIRP standards for radiofrequency and microwave radiation from wireless technologies are entirely inadequate. They never were intended to address the kind of exposures from wireless devices that now affect over 4 billion people.”
Olle Johansson, PhD
Department of Neuroscience
Karolinska Institute
***
“Pregnant women and children of all ages should avoid using cell and cordless phones given the health effects we are seeing already.”
Professor Yuri Grigoriev
Chairman, Russian National Committee on Non-Ionizing
Radiation Protection, a member of WHO’s International Advisory
Committee on “EMF and Health”
***
“WI-FI routers, DECT phones and other wireless devices like baby monitors produce radio frequency emissions that will affect millions of people and babies in their homes, and should be halted until other, less harmful options are investigated.”
Professor Lukas Margaritas
Director, Department of Cell Biology and Biophysics
University of Athens
***
“New, biologically-based exposure limits are crucial to guide new technology development toward solutions that are not harmful to health. The global rollout of wireless technologies has outpaced both health studies and calls for more restrictive public safety limits.”
Cindy Sage
Co-Editor, Bioinitiative Report
***
“We are already seeing increases in health problems such as cancer and neurobehavioural impairments, even though these wireless technologies are fairly new in the last decades or so for the general public. This finding suggests that the exposures are already too high to protect people from health harm. Evidence suggests there are special risks for persons with occupational exposures to RF/MW as well as ELF.”
Elihu Richter MD MPH
Associate Professor (Retired)
Occupational and Environmental Medicine
Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Public Health and Community Medicine
Jerusalem ISRAEL
See video footage from The Commonwealth Club of California’s half-day program Nov. 18, 2010 on the health effects of electromagnetic fields, featuring Martin Blank, PhD, Columbia University, Star Childs, Adjunct Faculty of Yale University, Magda Havas, PhD, Trent University, Joel Moskowitz, PhD, University of California at Berkeley, Lloyd Morgan, BSc., Environmental Health Trust, Samuel Milham, MD, ret. Washington State Dept. of Public Health and David Carpenter, Director, the Institute for Health and the Environment, University of Albany School of Public Health.
Cancer breakthrough: Researchers have developed a smartphone-based system that is up to 100 per cent accurate at telling the difference between benign tumours and their malignant counterparts
A mobile phone that spots cancer – and is more accurate than the techniques routinely used in hospitals – has been developed by scientists.
The smartphone-based system is up to 100 per cent accurate at telling the difference between benign tumours and their malignant counterparts.
It also takes just an hour to make the diagnosis, meaning patients don’t have to spend days or weeks anxiously waiting for test results.
The U.S. researchers said the gadget could ‘transform cancer care’ by also making it easier for doctors to track how well drugs are fighting the disease in a patient’s body.
In initial tests, it was 88 per cent accurate in distinguishing cancerous stomach tumours from benign growths.
Refining the technique boosted accuracy to 100 per cent, the journal Science Translational Medicine reports.
This compares with an average accurate of 84 per cent for the gold standard technique which involves using chemicals that stain cancerous cells and show up under a microscope.
The official publication of the first intermediate results of the International Interphone Study from the International Research Centre on Cancer (CIRC) dependent on WHO confirms the increased tumors and cancer cases due to the use of mobile phone
The Use Of Mobile Phone Is Carcinogenic: Here(PDF)
INTERPHONE Results latest update Oct. 08, 2008: Interphone Results Update(PDF)
(Natural News) A new review of more than 100 studies on the safety of mobile phones has concluded that cellular devices are poised to cause an epidemic of brain tumors that will kill more people than smoking or asbestos.
The review was conducted by neurosurgeon Vini Khurana, who has received more than 14 awards in the past 16 years, who made headlines worldwide with his warnings. He called upon the industry to immediately work to reduce people’s exposure to the radiation from mobile phones.
The studies and survey conducted by Australian Health Research Institute indicates that due to billions of times more in volume electromagnetic radiation emitted by billions of mobile phones, internet, intranet and wireless communication data transmission will make almost one-third of world population (about two billions) patient of ear, eye and brain cancer beside other major body disorders like heart ailments, impotency, migraine, epilepsy.
Dr. George Carlo was the leading scientist of the biggest study ever ($28-million)conducted on Cell Phones.
Dr. Carlo was hired as an independent scientist by the industry to prove that cellphones are safe. Yet Dr. George Carlo hissed all red flags possible (incl. cancer)!
German translation: Salford Studie (Vollversion)(PDF) Leif G. Salford,1 Arne E. Brun,2 Jacob L. Eberhardt,3 Lars Malmgren,4 and Bertil R. R. Persson>3 1Department of Neurosurgery, 2Department of Neuropathology, 3Department of Medical Radiation Physics, and 4Department of Applied Electronics, Lund University, The Rausing Laboratory and Lund University Hospital, Lund, Sweden
They found that mothers who did use the handsets were 54 per cent more likely to have children with behavioural problems and that the likelihood increased with the amount of potential exposure to the radiation. And when the children also later used the phones they were, overall, 80 per cent more likely to suffer from difficulties with behaviour. They were 25 per cent more at risk from emotional problems, 34 per cent more likely to suffer from difficulties relating to their peers, 35 per cent more likely to be hyperactive, and 49 per cent more prone to problems with conduct.
B. Blake Levitt is an award-winning journalist who has specialized in medical and science writing for nearly two decades. She has researched the biological effects of non-ionizing radiation since the late 1970’s. A former New York Times writer, she has written widely on medical issues for both the lay and professional audience. Her work has appeared in numerous national publications.
Study Finds Cellphone Radiation Changes Brain Activity
NEW YORK – A groundbreaking study published today by one of the world’s leading neuroscientists challenges the longstanding conviction that radiation emitted from cellphones is too weak to have an effect on the brain.
You can think of cellphone saturation as one giant, uncontrolled human experiment. There are now 293 million wireless connections in use in the United States, according to the trade group CTIA-The Wireless Association. And Americans log a staggering 2.26 trillion minutes yakking on those mobile devices every year—all at a time when the biological effects of cellphones remain controversial and the research on those effects often of dubious quality.
A study published today by leading researchers in the premiere medical journal JAMA hasn’t found a smoking gun, but it does challenge the longstanding conviction that radiation emitted from cellphones is too weak to have an effect on the brain. It is notable not only for that finding and for appearing in a top journal—it is also turning heads because the lead researcher is Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse and one of the world’s leading brain scientists.
She and colleagues from the Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory took brain scans of 47 healthy participants after they held a cellphone to their ears for 50 minutes. Significantly, the phone was muted; that ruled out the possibility that any changes in brain activity reflected listening to or thinking about the incoming speech. Yet with the phone simply “on,” the scientists found a significant change in brain activity in the areas closest to its antenna. The research team “is on the brink of resolving a longstanding dispute with enormous implications for public health,” argues Louis Slesin, who as editor of Microwave News has followed the subject since 1981.
“What’s the impact of a cellphone on a child’s ability to learn? Does it impact cognitive ability?”
Drawback? Most programmes for smartphones, such as this iPhone, send data back to companies that sold them
Dozens of popular iPhone apps are secretly monitoring users and sending information back to companies – who then use it to target them with adverts.
More than half of the programmes and games for smartphones sent data back to the private companies once they had been downloaded, a study found.
The apps include the wildly popular Angry Birds game and music identifying software Shazam, which comes pre-installed on every iPhone.
Armed with this information firms including Google track the individuals’ movements and sell personalised adverts for which they can make more money than regular ones.
The study found that of 101 apps tested, 56 transmitted the phone’s individual number to a private company in some way, known as the Unique Device Identifier or UDID.
Some 47 sent the phone’s location and five sent age, gender and other personal information.
More data was sent back about a user’s location on the Apple’s iPhone than Google’s Android smartphone, the research discovered, even though both companies have promised not to let such practices take place.
The research was carried out in the U.S. but it would apply to users downloading apps from anywhere in the world.
Thousands of South Korean men too busy to date are finding solace in a new piece of technology – an iPhone application that offers lonely souls a virtual girlfriend.
The application – devised by South Korean company Nabix – attracted 80,000 downloads a day during the initial free launch period Photo: GETTY IMAGES
The Honey It’s Me! application enables users to interact with the voice of a twenty-something virtual girlfriend called Mina.
The application allows singletons to receive four video calls from Mina a day as well as a shower of love messages from a selection of 100.
A Korean model posed for the video calls and recorded an array of “girlfriend” comments, which range from “Are you still sleeping? Time for breakfast!” to “Good night, sweet dreams”.
The application – devised by South Korean company Nabix – attracted 80,000 downloads a day during the initial free launch period and currently costs a daily fee of £1.26 ($1.99).
Explaining why he created the device, Kim Yoon-Kak, head of Nabix, said: “I’ve developed this application to console people for their loneliness.” The company is planning to tap into a global market of lonely hearts with new versions to be launched in English, Chinese and Japanese, with an Android version also in the pipelines.
Meanwhile, it appears that the reception of the virtual girlfriend technology in South Korea has been increasingly positive among the numerous men too busy with work to find a real life girlfriend.
One user stated on Twitter: “It’s a blessing for all single men.” Another added: “Mina called me while I was working overtime. This is just great.”
City trees are becoming sick from wireless radiation from local area networks and mobile phones, according to a European study.
Radiation from Wi-Fi networks is harmful to trees, causing significant variations in growth, as well as bleeding and fissures in the bark, according to a recent study in the Netherlands.
All deciduous trees in the Western world are affected, according to the study by Wageningen University. The city of Alphen aan den Rijn ordered the study five years ago after officials found unexplained abnormalities on trees that couldn’t be ascribed to a virus or bacterial infection.
Additional testing found the disease to occur throughout the Western world. In the Netherlands, about 70 percent of all trees in urban areas show the same symptoms, compared with only 10 percent five years ago. Trees in densely forested areas are hardly affected.
Besides the electromagnetic fields created by mobile-phone networks and wireless LANs, ultrafine particles emitted by cars and trucks may also be to blame. These particles are so small they are able to enter the organisms.
The study exposed 20 ash trees to various radiation sources for a period of three months. Trees placed closest to the Wi-Fi radio demonstrated a “lead-like shine” on their leaves that was caused by the dying of the upper and lower epidermis of the leaves. This would eventually result in the death of parts of the leaves. The study also found that Wi-Fi radiation could inhibit the growth of corn cobs.
Regular use of a mobile phone for more than four years almost doubles the chance of developing tinnitus – the debilitating condition that causes constant ringing or buzzing in the ears.
It is thought the microwave energy produced by the phones might be the cause of the problem.
A study has found that people who used their mobile phone for an average of ten minutes a day were more than 70 per cent more likely to have tinnitus.
But those who used their phones on both ears, and those who had used a mobile for four years or more were twice as likely to have tinnitus.
The findings area published in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine and may help to explain why the number of people reporting tinnitus is increasing.
It is thought the microwave energy produced by the phones might be the cause of the problem.
Criminals using the Apple iPhone may be unwittingly providing police with a wealth of information that could be used against them, according to new research.
Apple’s new iPhone Photo: APPLE
As the communications device grows in popularity, technology experts and US law enforcement agencies are devoting increasing efforts to understanding their potential for forensics investigators.
While police have tracked criminals by locating their position via conventional mobile phone towers, iPhones offer far more information, say experts.
“There are a lot of security issues in the design of the iPhone that lend themselves to retaining more personal information than any other device,” said Jonathan Zdziarski, a former computer hacker who now teaches US law enforcers how to retrieve data from mobile phones.
“These devices organise people’s lives and, if you’re doing something criminal, something about it is going to go through that phone.” Apple has sold more than 50 million iPhones since the product was launched in 2007.
Mr Zdziarski told The Daily Telegraph he suspected that security had been neglected on the iPhone as it had been intended as a consumer product rather than a business one like rivals such as the Blackberry.
An example was the iPhone’s keyboard logging cache, which was designed to correct spelling but meant that an expert could retrieve anything typed on the keyboard over the past three to 12 months, he said.
In addition, every time an iPhone’s internal mapping system is closed down, the device snaps a screenshot of the phone’s last position and stores it.
We’d like to think of ourselves as dynamic, unpredictable individuals, but according to new research, that’s not the case at all. In a study published in last week’s Science, researchers looked at customer location data culled from cellular service providers. By looking at how customers moved around, the authors of the study found that it may be possible to predict human movement patterns and location up to 93 percent of the time. These findings may be useful in multiple fields, including city planning, mobile communication resource management, and anticipating the spread of viruses.
It’s not currently possible to know exactly where everyone is all the time, but cell phones can provide a pretty good approximation. Cell phone companies store records of customers’ locations based on when the customers’ phones connect to towers during calls. Researchers realized that taking this data and paring it down to users who place calls more frequently might allow them to see if they could develop any measure of how predictable human movements and locations are. The users they worked with placed calls an average of once every two hours, connecting to towers that cover an area of about two square miles.
The authors analyzed various aspects of the information related to the calls, as well as information that could be aggregated over multiple calls: number of distinct locations, historical probability that the location had been visited in the past, time spent at each tower, the order in which customers usually visited towers, and so on. With these numbers, the authors could create measures of the entropy of the customers’ trajectories. To control for uncertainty, they also looked at instances where a customer was not in communication with the grid and effectively invisible to them, and removed those that had frequent extended periods of invisibility.
Most customers seemed to stick to the same small area, a radius of six miles or less, but there were a few callers that regularly traveled areas of a radius of hundreds of miles. It would seem that the cell phone users who traveled the least would be the most predictable in their movements, but the authors found this to be untrue. All users were roughly equally predictable, regardless of the size of their typical traveled region. Everyone seemed to have a set area that they rarely left, and that area was always traveled in a very regular way-even the jet-setters appear to rarely deviate from their travel patterns.
Customers that stuck to the same six-mile radius had predictability rates of 97 to 93 percent, and this fell off as the typical area of travel grew. But the predictability eventually stabilized, and remained at 93 percent even as the radius of travel rose to thousands of miles. Regardless of how widely they traveled, the researchers could adequately predict their locations, down to the specific tower, 93 percent of the time.
“Mobile Protector,” allows a parent to screen a child’s incoming and outgoing calls and messages
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Stun gun maker Taser wants to help parents, not with jolts of electricity but with a tool which allows parents to effectively take over a child’s mobile phone and manage its use.
“Basically we’re taking old fashioned parenting and bringing it into the mobile world,” Taser chairman and co-founder Tom Smith said at the Consumer Electronics Show here, where the Arizona company unveiled the new product.
“Because when you give your child his mobile phone you don’t know who they’re talking to, what they’re sending or texting, all of those things,” Smith told AFP.
The phone application, called “Mobile Protector,” allows a parent to screen a child’s incoming and outgoing calls and messages, block particular numbers and even listen in on a conversation.
AUGUSTA, Maine – A Maine legislator wants to make the state the first to require cell phones to carry warnings that they can cause brain cancer, although there is no consensus among scientists that they do and industry leaders dispute the claim.
The now-ubiquitous devices carry such warnings in some countries, though no U.S. states require them, according to the National Conference of State Legislators. A similar effort is afoot in San Francisco, where Mayor Gavin Newsom wants his city to be the nation’s first to require the warnings.
Maine Rep. Andrea Boland, D-Sanford, said numerous studies point to the cancer risk, and she has persuaded legislative leaders to allow her proposal to come up for discussion during the 2010 session that begins in January, a session usually reserved for emergency and governors’ bills.
Boland herself uses a cell phone, but with a speaker to keep the phone away from her head. She also leaves the phone off unless she’s expecting a call. At issue is radiation emitted by all cell phones.
Under Boland’s bill, manufacturers would have to put labels on phones and packaging warning of the potential for brain cancer associated with electromagnetic radiation. The warnings would recommend that users, especially children and pregnant women, keep the devices away from their head and body.
Do they want to sell us the ‘International Interphone Study’ as new? One year has passed since I posted the results here.
Health organizations, politicians, scientists and the industry know that mobile phone use definitely creates cancer.
We already had huge studies that hissed all red flags possible.
You are just not worth telling and you have been lied to all of the time:
– The International Interphone Study Confirms: The Use Of Mobile Phone Is Carcinogenic:
The official publication of the first intermediate results of the International Interphone Study from the International Research Centre on Cancer (CIRC) dependent on WHO confirms the increased tumors and cancer cases due to the use of mobile phone
The Use Of Mobile Phone Is Carcinogenic:Here(PDF)
INTERPHONE Results latest update Oct. 08, 2008:Interphone Results Update(PDF)
– Mobile Phone Radiation to Unleash Epidemic of Brain Tumors: (NaturalNews) A new review of more than 100 studies on the safety of mobile phones has concluded that cellular devices are poised to cause an epidemic of brain tumors that will kill more people than smoking or asbestos.
The review was conducted by neurosurgeon Vini Khurana, who has received more than 14 awards in the past 16 years, who made headlines worldwide with his warnings. He called upon the industry to immediately work to reduce people’s exposure to the radiation from mobile phones.
– 2 Billion may suffer from Mobile Cancer by 2020: Study: The studies and survey conducted by Australian Health Research Institute indicates that due to billions of times more in volume electromagnetic radiation emitted by billions of mobile phones, internet, intranet and wireless communication data transmission will make almost one-third of world population (about two billions) patient of ear, eye and brain cancer beside other major body disorders like heart ailments, impotency, migraine, epilepsy.
– Dangers of the wireless cell phone wi-fi and emf age – Dr. George Carlo: Dr. George Carlo was the leading scientist of the biggest study ever ($28-million)conducted on Cell Phones.
Dr. Carlo was hired as an independent scientist by the industry to prove that cellphones are safe. Yet Dr. George Carlo hissed all red flags possible (incl. cancer)!
– Study:Nerve Cell Damage in Mammalian Brain after Exposure to Microwaves from GSM Mobile Phones(PDF)
German translation:Salford Studie (Vollversion)(PDF) Leif G. Salford,1 Arne E. Brun,2 Jacob L. Eberhardt,3 Lars Malmgren,4 and Bertil R. R. Persson>3 1Department of Neurosurgery, 2Department of Neuropathology, 3Department of Medical Radiation Physics, and 4Department of Applied Electronics, Lund University, The Rausing Laboratory and Lund University Hospital, Lund, Sweden
– Warning: Using a mobile phone while pregnant can seriously damage your baby:
They found that mothers who did use the handsets were 54 per cent more likely to have children with behavioural problems and that the likelihood increased with the amount of potential exposure to the radiation. And when the children also later used the phones they were, overall, 80 per cent more likely to suffer from difficulties with behaviour. They were 25 per cent more at risk from emotional problems, 34 per cent more likely to suffer from difficulties relating to their peers, 35 per cent more likely to be hyperactive, and 49 per cent more prone to problems with conduct.
– Cell Towers: Wireless Convenience? or Environmental Hazard? by B. Blake Levitt B. Blake Levitt is an award-winning journalist who has specialized in medical and science writing for nearly two decades. She has researched the biological effects of non-ionizing radiation since the late 1970’s. A former New York Times writer, she has written widely on medical issues for both the lay and professional audience. Her work has appeared in nu-merous national publications.
Long-term use of mobile phones may be linked to some cancers, a landmark international study will conclude later this year.
Heavy users may face a higher risk of developing brain tumours later in life Photo: GETTY
A £20million, decade-long investigation overseen by the World Health Organisation (WHO) will publish evidence that heavy users face a higher risk of developing brain tumours later in life, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.
The conclusion, while not definitive, will undermine assurances from the government that the devices are safe and is expected to put ministers under pressure to issue stronger guidance.
A preliminary breakdown of the results found a “significantly increased risk” of some brain tumours “related to use of mobile phones for a period of 10 years or more” in some studies.
The head of the Interphone investigation said that the report would include a “public health message”.
Britain’s Department of Health has not updated its guidance for more than four years. It says that “the current balance of evidence does not show health problems caused by using mobile phones”, and suggests only that children be “discouraged” from making “non-essential” calls while adults should “keep calls short”.
In contrast, several other countries, notably France, have begun strengthening warnings and American politicians are urgently investigating the risks.
The Interphone inquiry has been investigating whether exposure to mobile phones is linked to three types of brain tumour and a tumour of the salivary gland.
Its head, Dr Elisabeth Cardis, backed new warnings.
“In the absence of definitive results and in the light of a number of studies which, though limited, suggest a possible effect of radiofrequency radiation, precautions are important,” she said.
“I am therefore globally in agreement with the idea of restricting the use by children, though I would not go as far as banning mobile phones as they can be a very important tool, not only in emergencies, but also maintaining contact between children and their parents and thus playing a reassurance role.
“Means to reduce our exposure (use of hands-free kits and moderating our use of phones) are also interesting.”
The project conducted studies in 13 countries, interviewing tumour sufferers and people in good health to see whether their mobile phone use differed. It questioned about 12,800 people between 2000 and 2004.
I have no idea what “grossly offensive” (pornographic) images are.
Why did the police search his mobile phone?
A Lowestoft teenager has become one of the first people to fall foul of a new law which bans the possession of “grossly offensive” pornographic images.
In January this year, a new law came into force as part of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 making it an offence to possess any extreme images which are deemed to be “grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character”.
Yesterday, Lowestoft teenager Damien Wentworth, of Laurel Road, was fined after police found a short video on his mobile telephone which contained an extreme image.
Wentworth pleaded guilty to possessing an extreme pornographic image.
His solicitor Richard Mann said: “Technically, he is guilty of the offence, but I would say that he didn’t even know it was an offence to have this on his phone. It is a law which came into force this year, so it is hardly a surprise that he didn’t know.”
“He was not putting it on the internet or distributing it to anybody.”
Wentworth was ordered to pay £175 in fines and costs. Magistrates also ordered the destruction of the image.
The new law covers any images, including those stored on mobile telephones, DVDs and on computer hard disks.
Just think for a moment what the criminals would have to do, to get their hands on a ‘safe’ mobile phone. They will not stop being criminals and go to work (if there is any left), because of this database. This will actually make things even worse.
“The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either.” – Benjamin Franklin
Mexico will start a national register of mobile phone users that will include fingerprinting all customers in an effort to catch criminals who use the devices to extort money and negotiate kidnapping ransoms.
Under a new law published on Monday and due to be in force in April, mobile phone companies will have a year to build up a database of their clients, complete with fingerprints. The idea would be to match calls and messages to the phones’ owners.
Hundreds of people are kidnapped in Mexico every year and the number of victims is rising sharply as drug gangs, under pressure from an army crackdown, seek new income.
Politicians who pushed the bill through Congress last year say there are around 700 criminal bands in Mexico, some of them operating from prison cells, that use cell phones to extract extortion and kidnap ransom payments.
New, Free Software Enables You To Keep Tabs On Others’ Whereabouts, And Vice Versa, Using Cell Phones, Says Natali Del Conte
(CBS) Google is releasing free software Wednesday that enables people to keep track of each other using their cell phones.
CNET got a sneak peek at it, and CNET-TV Senior Editor and Early Show contributor Natali Del Conte explained how it works on the show Tuesday.
She says “Latitude” uses GPS systems and what’s called cell tower triangulation to do the job. The software seeks the closest three cell towers and, with GPS, combines the data to show where someone is.
It is designed to work on any phone with Internet capabilities, except the iPhone.
“Latitude” is being marketed as a tool that could help parents keep tabs on their children’s locations, but it can be used for anyone to find anyone else, assuming permission is given.
“What Google Latitude does is allow you to share that location with friends and family members, and likewise be able to see friends and family members’ locations,” Steve Lee, product manager for Google Latitude, told CNET. “For example, a girlfriend could use it to see if her boyfriend has arrived at a restaurant and, if not, how far away he is.”
CNET points out that, “To protect privacy, Google specifically requires people to sign up for the service. People can share their precise location, the city they’re in, or nothing at all.”
“What we found in testing,” Lee added to CNET, “is that the most common scenario is a symmetrical arrangement, where both people are sharing with each other.”
For complete details from CNET on “Latitude,”click here.
But how accurate is “Latitude”?
Del Conte found a family willing to give it a try. The results? Mixed:
The family lives in an area with spotty cell phone reception, Del Conte points out. They found that, if they went to more urbanized areas, the accuracy of the program increased.
Ratings agency downgrades Motorola on worries about the impact of the global financial crisis on mobile phones
Motorola fell into junk territory yesterday after Standard & Poor’s (S&P) downgraded the telecoms company.
The ratings agency cut Motorola’s rating by two notches to BB+ from BBB, putting the company one notch below investment grade.
S&P blamed problems in Motorola’s mobile phone business, saying that the ratings action reflected “continual operational challenges … which are not likely to be reversed over the intermediate term”.
Everyone who buys a mobile telephone will be forced to register their identity on a national database under government plans to extend massively the powers of state surveillance.
Phone buyers would have to present a passport or other official form of identification at the point of purchase. Privacy campaigners fear it marks the latest government move to create a surveillance society.
A compulsory national register for the owners of all 72m mobile phones in Britain would be part of a much bigger database to combat terrorism and crime. Whitehall officials have raised the idea of a register containing the names and addresses of everyone who buys a phone in recent talks with Vodafone and other telephone companies, insiders say.
The move is targeted at monitoring the owners of Britain’s estimated 40m prepaid mobile phones. They can be purchased with cash by customers who do not wish to give their names, addresses or credit card details.
The pay-as-you-go phones are popular with criminals and terrorists because their anonymity shields their activities from the authorities. But they are also used by thousands of law-abiding citizens who wish to communicate in private.
The move aims to close a loophole in plans being drawn up by GCHQ, the government’s eavesdropping centre in Cheltenham, to create a huge database to monitor and store the internet browsing habits, e-mail and telephone records of everyone in Britain.
The “Big Brother” database would have limited value to police and MI5 if it did not store details of the ownership of more than half the mobile phones in the country.
The official publication of the first intermediate results of the International Interphone Study from the International Research Centre on Cancer (CIRC) dependent on WHO confirms the increased tumors and cancer cases due to the use of mobile phone.
The Use Of Mobile Phone Is Carcinogenic:Here (PDF)
(NaturalNews) A new review of more than 100 studies on the safety of mobile phones has concluded that cellular devices are poised to cause an epidemic of brain tumors that will kill more people than smoking or asbestos.
The review was conducted by neurosurgeon Vini Khurana, who has received more than 14 awards in the past 16 years, who made headlines worldwide with his warnings. He called upon the industry to immediately work to reduce people’s exposure to the radiation from mobile phones.
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