I have spent the last few years studying EMF, Microwaves and Radio Frequency (RF) and their effects on human health. It is from this research and my own experiences surveying the day-to-day environmental influences that we are bombarded with that I say hat’s off to Tawkon. I will fully support their applications, and anxiously anticipate they’re availability on Blackberry devices.

Back to the housekeeping bit. I really believe mobile appliances present a ripe opportunity for location-based software mapping of environmental influences such as Microwaves and RF. Perhaps even EMF. I know they will never be able to fully replace the metering equipment I currently use, however the use case of having a light-duty measurement tool on my Blackberry is quite strong given that I already carry it around with me everywhere.

To your point about Apple’s “greener” approach to manufacturing consumer electronics, I’ll link share Greenpeace’s post on the topic of the iPhone and allow you to draw your own conclusions. I certainly wouldn’t want to make it seem like Apple is the only manufacturer lagging behind – here is an interesting report on how some of the top consumer electronic manufacturers rate in this regard (make sure to see the meter graphic).

Finally, I’ll share some common sense approaches I’ve used to offset the environmental influences of the mobile devices I use. I keep my device turned off overnight. I make sure the brand or model I use has a feature to turn off the radio signal without needing to power-off the entire device – this just makes it quicker to establish a signal on the ready without the wait for a power-on boot-up.

During the day, I keep the radio signal off, and restore the radio connection on an hourly basis to check for emails/voice-mail. I use the speaker phone on the device when answering calls, and if I carry the device at the hip, the radio signal is always turned off. I don’t listen to music unless the radio signal is off as it will radiate to my ears (wired or wireless), and of course this because I’m super-cautious about any radiation referring to the noggin (and yes, I’ve tested this to confirm the assumption).

Rena’s point about reputation management is certainly one I can appreciate at a professional level, though I would ask that some thought be put toward what I described above about modifying my own phone use, and what it would mean if an application like Tawkon influenced a similar prudence and awareness en masse, and you may begin to understand my opening statement about it being bad for business.

Hat tip to hilzfuld for advancing this important discussion.

Joseph
@RepuTrack

I have an iPhone, and my kids have iPods, and I have been terribly disappointed by the customer service that Apple offers. It seems to me that they are a technology company that makes amazing user interfaces, but doesn’t know how to interface with people. Sounds like they could use a lesson in reputation management.

http://health.discovery.com/centers/cancer/top10myths/myth8.html