See RCR’s Video Interview with Tawkon
For all the studies claiming mobile phone radiation gives you cancer, there a multitude more claiming they don’t, but something no one denies is the fact mobile phones do emit radiation, and that it is probably a good idea to minimize one’s exposure wherever possible.
The problem, however, is how one would know when one’s mobile is giving off higher than average radiation? The answer is Tawkon, an innovative Israeli firm which has come up with an app of the same name to monitor and analyze cell radiation so users can “talk on” as usual and receive smart prompts to avoid radiation just when they need to.
How exactly does this work? Tawkon says that mobile radiation constantly changes and that its app is able to recognize when radiation exposure has increased, alerting users when radiation levels cross a predefined threshold, and providing simple, non-intrusive suggestions to reduce exposure to radiation – for example, use earphones or distance the phone from your head. Suggestions are based on the users real time environmental and usage parameters.
The tech behind this ingenious app is based on Tawkon’s own patent-pending RRI (Real-time Radiation Indication) which collects and analyzes your phone’s dynamic SAR (Specific Absorption Rate) levels, location, environmental conditions and phone usage at any given moment.
The RRI uses the smartphone’s own capabilities and hardware, such as built-in Bluetooth, accelerometer and proximity sensors, GPS and even compass. Data is also based on information extracted from the phone and reflecting its ongoing communication with cellular towers.
The firm claims to have the only software based solution on the market, which can be downloaded as an app without any hardware cost or maintenance.
Best of all, Tawkon doesn’t use scare tactics to stop users from using their mobiles or significantly changing their mobile habits. The firm strongly believes in working with the industry, and simply empowering users to practice responsible phone usage with minimal disruption.
The firm says the level of radiation a person is exposed to during calls is determined through an analysis of several dynamic factors including:
- Intensity of cellular (non ionizing) radiation exposure
- Impact of environmental factors such as distance from cellular towers, network and weather conditions, terrain, etc
- Antenna’s proximity from the body
- Personal phone usage such as antenna orientation (if the user is holding the phone vertically or horizontally), travel speed, etc
- The phone’s particular SAR (Specific Absorption Rate).
There is also a “prediction mode” for when users are not currently in a call which purports to predict radiation levels and help the user decide how to make their next call by estimating radiation absorption levels if a call were to be made under current conditions. For instance, the Tawkon app maps a user’s environment to show low-to-high mobile phone radiation zones throughout their home, office or neighborhood.
Whilst in an actual call, Tawkon offers users real-time alerts with prompts to reduce mobile phone radiation exposure. Meanwhile, built in feedback functionality shows how effective recommended actions were in reducing radiation exposure. There are statistics too which attempt to show how much radiation exposure users avoided over the past day, week or month while using Tawkon.
For those more globally minded, there’s also a world map feature which shows average radiation exposure levels from the Tawkon community at large. Expressed through red / yellow / green users talk zones, the map shows the best places worldwide to talk from and how others worldwide are avoiding mobile phone radiation.
The app gained rather a lot of publicity a while back when it was rejected from Apple’s app store, but Tawkon is confident that after user petitions and multiple email exchanges with Cupertino, this decision will soon be reversed. Meanwhile, the app is available for Blackberry (at a cost of $9.99 ) and an Android app is in development, to be released at some point in Q2.
More information on tawkon is available on the firm’s website.
See RCR’s video interview with Tawkon’s Gil Friedlander below:
Demo:
