Word: cellular
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Sound like magic? It might, if you have never seen a laptop or pen-based computer, received an electronic-mail message, sent a fax or carried a cellular phone. But as any well-equipped information worker can testify, these devices have been getting smaller, cheaper and more ubiquitous. Why couldn't they all be squeezed into a single, all-purpose package -- a kind of pocket- size portable office -- that would let brokers buy and sell from a restaurant table, lawyers check precedents from a courtroom, doctors check lab results from a golf course, and salesmen close deals from a trout...
Since 1982, 10 million cellular phones have been sold in the U.S., and so far there have been only a few anecdotal reports of brain cancers among users. Given the gestation period for most cancers, it may be some time before the true effects emerge...
...really understands the long-term health consequences of holding a microwave transmitter next to your brain because nobody has thoroughly studied them. To ease fears, Motorola held a press conference last week and claimed that "thousands of studies" had proved their cellular telephones safe. But when asked to name three studies that showed the phones do not cause tumors, a company spokesman could cite only one 10-year-old report and two others with ambiguous results. "If that's the best they can do, they're in deep trouble," said Louis Slesin, publisher of Microwave News, a newsletter that...
Slesin recommends that cellular-telephone owners practice what he calls prudent avoidance. "If you can use an ordinary phone, do." If mobility is required, he suggests either a trunk-mounted car phone or a two-piece cellular model that separates the hand-held receiver from the microwave transmitter. (So-called cordless portable phones use a different frequency and far less power, and they have not been associated with any adverse health effects...
...cellular-phone controversy could put a crimp in the industry's plans for growth. Motorola wants to build more powerful phones that can bounce their signals off low-flying satellites. Apple and AT&T plan to connect pocket phones, laptop computers and electronic notepads through a "wireless world" of microwaves. But before consumers buy into a pervasive network of cellular devices, they might well demand some answers about the one that is already in place...