tawkon

We’ve received a lot of questions from tawkon users and fans about how tawkon works and how it helps minimize exposure to radiation during calls.

Based on your feedback we’ve just launched a full-featured FREE TRIAL version of tawkon that is active for 75 monitored calls on all supported BlackBerry devices.

With this FREE TRIAL version, as with the original application, tawkon silently monitors changing radiation levels and subtly alerts you when you reach the pre-defined threshold, offering a simple instruction to lower radiation levels at the time. You’ll also receive quick feedback to confirm that radiation levels did in fact return to the “Green Zone” (low radiation). When not on a call (we call this prediction mode) you can see low, moderate and high radiation levels any time by just clicking on the tawkon icon on your BlackBerry home screen.

You can get both tawkon and the free trial on our website as well as several app stores including Mobihand and in a few days on Handango & AppWorld.

Based on your feedback we’ve also clarified how tawkon works on our technology page.

User feedback is very important to us. As you can see, you help us improve our product – so please keep the feedback coming!

There’s been lots of talk lately about the “iPhone4 Death Grip” now known simply as “the Death Grip.”

The Death Grip in a nutshell is a well known phenomenon which happens when you wrap the phone with your hand thereby shielding the antenna. This leads to a decrease in the signal being received by the phone, causing the phone to transmit more power in order to reach the cellular tower while maintaining connection quality.

Most of this discussion has focused on the lost reception and call drops on the iPhone 4.0 with its antenna newly positioned around the device circumference (where you hold the phone).

We decided to add another perspective to this discussion – we checked out the impact of the Death Grip on the level of radiation a user is exposed to. We checked this on several devices in parallel – the iPhone 4.0, the BlackBerry 9700, and the Android Nexus One.

As you can see in our quick demo, this phenomenon is not exclusive to the iPhone – the way you hold the phone – and specifically blocking the receiver – increases the transmission power of the phone to maintain good cellular connectivity, and thereby increases radiation levels you’re exposed to.

There are many other factors influencing radiation levels – such as your location, operators network load, your phone model SAR levels, etc – but during this demo we made an effort to keep changing factors constant so we could isolate and see the impact of the Death Grip on several different phones.

For those of you wondering how we’ve suddenly added Android into the mix, this is a sneak preview of the first Android version to be released soon. As you know, tawkon on BlackBerry is now available from App World ,Mobihand and Handango, and as you can see in this clip, tawkon works on the iPhone (all models) but you’ll have to wait to download it because Apple has not yet approved it. If you want to see tawkon available to control your exposure to mobile phone radiation on the iPhone, please sign our quick petition here.

Now back to the Death Grip demo – we welcome you to take a look and as always, we look forward to your comments!

Great news for a whole bunch of blackberry owners in the world today!

tawkon is proud to announce, after much positive feedback and requests for support for these popular devices, that tawkon is now also available for: BlackBerry Bold 9000, Curve 8900, Curve 8520 and Bold 9700 devices.

Here’s a quick reminder of why people are calling tawkon the “must have” application. tawkon is the only mobile application that monitors the level of radiation you’re exposed to and provides subtle easy prompts to avoid radiation in real time. The main features include:

• Non-intrusive alerts with smart action prompts to avoid radiation in real-time
• Real-time feedback confirming it worked
• Track cumulative radiation avoided and most effective actions taken during the last call, day, week, month or 6 months

We’ve responded to many questions about how this is technologically possible from the curious and the sceptical – so those interested are welcome to dive deeper into the technology behind tawkon.

tawkon can be downloaded to supported BlackBerry devices from AppWorld, Mobihand & Handango, or from www.tawkon.com/download where you can also sign up to be informed when tawkon is available for your device.

You can also see tawkon in action in this quick demo.

Also we love receiving your comments and/or any feedback to help us continually improve tawkon, so please do share.

If you’re an Android user, sit tight – tawkon is coming soon to a Droid near you. If you’re an iPhone user, we hope tawkon will be on the iPhone soon – as soon as Apple approves it – so please help us along by signing the petition here. It takes just 2 seconds.

In the meanwhile, happy tawking…

tawkon

An entire industry is now in the process of being formed surrounding the issue of mobile phone radiation. There are hardware manufacturers making cases for phones that supposedly keep the radiation away from you, although in reality that just makes the phone work harder thereby increasing radiation.

There are of course many other solutions, such as Bluetooth headsets, which significantly decrease radiation exposure when used.

However, while the levels are very low, Bluetooth does not come with no radiation of its own. The ultimate solution is either a speakerphone or an “air tube” headset. However, that brings up a different issue? Who uses speakerphone in public or wired headsets nowadays?

Well, a new product just released might bring back the “cool” in wired headsets. Innpu just released the first ever mobile phone with a built in headset. The concept is pretty simple. When a call comes in, instead of answering it wirelessly, pull the wire with the headset out of the phone and start talking responsibly.

Once the call ends, the headset retracts automatically back into the phone. By using a product like this, you not only prevent exposure to mobile phone radiation, you also enable complete hands free talking. It’s a nice concept and one that does not require carrying around another accessory.

According to the press release, Innpu spent as long as five years developing this product with the most advanced materials to enable sustainability, speed, and ease of use.

This new technology also provides another significant advantage over Bluetooth technology, which is that it does not require charging and is therefore always available when you need it.

Innpu also points out that all phones today come bundled with earphones, but due to the inconvenience of carrying around the headphones as well as winding the headset externally, this new phone will provide an ideal solution.

The phone will be available worldwide soon and according to the company, this new technology will also be available on other mobile devices such as notebooks, iPads, and other MP4 players.

Happy tawking…

The tawkon team

The mobile software industry is continuing to amaze experts with its astonishing numbers of independent mobile applications and downloads. However, as a result of the increasing functionality our phones now provide, we felt that there was a need for a solution to one of the most well-known side effects of intense mobile phone usage. Mobile phone radiation is a topic we hear a lot about, but the practical solutions are far less common.

We therefore set out to become the leading software provider for a real time and accurate mobile tool that will notify users of increased radiation and offer them practical and convenient ways to reduce their exposure. We worked for over a year and a half developing tawkon for multiple mobile platforms such as iPhone, BlackBerry, and others.

While the BlackBerry version was released just last week to the public, the iPhone app has not yet been approved by Apple. With the release of the BlackBerry version, we received tremendous compliments and positive feedback from some of the industry’s leading personalities. However, we started noticing a trend, primarily in the Comments section of the various articles covering tawkon. Many people were skeptical regarding the technological side of the app, and some even went as far as to call it a scam. The premise of these claims was that modern smartphones do not have the capability to measure radiation, leaving no way for tawkon to possibly know the precise levels of radiation phones are emitting.

To be honest, we all use many different technologies in our day to day lives, and rarely do we understand the technical aspects of how these technologies work. However, when it comes to our personal health and a topic as “hot” as mobile phone radiation, people want to know how it works, and this is very much justified. We therefore decided to write this post and try to break down the technology behind tawkon, and how it all really works. We will of course try to simplify it for those that are not radiation experts, but bear with us, the information is all here.

Cellular Communication: How Does it Work?

Before we delve into what we have been working on for the past year and a half, it is important to understand how cellular technology works, at least on its most basic level. Mobile phones allow communication from any location via a network of cellular towers. Information is transmitted from the mobile phone to the cellular tower and vice versa via high-frequency electromagnetic fields.

The mobile phone is comprised of hundreds of electronic components. The heart of the system is the modem (baseband), which is responsible for the wireless communication (similar to the DSL modem most of us have at home). During the communication process, the mobile phone gets instructions from the cellular network of how much energy it should transmit in order to keep the voice or data session in good quality. The more energy the phone utilizes, the more mobile radiation it emits.

Mobile Phone Non-Ionizing Radiation, SAR and Radiation Exposure

The energy transmitted during the communication between a mobile phone and a cell tower is actually non-ionizing radiation. Its values range from 250mWatts for third generation networks (3G) to 1.8 Watts for second generation networks (2G).  (1mWatt = 1/1000 Watt)

So what does all this mean? It means our phones emit a certain amount of radiation when in normal use, but the radiation the phone emits does not equal the radiation to which we are exposed. There are many other variables to that equation.

The following are some of the factors that affect the actual levels of radiation to which we are exposed to when using mobile devices:

• Hardware: The way a mobile device is engineered, the model of the phone, factors such as the location of the device’s antenna, the materials out of which it was constructed, materials that physically shield the device from the cellular network (covers, sticker, etc) as well as the shape and size of the phone are all components that affect your levels of exposure to radiation.
• Environment: The location of the mobile phone is a crucial point. The terrain (whether the user is shielded from the cellular network e.g. in a basement, elevator or behind a concrete wall), mobility (due to frequent handover between cell towers) as well as weather conditions are all characteristics that are factored into this equation.
• Usage: While the above two factors are not in the hands of the user (besides of course selecting a device and changing location when possible), the way we use our phones very much depends on us. Many people are unaware that even the smallest adjustment in the way we operate our mobile devices can drastically reduce our exposure to mobile phone radiation. Holding the phone vertically and not horizontally, distancing the device from ones body & head via peripherals such as headsets (wired or Bluetooth) or by using the phone’s speaker, we can actively take part in lowering our exposure to radiation.

The amount of mobile phone non-ionizing radiation we are exposed to is measured in units called SAR (Specific Absorption Rate). Each mobile phone vendor has to comply with the FCC regulations of maximum SAR levels of 1.6Watt/kg. You can see what your device’s SAR level is here.

What most people do not know is that SAR levels of mobile phones are dynamic and change constantly (from zero to the max SAR values of the specific phone model) based on the factors we mentioned above.

tawkon– How Does It Work?

All the information related to the radiation emitted by the mobile phone is available / stored in the phone itself. This information is required by the phone for its normal operation as it needs to know how much power to transmit in order to keep the voice or data connection while the user is talking or on an active data session (browsing, VOIP, etc).

tawkon extracts this information in the form of different RF and network parameters such as: Network – whether the phone is connected to second (2G) or third generation (3G) network, Band – each phone model supports different bands e.g. GSM  (850, 900, 1800, 1900Mhz) or WCDMA (850, 1900, 2100Mhz, etc) and many others.

All of these parameters in addition to various other smartphone capabilities such as motion and proximity sensors, GPS and compass are inputs to tawkon’s patent pending technology that presents the user his exposure to non-ionizing radiation.

The patent-pending RF component of the tawkon technology was developed and tested by, and in collaboration with In4Tel Ltd, a tawkon strategic partner.

What does it take to distribute new phones to the market running tawkon?

Each phone model we support goes through an intense calibration process in an RF lab. This is to ensure that the application on the specific phone model is accurate and precisely reflects the actual exposure of the user to the non-ionizing radiation. The measurements and calibration of the application are conducted with the most sophisticated equipment used by leading mobile phone vendors in the industry. These tools include base station simulators, SAR measurement systems, and other equipment used in the process of certifying phones for the consumer market.

Final Words

As we said above, our goal here was to lay out some of the fundamental principles that guided us in our development of tawkon.

Now that we have covered the basics of the technology behind tawkon, we hope you can recognize that this is a unique and effective tool in our battle to benefit from mobile technology while eliminating associated risks.

We wrote this in light of some skeptical comments we received. We encourage your feedback and insights on our mobile application and know that with the help of your opinions, we will continue working hard on making tawkon as great as we know it can be. Our ultimate goal is to enable mobile users across the globe to benefit from mobile technology and utilize it as a resource that will enhance our daily lives, which is what mobile devices were intended to be in the first place.

Amit Lubovsky,

Co-Founder & VP, R&D tawkon

As you may have heard, Apple recently rejected the tawkon application from the iPhone App Store.  Since then, users around the world have been enjoying tawkon on other devices to avoid mobile phone radiation. Despite this, and despite the fact that the app works on the iPhone (and Apple executives even complimented the app & its GUI ), users can’t yet benefit from it because Apple hasn’t approved it.

Here’s a video letter from everyday people asking Apple to approve tawkon for the iPhone and encouraging everyone to sign the petition at http://www.tawkon.com/tell-apple.

So please sign our petition because everyone knows about mobile phone radiation, but now “there’s an app for that!” We’re asking Apple to let people use tawkon and enjoy their phones while avoiding mobile phone radiation!

This petition is sent directly to the App Review Board who we know have been receiving and noting these voices heard every day. So let’s keep showing Apple that iPhone users are also entitled to control their exposure to mobile phone radiation, and use their great devices more responsibly.

Thanks – and remember to sign this quick petition and let Apple hear you. It is worth the 3 seconds it takes to complete!

The tawkon team

Update 16.6.10 -

According to The New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle, the vote is in – 10 to 1. San Francisco, California is officially the first US city that will require cell phone retailers, by law, to display the SAR (Specific Absorption Rate) of mobile phones on sale.

The law was passed yesterday despite conclusive scientific evidence showing the correlation between cell phones and health related issues.

source: The New York Times

The truth is this issue is about giving consumers information that they have a right to know. The law is not meant to deter cell phone sales but to inform shoppers. We think this is a great initiative because it’s right in line with our philosophy – to help people make informed decisions and responsible phone usage.

We think San Francisco is going to pioneer the way and are closely monitoring other states and nations that will join in on the consumer cell phone information bandwagon.

We’ll keep you posted!

Back to the original post:

The latest mobile news, according to the SF Gate, is that the vote to make San Francisco the first US city that will require retailers to disclose mobile phone radiation levels has been delayed to June 15^th. Apparently on this date the board of supervisors will reconsider the matter after reviewing legal implications for small business owners.

Proponents of the vote believe this could be the beginning of a national US trend. Opponents of the vote, including local retailers and cellular phone providers, are strongly opposed citing inconclusive scientific evidence showing the health risks associated with mobile phones.

This kind of initiative is a big step forward in raising people’s awareness about the issue of mobile phone radiation because only with knowledge can we act more responsibly.

However mobile phone users should be aware that the SAR or Specific Absorption Rate (that, should the vote pass, will be disclosed at point of sale) doesn’t actually reflect the radiation that users are exposed to. SAR reflects the maximum radiation level for each phone model.

What most people don’t know is that SAR levels of mobile phones are dynamic and change constantly (from zero to the max SAR values of the specific phone model) based on varying factors like environment and the way you use your phone. That’s why our patent-pending RRI™ (Real-time Radiation Indication) technology takes into account dynamic SAR values and factors in additional dynamic environmental and usage parameters to provide users with a real-time indication of their exposure to mobile phone radiation and in addition the accumulation of the radiation they’re actually exposed to over time.

We’ll certainly be keeping an eye on developments in San Francisco that may set the precedent in mobile phone radiation transparency throughout the US and perhaps the world, as we’re sure many mobile phone users, industry and retailers will too.

And all that said,

Safe talking…

The tawkon team

It’s been an interesting ride and we can now announce…

tawkon – the world’s first mobile phone application that helps you minimize your exposure to mobile phone radiation and “talk on”….

is now available for download

on selected BlackBerry devices!

from www.tawkon.com/download

and via AppWorld & MobiHand.

Check out tawkon in action here:

iPhone update – and request for your help!

After we were recently rejected from the app store, Apple heard loud & clear the user and media interest in tawkon. They’ve been very positive about working together with us and after several exploratory discussions and a very productive meeting with Philip Shoemaker and his team at their Cupertino headquarters (where they complimented our app and our GUI ), there is a solution that will require minor API modifications to enable tawkon onto the iPhone.

So we’re optimistic – but we now need your help!

Please sign this petition to help us show Apple that iPhone users are also entitled to control their exposure to mobile phone radiation with tawkon. This petition will be sent to the App Review Board and will directly help us provide iPhone users with tawkon – and real practical tools to minimize exposure to mobile phone radiation.

So – you can now:

• Download tawkon for your BlackBerry
• Sign-up to be informed when your phone is supported
• Tell Apple to let tawkon on the iPhone!

Thanks – and happy talking!

The tawkon team.

Well, Apple haven’t accepted our app to the app store, but it’s still early days – we’re optimistic and have many channels to pursue to get tawkon into the hands of mobile phone users worldwide.

We could discuss our perspectives on the matter…

But here’s an objective view of the story by Roi Carthy from Tech Crunch posted today.

Stay tuned…

Like most people I know, I’m a proud, self-confessed mobile addict. My phone is where my life synchronizes – where my colleagues, family and friends find me, where I run errands and where I spend quite a bit of my leisure time.

But then something recently dampened my mobile euphoria. I started hearing reports, studies and theories about mobile phone radiation. There was no clear data on exactly how it affects us, but enough to show some impact. I wasn’t about to desert my phone for some undefined fear, but I found myself a little protective of my kids and other people close to me who were also avid phone users.

I discussed it with several friends, and the answer was pretty consistent:

“Ah… there’s nothing I can do about mobile phone radiation – anyway I’m not going to stop using my phone”

The vagueness of the mobile phone radiation threat was our biggest excuse for complacency – and not having the tools to do anything about it was our justification for ignoring the issue.

I knew it would take free-minded, independent, unaffiliated innovators to create the solution that alleviated the risks, without forgoing the value our mobile phones provide.

So I embarked on a mission:

To provide a tool allowing phone users to know when they are really exposed to mobile phone radiation, and how to avoid it without disrupting normal phone usage.

I couldn’t do this alone. Lucky for me, co-founder Amit Lubovsky, a serial entrepreneur who had recently sold his last start-up venture, was excited about diving deep with me to provide a solution addressing mobile phone radiation. Together we studied, consulted widely with cellular and health experts, experimented with various software and hardware technologies, and recruited world leading RF, mobile and industry experts. We analyzed the root causes of mobile phone radiation and leveraged several technologies to measure the levels of radiation emitted from a mobile phone during calls, and absorbed by the human body – eventually developing our patent-pending RRI™ (Real-time Radiation Indication) technology. RRI is the core smart technology behind our proactive solution to avoid mobile phone radiation exposure.

SAR is just one factor in determining exposure to mobile phone radiation

We developed tawkon based on the sophisticated RRI technology that analyzes in real time the dynamic environmental factors that cause increased mobile phone radiation, and alerts users with useful actions to minimize exposure to mobile phone radiation just when necessary. RRI collects and analyzes your phone’s dynamic SAR (Specific Absorption Rate) levels, location, environmental conditions and phone usage at any given moment. Then by leveraging smart phone’s unique capabilities including,GPS accelerometer and proximity sensors, we can alert users when they’re actually exposed to mobile phone radiation, and suggest which specific precautionary measures will help to minimize radiation exposure in real time.

But we still needed to transform this technology into a useful mobile app.

So we recruited Ori Goshen, an exceptional application developer who we convinced to leave his great job and join us as co-founder. Ori, together with his team of highly skilled, now sleep-deprived programmers transformed our technology into a slick mobile application to let users know precisely when they should be aware of mobile phone radiation, and exactly what to do about it at any given time.
tawkon (as in, now you can “talk on”) was born…

tawkon is the only way to know when you are actually exposed to mobile phone radiation, and the only application that gives you real-time tools to avoid mobile phone radiation just when you need to.

tawkon simply makes the invisible exposure to mobile phone radiation visible, and gives us quick easy tools to minimize our exposure before we dial and even mid-call so we can just…. talk on and on…

Our philosophy is pretty simple: Most of the time we’re fine in the green, but every now and then we enter into a red zone. It might be caused by our sitting position at the table, the street we just walked down or the phone angle that changes when we lie down. So let me continue as usual with my usual mobile phone usage. Then at a particular moment when I’m exposed to mobile phone radiation, just ping me with a quick alert to, go back to my previous location, change phone orientation, switch to a Headset/Bluetooth or distance the phone from my lap where it’s sitting while I ride the train.

We developed this intelligent tool because we love our carefully chosen devices and what they enable us to do. We want all the like minded phone dependents out there including our friends and families to overcome the ambiguous concerns about mobile phone radiation with the knowledge and tools to be responsible mobile phone users so we can all just enjoy the benefits our mobile phones afford us.

Right now we’ve just applied to the iPhone App Store, and a Blackberry version is almost ready to hit the market. We are working with various industry players to jointly deliver our solution, so that eventually all mobile phone users can benefit from tawkon.

After many months of sleepless nights and creative development, we’re very excited to be so close to sharing tawkon with smart phone users around the world.

This is just the beginning of the tawkon mobile lifestyle.

Talk on!

Gil Friedlander, Co-founder & CEO – tawkon.