A big thanks to @thibautR (otherwise known as Thibaut Rouffineau, VP Developer Partnerships, WIP Connector), for tweeting the pic of tawkon’s Co-Founder and CEO Gil Friedlander on stage.

The topic? Life after being rejected by Steve Jobs. A true tawkon story.

Are you with us at WIP Jam Tel Aviv right now? Say hello, or tweet us at @tawkon.

Our very own Amit Lubovsky, Co-founder and VP of Business Development and Marketing, had a guest post published in WIP Connector yesterday.

He discusses a crucial element of producing a functional, attractive and successful mobile app: Ensuring the connection is clear between your design and development teams.

Here’s an excerpt from the article. Catch the whole thing here.

Get Your Dev and Design Teams Talking—Tips from Tawkon

The key to our success can be summed up in one word: talking.

It’s an understatement to say that communication between mobile app developers and their design teams are important. It’s crucial. When these two teams work together, flaws are more easily discovered, and time is managed much more efficiently, especially when developing across multiple mobile platforms. In other words, by keeping developers and designers talking throughout the process for each platform, you avoid mistakes and save time.

So, how did we get our two teams to ‘talk on’ while building tawkon? Our process involved three steps…

Read the full article and let us know in the comments if you have any other tips for clear communication between teams.

What a pleasant way to finish off the year! We noticed not one, but two mentions of tawkon today, in the context of top Israeli start ups to look out for in 2012:

8 Israeli Mobile Startups You Might Not Have Heard of But Should Watch Closely in 2012 (Inneractive)

15 Growing Israeli Startups To Watch In 2012 (Business Insider)

What better way to keep a close watch for tawkon in the new year than to subscribe to the blog, follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook!

Have a happy – and safe – New Year!

We’re often asked in meetings with partners, investors, media and user groups, why we developed tawkon – the app that lets users see and lower their exposure to cellphone radiation – for low SAR devices like the Samsung Galaxy S and Nexus S that already expose users to lower radiation levels.

The answer always welcomes into an interesting discussion that we thought to share here.

As many have now heard, tawkon is the somewhat controversial application that monitors a users’ cellphone radiation exposure at any time, and provides real-time prompts to reduce exposure just when radiation levels exceed a pre-determined threshold. When activated while not on a call, tawkon also lets users map their home or office to know where are ‘high’ and ‘low’ radiation zones if a call would take place under current conditions. Our app is based on a complex algorithm factoring in several device,  personal usage and changing environmental factors.  Studies have shown that impact from exposure to cellphone radiation is accumulative so tawkon “stats” shows users the radiation levels they’ve been exposed to over the past call, day, week, month and six months. We also believe in the power of community and sharing knowledge, so our tawkon-ified google maps also show high and low radiation points as experienced by tawkon users worldwide.

So why fast-track tawkon for these low SAR phones as soon as they hit the market?

Behind closed doors, our team debated whether or not to even develop tawkon for the Samsung Galaxy S & Nexus S  – two low SAR phones. (A cell phone’s SAR, or its Specific Absorption Rate, is a measure of the amount of radio frequency (RF) energy absorbed by the body when using the handset. The lower the SAR the less exposure to the user.) The Nexus S has a SAR level of  0.58 and the Galaxy S boasts a SAR of 0.35, both significantly lower than the US guidelines limit of 1.6.

It is important to note that the question of which devices to support is not trivial for tawkon. Unlike a lot of applications, tawkon is specifically optimized for each new device, and calibrated in an independent RF lab to determine accurate and reliable monitoring of real-time radiation levels. Some tawkon team members argued that our app is less critical with a phone that already has low SAR levels, and we should focus on users exposed to particularly high radiation exposure.

After considering the real benefits to users,  we decided to develop a version of tawkon for these low SAR devices. Here’s why.

Enough research recommending users take precautionary measures to reduce cellphone radiation, even on low SAR devices.

While the jury is still out on the vibrant global debate about the impact of cell phone radiation, there is significant documentation (including this recent NY Times Magazine report) justifying precautionary measures to reduce exposure to cell phone radiation. The bottom line, therefore, is that until there is more conclusive evidence, no one (not even us who have dedicated our days, nights, weekends and holidays to developing an app that monitors and lowers cell phone radiation) yet knows the real health impact of long-term exposure to cell phone radiation. We do however know the value of peace of mind: Priceless.

This all means that although lower SAR devices are a good start, it’s not a prescription for peace of mind. To avoid mobile radiation we need to take precautionary measures to lower exposure as much as possible, monitor our real-time exposure, and act when necessary. It’s empowering for an individual to be able to regulate what, until recently, was not only invisible, but out of our control.

Relative Programming Ease

On a technical level, these Android devices provides tawkon access to APIs not available on  iPhone.

If you follow some of our recent correspondence with Apple, you may have seen “Steve Jobs emailed us “No Interest”, slamming the door on tawkon and cell phone users who want to know how to use their phones more responsibly. Android on the other hand gives us access to the necessary APIs, and respects their users intelligence by not hiding this useful and interesting information.

More Power to the People

So the moral of the story is – more power to the people. Smart consumers have already chosen a low-SAR phone (whether or not that was a conscious influence), and now we are giving them the ideal solution for low radiation phone calls…

Pure Aesthetics

Also – both the Nexus S and the Galaxy S are great looking phones, and our app looks just FAB on them! Check out this demo – don’t you agree?

By Gil Friedlander – Co-founder & CEO, tawkon

It’s been an exciting week for tawkon. Founders Gil Friedlander and Ori Goshen landed in SF for 3 dazzling days at TechCrunch Disrupt 2010. They were kept busy by the flow of curious visitors stopping by our booth in StartUp Alley to see how tawkon works.

Some of the highlights:

launched Android – tawkon users popping up all over the place – throughout SF where we launched, and all over the world from South Africa to Korea.

Apropos Korea – a special note to our Korean users – 친애하는 한국 친구가, 우리가 한국에 대한 특별 삼성 안드로이드 전화를 발견했다. 우리는 개발 프로젝트에 즉시 추가됩니다. 연락을 유지 업데이 트를 듣고! 감사합니다.

Our “Are You Protected?” condom giveaways – was a big hit – we still have a few leftover that we’ll be giving away over the coming weeks. So stay tuned to the blog for more info.

Brad McCarty of TheNextWeb filmed a demo of the newest  tawkon for Android app released at TC Disrupt 2010.

*tawkon is currently available on the following Samsung Galaxy-S (Captivate SGHI897 – AT&T, Vibrant SGHT959 – T-Mobile, Vibrant GTI9000 ) phones.  We are continuously rolling out more devices, so if yours is not yet supported, sign up at www.tawkon.com/download and we’ll notify you when it is.

Saw some other great startups in the StartUp alley – some of our favorites are Qwiki an amazing information experience, Pinger i2i chat for iPhone/iPod touch messaging, and Lark a silent, natural alarm clock.

The main party was a blast – featuring legendary hip-hop artist MC Hammer

We will be singing “Can’t touch this” around the office for some time…

Thanks to TC Disrupt & all the incredible people we met!

Nikki

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

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.