University without Wifi

As we write this sitting three feet from a wireless router, we wonder about Fred Gilbert, who will not allow wireless internet into Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario, out of concerns about health consequences of EMF's (electric and magnetic fields) . “These are particularly relevant in younger people (who have) fast-growing tissues, and most of our student body are late teenagers and still growing, so it’s just a matter of taking precautions and providing an environment that doesn’t have a potential risk associated risk,” he said. We can't quite imagine a University these days without WIFI, but "There are plenty of computers around campus where students can access the Internet 24 hours a day, so it’s not like they’re cut off," Gilbert said. Gilbert added he believes there are many environmental impacts that are not manifest for 30 to 40 years after exposure. “Second-hand tobacco exposure is a case in point,” he said. “We’re just finding out now what some of those impacts are. Asbestos is another example.”
Hmm. We are putting on our tinfoil hat and moving our router. ::IT Business

Schools ban wi-fi networks after safety fears

Mass wisteria as tin foil hats donned

A FEW SCHOOLS have lent their ears to worried parents' concerns and banned wi-fi networks, the Times reports today.

The Prebendal School in Chichester and a Welsh comprehensive, Ysgol Pantycelen, have pulled the plug on their wireless networks after parents lobbied about potential effects wi-fi could have on their kids.

There is no evidence that wi-fi nets have any effect on human health, but if the mummies and daddies are worried about piddly little wi-fi systems, they'd better start thinking about WiMAX beams which they won't be able to avoid unless they kit their kids out with tin foil hats.

And they'd better not take little Johnny or Jane into Soho where wi-fi nets are way more pervasive than ladies of the night. The psychological effects of wi-fi nets shouldn't be underestimated, however.

Blokes - it's nearly always blokes - struggling to cope with getting the things to work have been known to fall into almighty bates, swearing at the wife and kids and kicking the cat as they frenziedly scribble down IP numbers. µ

L'INQ
The Times

WiMAX masts pose no health risk, Intel says

Windmills of your mind

By INQUIRER staff : יום רביעי 13 אפריל 2005, 09:27

INTEL'S MOBILITY guru Sean Maloney said that masts beaming WiMAX signals across the metropolis do not pose any risk to health.

But Intel takes the matter seriously, said Maloney, and continues to closely watch research on the effect of radio emissions.

The successful implementation of WiMAX would require masts to be set up as relay stations, much as cellular masts are pretty much omnipresent, Maloney said yesterday. But the effects of such transmissions were unlikely to have much effect on humanoids within range. He said that since concerns were first raised about cellular transmissions, not one case of them having an effect on human tissue had been proven.

WiMAX - or wireless DSL as the first implementation will be called - will likely be rolled out worldwide over the next few years, with several hundred companies participating in the study. Intel will make money out of selling silicon, said Maloney. That's not just the silicon that will be in boxes used to transmit the signals, but through more sales of notebooks able to use WiMAX, he said.

Currently, the problem is that if you have a notebook there are virtual deserts even in large cities such as London, unless you hop around from pub to pub, or from coffee bar to coffee bar, or from burger joint to burger joint.

Wireless DSL is also expected to bring broadband to rural areas, and we'd suggest that they should be incorporated in a network of aesthetically designed windmills across the country. Disguising the masts as fake trees fools no-one, not even rock pigeons. µ

February 21, 2006 7:19 AM - Lloyd Alter, Toronto