Electromagnetic Field Exposure from Pervasive Computing

With the number of electromagnetic field sources in human environments increasing, it appears appropriate to discuss the future levels of radio frequency (RF) exposure. However, general quantitative assessment is impeded by a fundamental lack of current data. Nevertheless, major technological trends and innovation paths are presented and evaluated with respect to their effect on exposure levels. The most relevant wireless standards and their RF characteristics are briefly introduced. The factors influencing RF exposure are treated in a systematic fashion. A simple exposure-oriented classification of present and future RF sources is introduced to facilitate a structured discussion. The most relevant levers for limiting future exposure levels are presented and some general conclusions are drawn.     

Google search patterns suggest declining interest in the environment

Public interest in most aspects of the environment is sharply declining relative to other subjects, as measured by internet searches performed on Google. Changes in the search behavior by the public are closely tied to their interests, and those interests are critical to driving public policy. Google Insights for Search (GIFS) was a tool that provided access to search data but is now combined with another tool, Google Trends. We used GIFS to obtain data for 19 environment-related terms from 2001 to 2009. The only environment-related term with large positive slope was climate change. All other terms that we queried had strong negative slopes indicating that searches for these topics dropped over the last decade. Our results suggest that the public is growing less interested in the environment.