Hospital mobile bans 'must stay'
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Evidence that mobile phones can interfere with vital intensive care equipment has been strengthened.
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Despite long-standing concerns, cell phones don't have a negative impact on medical equipment, a new study has found.
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A health authority has said it can no longer provide a GP out-of-hours service during the night.
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A ban on all importation of future 3G handset models using Qualcomm technology could have a big impact on cell phone operators and handset manufacturers.
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Blog: U.S. International Trade Commission has denied a request for a stay on a ban imposed earlier this month on the import of new handsets using Qualcomm's 3G chips.
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Mobile phones should come no closer than about three feet to hospital beds and equipment, according to researchers.
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Customers of mobile-phone carriers shouldn't have to pay early termination fees if they're called to overseas military service or have their contracts automatically extended every time they call customer support, critics said Wednesday.
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The long-term cancer risk of mobile phone use cannot be ruled out, experts say, after a six-year study.
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Experts say mobile phones do not cause short-term health problems - but refuse to rule out a longer-term cancer risk.
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Cellphones in hospitals may present no danger at all, two new reports show.
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(InfoWorld) - U.S. cell-phone users are staying away from mobile data services in droves, according to research company IDC. Almost three-quarters of respondents (72.5 percent) in an IDC online survey didn't use any data service other than text-messaging in the third quarter of this year, said analyst Lewis Ward. The company asked 2,506 teen-age and adult users about their attitudes toward data services. Data services are too expensive, respondents said. Mean consumer data spending on data services was about $3.70 per month, with the average young consumer spending more, according to IDC. But even among 18-to-24-year-olds, 47 percent complained about price. In general, U.S. consumers have been slower than those in other countries at adopting mobile data services. The first significant data service, SMS (Short Message Service), was a big hit in Europe and Asia before it was widely adopted in the U.S. Higher per-minute voice costs and lower data prices in those regions have helped drive adoption, Ward said. Today, SMS is a relatively bright spot for U.S. mobile data use. According to the survey, 47 percent of users sent or received an SMS in the third quarter. But Ward said he was surprised to learn how many of those messages come from subscription news and information services. About one-quarter of the messages in that period came from such services, which mobile users sign up for to receive news, sports, financial and other information, according to the survey. About one-fifth of consumers bought a ringtone during the quarter and one tenth bought a wallpaper or a game. But in a written-response portion of the survey, a small percentage of respondents not only didn't use mobile data services but were vehemently opposed to them, Ward said. Some were worried that they degraded voice calls by taking up network capacity, which is not possible on most types of cellular networks. One wrote, "I don't use any of these" followed by seventeen exclamation points, Lewis said. However, Ward sees the U.S. catching up to other parts of the world over the next several years as a more open market lowers prices. At the moment, carriers mostly control what content and services their customers can get, using a "walled-garden" approach. "As the mobile Internet matures, I think it'll become very difficult for carriers to control all aspects of the business model, as they more or less can in the current environment," Ward said. Third-party offerings, some of them free and supported by advertising, will force down prices and help increase adoption, he said. The U.S. is likely to even lead the charge on some mobile services. For example, instant-messaging services that U.S. consumers have widely embraced on their PCs are starting to catch on with the country's mobile users as well, communicating both among themselves and with PC users, Ward said. (IDC is a division of International Data Group, the parent company of IDG News Service.)
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Patients are to be given the right to opt out of having information stored on the NHS electronic database.
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Â· Government failed to follow up patients at riskÂ· Danger of wider infection a 'serious problem'
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Patients may not be given a choice of hospitals by the end of the year as ministers promised, a report says.
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Experts urged mobile phone users to use their handsets with caution and keep them out of the hands of young children, in a report warning that mobile technology was racing ahead of studies of its potential health hazards.
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Using cell phones near hospital beds or important equipment is dangerous and could switch off ventilators or disrupt pacemakers, Dutch researchers said on Thursday.
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Civil servant finally leaks data correctly - to us... The Register has received the email sent out to all staff at the Medical Research Council passing on instructions from the Cabinet Office that the ban on taking laptops out of the office could apply to mobile phones too.â¦