In the present-day world of electronics, it seems that whatever you decide to make, whatever its functionality, there will be someone wanting to buy it. From mood phones to uploading video from your camera phone to your HDTV display at home, there is a group of willing buyers...with quality, apparently, be damned.
There is nobody in our industry more concerned with the amount of RF consumers are playing around with these days than I am. And I have frequently written of my concerns and have come to the conclusion that there is a ten-year set of effects which are now beginning to be seen by researchers.
Apart from apparent effects to the head, there are also reports of male semen being reduced in both quantity and sperm count. One such study came from research at the Cleveland Clinic, a highly-respected institution -- although, as with many of these sorts of studies, the number of samples involved is relatively small.
In one of those bizarre moments of product offerings -- and certainly, in this case, one that I would have expected from Japan and not, as it has been, from Switzerland -- a company is offering (and the company does not, of course, call them this) Faraday-screened underpants.
This is not a new venture taking advantage of a possible army of scared men. ISAbodywear has been around for a while making what I suppose you would call, er, sports underclothes? Their website (good luck navigating that one!) has some slightly raunchy photos.
The product being offered is a pair of cotton briefs (only black initially) into which is woven silver threads. There is no indication that the threads make a continuous circuit -- but, for it to work, they must be joined somewhere.
The company says that they can prove the underpants work as claimed because if you put your phone inside them and try to make a call, it will not go through.
No doubt there are a large number of men who wear their cell phones on their belt but I, personally, would be more concerned about the organs around there than about virility. And if the romance of discussing your protective underwear with your partner comes up, I suspect you will stand less chance of becoming a father anyway.
As that altered version of the text from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back goes, "Search your pants, Luke. You know it to be true."
