CTIA Sues San Francisco Over Radiation Law
The wireless industry sued the city of San Francisco on Friday to stop a law that requires cell phone stores to post how much radio energy each model emits.
It's the first law of that kind in the U.S. The industry trade group known as CTIA -- The Wireless Association said the law will mislead consumers into thinking that one phone might be safer than another on the basis of radiation measurements.
Studies have not conclusively found that cell phone radiation is a health risk. Research continues on brain tumors.
In its lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, the industry group said the city is usurping the authority of the Federal Communications Commission, which sets limits for phone radiation.
Dennis Herrera, the city attorney, said the ordinance gives cell phone buyers access to the same information at stores that they could get from other sources, such as the FCC's Web site.
"I think San Francisco is on solid legal ground in its effort to inform and protect consumers," he said.
Previously, Mayor Gavin Newsom's office has said that the ordinance is "a quite modest measure that will provide greater transparency and information to consumers for whom this is an area of interest or concern."
The local ordinance requires cell phone retailers to disclose a measure of much energy will theoretically be absorbed by a user's head. FCC limits this specific absorption rate, or SAR, to an average of 1.6 watts per kilogram. Measurements for phones sold in the U.S. are available on the agency's site, but not usually in stores.
"Nobody should be suggesting to consumers that they ought to be shopping for phones based on a difference in SAR values," said John Walls, vice president for public affairs at CTIA. "There's no scientific basis to suggest, as the ordinance does, that two phones with...
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EMC's Net More Than Doubles as Sales Rise
EMC Corp.'s net income more than doubled in the second quarter as corporations opened the spigot on spending for more data storage.
But economic worries because of the European debt crisis and fears of a possible "double-dip" recession in the U.S. have eclipsed encouraging signs from the technology sector. Some investors fear a spike in computer spending may just be a relief valve for pent-up demand that won't stay open long.
Shares slid 3 percent in early trading.
Other technology heavyweights such as IBM Corp., Intel Corp. and Texas Instruments Inc. have reported higher second-quarter profits but have failed to impress investors.
Joe Tucci, EMC's CEO, called the recovery "choppy" and said EMC is "definitely seeing a slowdown" in southern Europe. He added that information technology spending throughout all of Europe is growing, however, and that the U.S. market is "good with good prospects" and he called Asia "robust."
Analyst Daniel Ives with FBR Capital Markets said that "very healthy demand" for EMC's Symmetrix brand of networked storage products helped during the latest quarter, but that that must continue for the company to be successful in the second half of the year.
EMC's numbers illustrate that information technology spending overall is recovering, a trend that should "disproportionally benefit tech bellwethers such as EMC over the coming quarters," Ives wrote.
Still, some analysts simply don't believe that companies will be able to hit their optimistic targets given the turmoil in world markets, stoked by fears that the governments of Greece, Portugal and Spain might default on perilously high debts and that the U.S. economic rebound is losing strength.
Technology hardware companies are particularly vulnerable. Corporations that are tight on cash can postpone hardware acquisitions such as computers, and that could mean an economic lag for companies that supply them.
Tucci said that EMC hasn't seen a "material or abnormal" number...
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