Tapping into safety concerns following last year's accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, SoftBank Mobile Corp. on May 29 announced the summer release of a new smartphone that can measure radiation levels.
Tapping into safety concerns following last year's accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, SoftBank Mobile Corp. on May 29 announced the summer release of a new smartphone that can measure radiation levels.The Pantone 5, which is manufactured by Sharp Corp. and runs on an Android operating system, uses a silicon semiconductor, developed uniquely by Sharp, to measure gamma ray levels. The readings are displayed numerically on the screen and are also recorded on map software.The smartphone model--the latest in SoftBank Mobile's Pantone series--will be released in mid-July or later. It is one of many new smartphones, cellphones and mobile Wi-Fi routers that the cellphone carrier plans to market this summer.Seven of the 12 new models can communicate in the 900-megahertz radio frequency band that was recently allocated to SoftBank Mobile. It plans to begin service in that frequency band on July 25.