This is a topic that just keeps coming back. On December 9, 1999, I posted a The Road Warrior column titled "How Safe Is Wireless Computer Networking?," which proved to be one of the all-time biggest reader mail generators of my Mac Web writing career. That was of course just a few months after Apple's Airport wireless technology had debuted with the original clamshell iBook, and nearly three months before the first PowerBook with internal wireless support (the PowerBook 2000 Pismo ) was released.

I will cop to being a wireless worrywart from the get-go, commenting in '99: "I'm concerned that virtually no attention is apparently being paid to the issue of possible health hazards associated with long-term-routine exposure to the radio frequencies generated by these systems." More than nine years after that article was published. I'm still concerned.....

Until there is a lot more research available on this issue from disinterested third parties, my own personal policy of "prudent avoidance" will include prudently avoiding wireless LANs, and until there is a really compelling reason to use them I'll continue to avoid using cellular and cordless phones. Happily, that has not been difficult so far, but I'm concerned that it may become more so as wireless technology becomes more intricately integrated into laptop computers like the MacBook Air for instance. For many others who will be exposed in work or educational settings, prudent avoidance will be virtually impossible.

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