Crumbs

Who'd have thought it? Finally, after all those delays (and considerable hostile fire from several corners of the industry) Microsoft is ready to launch Vista this afternoon. ZDNet UK's reporters are now Weetabixed-up and ready with notebooks and cameras to bring you the latest from the London launch.

We'll have for you the latest news and views from the launch event along with four Special Reports on Vista, Exchange 2007, Office 2007 - and the alternatives to Redmond lock-in.

All upcoming later in the day. Check back on www.zdnet.co.uk for regular updates.

It's good to see IBM acquiring only the top global companies to help it to its goal of world domination. So when Big Blue said today it would acquire Vallent, and, quote from the company's news announcement sent to us, "a worldwide (with offices in Richmond and Bath) company", we couldn't help but be impressed. Forgive me, but isn't Richmond only famous for a) a park and b) its proximity to the home of English Rugby? Not exactly world dominating, IBM?

It struck me today with great irony how Iraq is getting its own Wimax network over the next few months.

Despite the political turmoil in the country, there are still those who are delighted with the state of affairs because they can make a quick buck out of all this mess by deploying a quick-fix network so that a small percentage of the country can communicate.

It was not so long ago that I sat with a fellow journalist at a London dinner where one of the country's top analysts wheezed on enthusiastically about how Africa had so much potential ... for the world's mobile telecoms operators to exploit.

"Nevermind the fact that half the continent is starving, they can still have a cellularnetwork," cringed my journalist friend.

The irony rings similarly true for Iraq, which is concentrating on trouble hotspot Basrah as the first install for its network. And those who are exploiting the opportunity seem to be doing rather well.

Despite the fact that a third of Baghdad's telephone exchanges have been destroyed in the conflict, communications have rocketed. Internet subscribers have rapidly expanded in number from 4,500 in early 2003 to 150,000 in the latest figures. And whole businesses are now operating entirely using mobile phones.

But is this progress, or the result of a fortunate few managing to make a quick buck from an unfortunate situation?

So there seem to be two camps on the radiation/WiFi debate : those who want to deploy and use the technology and those who have concerns over the possible health effects.

I have to admit that I come across many more people in the former camp in my work as an IT journalist, but I was pleasantly surprised when Graham Phillips aka topazg weighed in with his findings.

You can read his post for yourself, but in a nutshell he says he has found significant voltage levels in tests in a room full of WiFi users, and he draws the similarity between WiFi and cellular radio waves.

While WiFi access points use much lower power, they are much closer to the schoolchildren than cellular base stations are, he argues.

Samtheman1k has also been posting again, arguing that it is impossible to evade 2.4GHz (and similar wavelength) radio waves.

I have to say I agree with that, as the rollout of hotspot and outdoor municipal WiFi (and eventually Wimax) covers ever greater physical areas.

If one of my earlier points seemed a little flippant, then I do apologise, but I think we really do have a problem deploying this technology - which should at the end of the day make us more productive - when small groups of poorly-informed parents using gut reactions to selected media reports try to destroy those prospects for us.

Democracy is not at work.

So schools are abandoning wireless LANs, thinking they are like mobile basestations, according to Monday's Times newspaper.

It seems to be a case of the tail wagging the dog (and a pretty ignorant tail as well).

While hundreds of angry parents lobby headteachers to remove wireless networks from their children's schools, one classics teacher has taken the situation rather too far.

Mr Bevington, a leading academic at the prestigious Stowe School in Buckinghamshire, has suffered "sudden flushes, pressure behind the eyes and burning sensations," from the network, he claims.

Assuming Mr Bevington hasn't surgically attached an access point to his head, this seems an interesting revelation.

Two schools were reported in the article as spending taxpayers' money (and parents' school fees) ripping out their wireless networks and replacing them with cables.

The headteacher at the Prebendal School, a prep in Chichester, Sussex, didn't really have any reason for doing so other than a) angry parents told him to, and b) the WLAN hadn't been installed properly.

And at Ysgol Pantycelyn, a Welsh comprehensive, the headteacher turned off the wireless network after parents pressured the governors.

The frightening thing is, those who have applied the pressure seem appallingly poorly informed. "It's like having a phone mast in the classroom," said one mother, who argued rather weakly that it must be dangerous because no-one has proven that wireless is safe.

No-one has proven that it's safe to cross the road, but that doesn't stop us.

So I have news for you, Ms Uninformed Parent.

At this rate, we'll have to strip out all mobile basestations, all access points and all long wave radio masts from anywhere where it could transmit signals to a school.

Then we'll have a planet where there won't be any radiation.

But kids will still be bought a mobile phone for their sixth birthday. That could be interesting.