Tech Tales: What Lies Beneath

The Age

Thursday November 30, 2006

NICK GALVIN

Will mobile phones blow up petrol stations? Will you go blind in front of your desktop? Nick Galvin runs a few tests.

WE LIVE in an age when news and information traverse the globe at lightning speed. From Tokyo to Toongabbie, the answers to almost any question are only a click away.

But we also live in the age of misinformation: the internet doesn't discriminate between fact and the laughably dodgy. Myths, hoaxes and plain old lies fly around cyberspace in equal measure, gathering credibility each time they are flicked on to the next gullible person.

Old myths gain new life and new myths grow wings and fly, powered only by the connected world and our own stupidity.

We thought we would try to set the record straight on a few of the most popular technology myths, sorting out fact from fiction and baloney from believable.

Some of these are old-tech wives' tales that need laying to rest, while others are new pseudo-facts that have recently added to the weight of bulldust blowing around the web. Some are even sort-of true.1. You shouldn't use mobile phones in hospital.Many hospitals perpetuate this one on the grounds that mobiles can interfere with sensitive electronic equipment. You can see the point: sending old Uncle Harry's ventilator into overdrive by taking a call is not a pleasant prospect.

However, there doesn't appear to be much substance to this one. A recent study in Britain's Journal of Public Health reviewed all the literature on the subject and concluded there is no real problem using mobiles in a hospital.

"There is no significant risk from using mobile phones in hospitals," the study reports, "as long as they are more than a metre away from sensitive equipment, whereas the risk to the most modern equipment is even less."

However, it remains a matter of simple good manners not to conduct loud conversations about your plans for Saturday night when surrounded by sick people.

2. You need a screensaver to protect your monitor.Cathode ray tube screens display images by firing electron beams at phosphor dots, which then glow. If a static image is left on the screen for a long time, there is a danger the image will "burn in", leaving a ghost-like impression. It's an effect you can often see on the departure and arrival screens in airports, where the same information is displayed for long periods.

To combat the danger of screen damage, screensavers were invented. The idea was to display a constantly moving image so no one part of the screen remained static for long.

Modern computer screens, however, are less susceptible to this damage than the old monochrome models, so screensavers are now more an adornment than a necessity.

3. Turning computers off and on harms them.This is based on the idea that the surge of power when you turn on the machine is bad for the components. While this may have been true for older machines, it is not the case for modern computers and monitors.

In fact, leaving computers and monitors powered up can waste a lot of energy.

About five years ago the University of NSW conducted an audit of computer users' habits and found that 43 per cent of the machines at one of its campuses were left on overnight. As part of a campaign to encourage users to switch off unused machines, researchers contacted major computer manufacturers, all of whom said there was no risk to the components in regularly turning off the machines.

Simply hitting the off switch when machines aren't in use can also prevent a lot of greenhouse gases being generated.

4. Mobile phones can cause explosions at petrol stations.It's pretty hard to find someone who doesn't believe this one. Even the petrol companies plaster their bowsers with stickers warning of the perils of taking or making a call while filling up.

The suggestion is either that a spark created by the phone battery could ignite petrol fumes or that electromagnetic radiation from the phone could somehow trigger an explosion. In fact, it looks as if the whole thing is a furphy, helped along by - you guessed it - the internet.

Nicola Muir, a student at the University of Western Australia, reviewed the many reports of horrific blasts caused by mobile phones and came to the conclusion that the fears were groundless.

"Research on this issue has provided no scientific evidence to suggest that mobile phones are a potential hazard at petrol stations," she writes. "There are no confirmed incidents implicating a mobile phone as the cause of a fire or explosion anywhere in the world."

However, if you do engage in a long chat on your phone while filling the car you run the risk of filling your boots with unleaded, which is no fun for anybody.

5. You can't safely use mobile phones while flying.This one is still, ahem, a little up in the air but it's likely mobile phones will become commonplace on planes in the near future.

A recent study from Carnegie Mellon University, in Pennsylvania, found that mobile phones and other portable electronic devices present a theoretical risk to navigation systems, and there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to support this. The study also found that passengers frequently disobey rules about airborne mobile use.

However, many airlines are now considering installing technology to make mobile use in the air safe. Called picocells, the devices are essentially miniature mobile phone towers within the plane itself.

Dubai's Emirates airline claims it will be the first to provide an airborne mobile service. Using technology from a company called AeroMobile, Emirates says the system will be available on its fleet from January.

If you thought listening to the details of someone's life while on the train was bad, imagine how much worse it would be on a 23-hour flight to Europe.

6. Pass it on, Stupid.You could fill an entire edition of The Age with details of email-borne hoaxes and the irritating individuals who unquestioningly forward them. Here, we'll content ourselves with a reference to one of the most pervasive and idiotic hoax emails that just refuses to die.

Known as the "teddy bear hoax" or jdbg virus hoax, this a largely harmless prank that encourages people to hunt through their system files and delete a "virus" identified by a teddy bear icon.

The file does exist on most Windows computers and is identified by a teddy bear icon, but it is in fact a legitimate debugging tool used by programmers.

Deleting it is not a big deal unless you happen to be a Java programmer (in which case you presumably wouldn't be stupid enough to fall for the hoax in the first place).

The hoax then propagates itself by telling the victim to send the message on to all his or her contacts so they can save themselves from the "virus".

It's remarkable how often this one comes around. The best response is to email the sender back and point them at a hoax debunking site such as Snopes (snopes.com) and politely suggest that if stupidity was a crime, they would be jailed for life.

7. Saddam and the PlayStations.I love this particular tech myth, which is so improbable it could just be true.

The story, which has been doing the rounds for a few years, states that in late 2000 Saddam Hussein had as many as 4000 Sony PlayStation 2s delivered to Iraq.

The idea was that the gaming machines could be strung together into a sort of crude supercomputer to guide missiles and other weaponry, while sidestepping UN sanctions.

"Applications for this system are potentially frightening," said one source quoted in a breathless report at the time. "One expert I spoke with estimated an integrated bundle of 12 to 15 PlayStations could provide enough computer power to control an Iraqi unmanned aerial vehicle."

It's a great story, but fortunately not true. It was shot down at the time by Sony, which said the report was "unsubstantiated and groundless".

8. Monitors ruin your eyes.Ever since our parents first told us we would get square eyes from watching too much television, stories have circulated about the risk to computer users.

In fact, there is no evidence to show that looking at a monitor can damage your eyes.

However, it is true that users' eyes can become tired after long sessions in front of a screen, simply because the human eye is set up to look at objects in the middle distance.

"Any work performed close-up puts extra demands on the eye muscles," says a report from the Better Health Channel, a service set up by the Victorian Government.

"While there is no evidence that eye fatigue is associated with damage to the eyesight, computer users may experience symptoms such as blurred vision, temporary inability to focus on faraway objects, and headaches."

Tips on how to prevent eye strain include making sure the monitor is at or a little below eye level, turning down the screen's brightness and avoiding glare from natural light.

9. Generic ink cartridges will stuff up my expensive printer.This one falls into a big category of tech myths called Things the Major Manufacturers Want You To Believe.

The standard business model for printer makers is for them to sell their printers at near or even below cost price, then to make a big profit over time by selling you "consumables": paper and, in particular, ink cartridges.

Little wonder printer manufacturers are eager to discourage you from installing much cheaper third-party cartridges in your machine or from refilling their own cartridges with "non-genuine" ink. They do this by implying that other inks will damage your printer and void your warranty. In fact, it is up to the printer company to show that any damage to your printer was caused by third-party inks. If you want to save money on your printing costs, there is little risk as long as you use a generic alternative from a reputable source.

There may be a difference in quality between the output and that of "genuine" cartridges; you should rely on your own eyes to decide, however, rather than on claims from the manufacturers.

10. If the wind changes when you pull a funny face, you stay like that.OK, we know that this one is not a tech myth but we checked it out anyway. And the answer? It's not true, mum. You lied to me all these years.

© 2006 The Age

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