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Wi-Fi Router's 'Pregnant Women' Setting Sparks Vendor Rivalry In China
colinneagle writes: When one Chinese technology vendor, Qihoo, launched a new Wi-Fi router with a safety setting for "pregnant women," a rival vendor took offense to the implication that their routers might be dangerous. Xiamo, which also sells Wi-Fi routers, took to its page on Chinese social media site Weibo to denounce Qihoo's pregnant women mode as a "marketing tactic," and clarify that "Wi-Fi usage is safe."
Zhou Hongyi, chief executive and president of Qihoo, acknowledged in a statement to the South China Morning Post that there is no evidence supporting claims that Wi-Fi routers pose a risk for birth defects. But he said the company is appealing to consumers' beliefs, whether they are supported by science or not.
"We are targeting people who are afraid of radiation," Hongyi said. "We aren't scientists. We haven't done many experiments to prove how much damage the radiation from Wi-Fi can cause. We leave the right of choice to our customers."
Zhou Hongyi, chief executive and president of Qihoo, acknowledged in a statement to the South China Morning Post that there is no evidence supporting claims that Wi-Fi routers pose a risk for birth defects. But he said the company is appealing to consumers' beliefs, whether they are supported by science or not.
"We are targeting people who are afraid of radiation," Hongyi said. "We aren't scientists. We haven't done many experiments to prove how much damage the radiation from Wi-Fi can cause. We leave the right of choice to our customers."
"We aren't scientists. We haven't done many experiments to prove how much damage the radiation from Wi-Fi can cause."
If you haven't done any experiments to prove how much damage WiFi can cause, then how do you know that your APs are safe?
I originally thought the warning meant pregnant women are dangerous.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
The Qihoo router normally emits dangerous-sounding em radiation, by default. Best to avoid their routers, but if you're stuck with them be sure to enable the safe mode. Other companies' routers always run in safe mode, which is why they don't have that setting.
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Hold up to wife's belly one full month! Still no baby!
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Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
If someone is really worried about radiation from wifi, they'd be well advised to not have _any_ wifi devices in the home, if not actually living some large distance from anyone else with same devices.
They'd also want to avoid cell phones too..
Actually, such a person would just become a hermit.
as a qihoo wireless model 32 router owner I can say this is being completely blown out of proportion. my router has 6 very clearly labeled settings besides 'pregnant woman' mode and the article mentions nothing about them. Qihoo users like myself typically prefer to keep the router in 'surly wombat' mode to ensure best communication with devices that may be situated between an agitated or unruly wombat (as mine typically can be.) When i have company over I might set the router on 'roger whittaker' mode, which enables it to automatically emit up to 44 different songs from mellow folk sensation Roger Wittaker. You can even control time of day with different settings...for example around dinnertime ill set the router to 'defrost-reheat' which increases power levels accordingly and allows me to thaw and cook up to 15 pounds of turkey in my living room. And i challenge anyone to find a better mode than 'depeche' mode, which activates both gloomy QoS and tortured soul packet conditioning.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Or maybe "small apartment mode."
If I could, I would configure my WiFi router to be smart about its transmit power:
I would have a "low power" mode on the router so it could be "seen" within a relatively small radius, but it would increase power as needed to stay connected to a device once that device authenticated. Once all authenticated connections went out of range or disconnected, it would drop back to "low power" mode.
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