Japan’s Softbank to Market Radiation-Detecting Smartphone

Nearly 15 months have passed since a 9.0 earthquake and tsunami resulted in the triple meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, and with the prospects of a resolution of radiation-spewing disaster yet decades away, Softbank announced today that its soon to released Pantone 5 107SH smartphone will be the first in the world with a built-in geiger counter.

Since the Fukushima disaster, we’ve seen companies release mobile radiation detectors like Scosche’s iPhone-compatible RDTX, an accessory that plugs into an iPhone to give users a reading of nearby radiation levels. The Pantone 5, however, eliminates the need for dongles and attachments. The front of the phone features a button, just beneath the screen, that provides access to a radiation sensor. Once you press the button, the phone launches an app that reads the number of microsieverts, the unit in which radiation is measured, in the surrounding air. [WIRED ~ Gadget Lab]