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It's been over a year since the Fukushima meltdown. There have been radiation fears and fear mongering. Both have certainly impacted the lives and psyche of those living in Fukushima as well as people elsewhere.




And now here's a cell phone that might make things better—or worse.

Sharp's upcoming Pantone 5 mobile phone comes with an onboard radiation detector. The Osaka-based electronics giant listed this as one of the phone's main features at a press conference earlier today, and it even trumpeted how this was the first smartphone in the world to have this feature.


Previously, there were radiation detectors that could be connected as peripherals to smartphones. Sharp figured out how to cram that into the handset, which is due out this July.

Online in Japan, people note that it could lead to a greater culture of fear, while on Japanese video game sites, commenters are already comparing the Sharp phone to Pip-Boy radiation detector from the Fallout games.

"I'd want it if it were shaped like the Pip-Boy 3000," wrote one. "This is like something out of Fallout," wrote another.

This is not something out of Fallout. It's real.

世界初の放射線測定機能付きスマホ「PANTONE 5 107SH」で実際に測定してみました [Gigazine]