• The New York Times, Wednesday, June 16, 2010 1:18 PM

If anything can slow the mobile revolution, it's the threat of cancer. Citing that threat exactly, San Francisco has voted to impose "roughly the same cautionary standards for cellphones as for fatty food or sugary soda," reports The New York Times. The progressive city will now require all retailers to display the amount of radiation each phone emits.

"The law -- believed to be the first of its kind in the nation -- came despite a lack of conclusive scientific evidence showing that the devices are dangerous, and amid opposition from the wireless telephone industry, which views the labeling ordinance as a potential business-killing precedent." An international study of cellphone use published last month in the International Journal of Epidemiology found no increased risk for the two most common types of brain tumors. Still, under the new law, retailers will be required to post clearly-visible materials next to phones, listing their specific "absorption rate," which is the amount of radio waves absorbed into the cellphone user's body tissue, reports The Times.

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