Nokia’s Latest Killer Cell Phone Feature: Lightning Detector

Well, it might actually save your life. One more feature that you might find in Nokia’s Nseries phones can detect radiowave frequencies between 10 Hz and 5 GHz. Using what your typical high-end Nokia phone already has (an FM or GSM receiver), an innovative software can analyze distance of the lightning and alert users of possible strikes. The innovation has just reached the U.S. patent office for approval. Here is an excerpt: BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] Thunderstorms are a major weather hazard, but are difficult to predict. They can travel at speeds of 20 km/h to 40 km/h, and lightning strokes may occur more than 10 km in front of the rain clouds and equally some distance behind the rain clouds. While a lightning stroke is produced by a cloud or a weather front, many of the most dangerous lightning strokes actually occur when no visible clouds are present above as a warning of a thunderstorm. Thus, a system that warns of possibility harmful thunderstorms, even if only approximately proximately ten minutes before they become visible, can be considered a major safety feature. Nokia believes there’s a market for a phone with lightning detection. People whose occupations put them in harm’s way of lightnings, might find a lightning detector on board a device, like a cell phone, which they are used to having at all times. And then there are the information enthusiasts who’d simply want to have such knowledge handy just in case. Via