Prompted by a study in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research about perceived sensitivity to electromagnetic fields, columnist Mark Morford of SFGate.com has penned a powerful commentary about why some people may suffer very real symptoms from seeming exposure to radio waves from Wi-Fi gateways and cell phones. He doesn’t dismiss either the severity of these symptoms or the fact that there are innumerable aspects of modern life that have been proven detrimental to human health, but emphasizes that we similarly cannot discount the power of suggestion or conviction.

About a year ago, Tor Books, the highly regarded publisher of science fiction and fantasy, announced that they were dropping digital-rights-management protection on all of their ebooks. Now, Julie Crisp of Tor UK has revealed what that decision has meant in terms of ebook piracy: “As it is, we’ve seen no discernible increase in piracy on any of our titles, despite them being DRM-free for nearly a year.” (This, of course, is no surprise to us: we have been publishing our Take Control ebook DRM-free for nearly ten years, with exactly the same results.) Equally heartening to Tor is how much support their authors have for the DRM-free policy.

In this discussion with host Chuck Joiner, Adam Engst delves into some of the more-subtle meanings of the news that Google Reader will disappear in a few months. In particular, Adam talks about the effects of tools morphing into platforms, the psychological effect that change has on users, and pricing models to support the concept that not all change is good for all users.

Adam Engst’s short interview with Steve Chiotakis of KCRW (Southern California’s leading NPR affiliate) did a nice job of explaining some of Apple’s initial attraction, what was astonishing about the iPhone and iPad, why Apple is being confronted with more competition now, and what challenges the company faces going forward.

Our staff roundtable looking at why people still support Apple after all these years got some attention from the New Republic, where Lydia DePillis used it to bookend her article “Apple Agonistes: What happens to Mac fanatics when the brand bums them out?” She talked to a lot of the right people, and the article catches some of the tensions currently being felt in the Apple community.

The hot topics of the week — concerns about Apple’s software quality and the rumors surrounding an Apple smartwatch — occupy this discussion between Adam Engst and host Gene Steinberg.

The premise of our recent “Apple Is Doomed, According to News at 11” article was that criticisms of Apple’s financials are unwarranted, but that the company faces legitimate problems, largely with software quality. In this article at Macworld, David Sparks of MacSparky makes the same point, saying that we should leave the business side to Apple but keep calling on the company to improve its products and services.