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.

The United States Department of Defense has approved the “security technical implementation guide” for mobile devices running iOS 6, including the iPhone and iPad, meaning that Apple’s handhelds can now be used on DOD networks. Also approved are BlackBerry smartphones and devices from Samsung running its Android-based Knox operating system. The DOD currently has around 600,000 commercial mobile devices in use, including 470,000 BlackBerrys, 41,000 unspecified Apple devices, and 8,700 Android devices. Most of these are part of a pilot program by the Defense Information Systems Agency to make use of the latest in technology. Unlike most enterprises, BYOD, or “bring your own device,” isn’t allowed, at least when it comes to connecting to DOD networks.

Keeping up with Apple is hard enough, but when Google announces a boatload of products, updates, and services during a 3-hour keynote at the Google I/O developer conference, we’re happy to let others — The Next Web in this case — compile the list. Many of these announcements are relevant only to developers, but updates to Google Maps, the Google Play Music All Access streaming music service, new Google+ features, and a unified messaging service called Hangouts may be of interest to anyone using Google services.

In an interview with 60 Minutes, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates reflected on competing with Steve Jobs and visiting the Apple founder near the end of his life. Gates was uncharacteristically emotional, saying, “He and I, in a sense, grew up together.” Gates also shared a great story about Jobs bailing on a party due to illness, telling Gates’s secretary, “If he wants to know why, tell him I’m an a**hole.”

Beleaguered smartphone maker BlackBerry has announced that its Messenger service will come to iOS and Android this summer. The chat service, one of BlackBerry’s most loved features, is still used by 60 million people a month, generating 10 billion messages per day (that’s five times as many iMessages were sent per day as of January 2013). But with BlackBerry’s woes of the past few years, the release still feels like a rearguard action.

In a discussion of where Apple needs to take iOS 7, WWDC, and the App Store, TidBITS Contributing Editor and iOS programming book author Matt Neuburg contributed his exhausting mix of detailed analysis and irrepressible ranting to Chuck Joiner’s MacVoices podcast, along with John Brayton of Golden Hill Software.

If you want to stay heart healthy, you should exercise, eat right, not smoke, and… stay away from iPads? As Bloomberg reports, 14-year-old Gianna Chien has discovered that the 30 magnets in the iPad 2, which are used to hold the Smart Cover in place, could accidentally disable a pacemaker if the user falls asleep with the iPad on his or her chest. Apple warns of this danger on page 126 of the iPad User Guide, but how many of you read that far? Chien made the discovery while working on a science fair project, which sadly didn’t win first place. (We hope the media coverage of her project helps makes up for that!)

Despite recent complaints about iOS security, it’s effective against at least one group: law enforcement. According to Declan McCullagh at CNET, police departments around the country are sufficiently stymied by iOS device encryption that they’re turning to Apple for help. They’ve flooded Apple with so many requests for assistance decrypting confiscated iPhones that Apple is putting them on a waiting list of up to 4 months. Of course, the flip side of this story is the suggestion that Apple has a backdoor method of cracking iPhone encryption.