Yes, that’s true. NASA has invented a device and a software application for iPhone (?) that senses chemicals in the air. You can use it if you are in need of finding out if there is ammonia, chlorine gas or methane in the air around you. Or, you can have accurate data (with small margin of error), about who farted in the room!
Here is how they made it: “Using a “sample jet” and a multiple-channel silicon-based sensing chip, which consists of 16 nanosensors, and sends detection data to another phone or a computer via telephone communication network or Wi-Fi.”
One would think that chemical sniffing iPhones seems like something that would be way down their list, provided we have no more data to operate. Amazing that they would like to commercialize such a knowledge and make it public. Either they’re trying to worry people or they know something. Just to get your minds going, I will post a set of extreme scenarios, being talked about on the tech forums:
- There’s no doubt that the military is not already considering this device to be used with their infantry. You can have this bio/chemo detector anywhere and have it GeoTag the location and time of detection and have it easily upload the data to Central Command or a data collection server to monitor possible Bio attack or Chemical leaks. It’s a great move and will push the use of iPhone/smartphones to a higher level.
- Since the device sends WiFi signals to a computer or tel.network, this is probably the case where it is monitored by the Federalies, this would be a perfect way for finding out who is, lets just say – making a bomb – and where that person/cell phone is.
- Radon is currently a present threat in many homes. On a global scale, it is estimated that 2,400 million curies of radon are released from soil annually. Typical domestic exposures are of ≈ 100 Bq/m3 indoors. Is this in their requirements specs?
You decide what you believe in!
I’ll just say that the geek community is now happy! They have their own mini version of Spock’s Tricorder!
The author of innovationtalks.com has written an excellent article. You have made your point and there is not much to argue about. It is like the following universal truth that you can not argue with: Murphy was an optimist. Thanks for the info.