Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Yet another neat toy for the smartphone

argyrium - 15-4-2015 at 20:38



"An affordable molecular sensor that analyzes the chemical makeup of anything"

"…….The sophisticated, pocket-size sensor has just one button and can identify the nutritional information of any food, the nutritional well-being of plants and the authenticity of medications or supplements. It can also measure properties of cosmetics, clothes, flora, soil, jewels, precious stones, leather, rubber, oils and plastics…………
……….
……….SCiO uses near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), a technique that has been around for decades. NIRS measures the unique vibrations of molecules in a sample when light hits them. SCiO’s handheld sensor has a light that is shined onto a sample, which gets the molecules moving and then measures the vibrations.
“The spectrometer breaks down the light to its spectrum, which includes all the information required to detect the result of this interaction between the illuminated light and the molecules in the sample,” Sharon explained…….."

https://techpageone.dell.com/technology/an-affordable-molecular-sensor-that-analyzes-the-chemical-makeup-of-anything/?dgc=BA&cid=255843&am p;lid=5478309&cid=286422&lid=5476834&acd=12309210481467601

https://www.consumerphysics.com/myscio/

We live in amazing times, indeed.

Chemosynthesis - 15-4-2015 at 20:42

Wow. I came into this thread expecting spam and now am completely caught offguard.

Bert - 15-4-2015 at 21:19

I would love to have. I am less than thrilled at the data going to the cloud & then answers being sent back to the phone. Would prefer a stand alone device that didn't communicate the data from my testing activities unless I decided to do so...

And I would ASSUME that it will come pre-back doored so that alphabet agencies can surreptitiously take data wherever/whenever they feel the need to check for presence of something in the environment. Ditto for data discoverable through all the other newly smart objects with various sensors and wireless networking capabilities-

But we have nothing to worry about if we have nothing to hide.

[Edited on 16-4-2015 by Bert]

Zombie - 15-4-2015 at 23:37

Bert? Can I borrow your phone for a sec?

:cool:

jnik - 16-4-2015 at 03:26

This device has very limited info. I understand it is not an analytical grade instrument, but I'm very sceptical about things without carefully written documentation.

Dynamin - 16-4-2015 at 11:49

I'm EXTREMELY skeptical whether this app can do what it says it can do

Zombie - 16-4-2015 at 12:40

How on earth could it? Determine the chemical composition of anything?

For those of you that work in Labs doing this kind of work, Please say this is a bunch of horse dung.

Point a hundred cell phones at anything, and all you have is a hundred jerks pointing phones.

DFliyerz - 16-4-2015 at 12:48

This seems way too good to be true...

Bert - 16-4-2015 at 13:19

Quote: Originally posted by Zombie  
How on earth could it? Determine the chemical composition of anything?

For those of you that work in Labs doing this kind of work, Please say this is a bunch of horse dung.

Point a hundred cell phones at anything, and all you have is a hundred jerks pointing phones.


Um, now, maybe so. Probably not in a year or three.

There are certainly plenty of IR spectroscopy units out there, being used in labs, schools & industry. The link seems to specify a separate unit comprised of light source/detector, linked to cloud based data library and analysis via a cell phone, rather than a cellphone itself.

But next year's model?

I have already seen several other proposals that all our cell phones be required to include detection systems for things such as radiation and CBW agents.

A logical step, as long as we're all obsessively hauling around the equipment anyhow, and the alphabet agencies are now in the habit of using them for their own purposes. It certainly can be sold as "protecting the children!" (tm)

The link's apparent proposal to allow us little people to use for our own interests, and possibly even develop software for some of the detection and surveillance capabilities that are probably going to be piggybacked onto our personal electronics anyhow is the only new thing here.

Zombie - 16-4-2015 at 16:56

IMHO, Open source is the only logical approach for software development.

You now have the entire planet doing your development, and no one is on the pay role.

You all know the real story behind CAPTCHA right?

Wiki:
"The controversy of inventorship has been settled by the existence of a 1998 patent by Lillibridge, Abadi, Bharat, and Broder,[5] which predates other publications by several years. Though the patent does not use the term CAPTCHA, it describes the ideas in detail and precisely depicts the graphical CAPTCHAs used in the Web today."

The real story is computer scanned pages were many times, un-readable due to bends in the pages, folds, creases ect.
These illegible pages were forwarded to a company that paid minimum wage employees to decipher the text, and return the corrected text so it could be cataloged into computers.

The true creator of CAPTCHA came up with the idea of a "security" check to allow access to sites on the then, infant web.
All the pages we see were sold as security checks, and the deciphering was done for free by US. The company got paid to decipher, and they got paid to supply the security checks.

Win Win.

I read this years ago before the legal battle over who started, owned CAPTCHA. Eventually IBM (I believe) won the battle, and the rights but not the name.

Wiki:
"The controversy of inventorship has been settled by the existence of a 1998 patent by Lillibridge, Abadi, Bharat, and Broder,[5] which predates other publications by several years. Though the patent does not use the term CAPTCHA, it describes the ideas in detail and precisely depicts the graphical CAPTCHAs used in the Web today."

I can not find any mention of the first fella that realized it could be sold.


[Edited on 4-17-2015 by Zombie]

blogfast25 - 17-4-2015 at 07:54

This is potentially quite an interesting device, although at this stage in its development information about its inner workings/algos is understandably fairly scarce, investor oriented and rather vague (from a chemist’s PoV).

The most pressing question is how would spectra of pure substances generated by an ‘SCiO’ relate (correlate, in fact) to high resolution spectra generated by more established, high resolution NIR spectrometers.

Caveats and cautious optimism allowing, surely even a fairly limited but low cost instrument (assuming that, with a suitable app/algo, it would indeed be capable of identifying some functional groups in pure substances) should get some of SM’s OCs salivating at least a little bit? At a very minimum, I look forward to finding out more about this gadget or reading any future reviews of (an) SM user(s). :)


[Edited on 17-4-2015 by blogfast25]

Fulmen - 17-4-2015 at 13:02

I agree with Blogfast on this one, I see a lot of potential here. As I understand it NIRS is hampered by complex spectra making interpretation hard. But with the increase in computing power, who knows. And by accepting some limitations I could see this tech being miniaturized.

Think about it. As long as the technology is high-tech the focus is on the premium marked where performance is key. But at some tipping point the mediocre is suddenly good enough for most people, and everything changes. Just look at cell phones, just look at the sensors they contain today. 20 years ago the thought of high-def color screens were unthinkable, let alone camera, video, gyros and accelerometers.

violet sin - 18-4-2015 at 04:31

I am looking forward to this getting hacked to hell. seems like the kind of device one will eventually be able to buy, void its warantee, and operate on open source software( like an old X-box)! with such a tantalizing toy to play with, there are undoubtfully many that would want all the fun and none of the shipping off data. regardless the subject, researchers don't want to send off their findings to others before it gets published... at the very least you could build a repository of spectra on a home computer by scanning known pure substances from lab supply stores, and use those to test made chems, no? wouldn't that be bad ass, sending you queries to your own desk-top PC?!

i find it kinda irksome, that so many portable devices are sooooo expensive. for instance the XRF guns( portable xray flourescent) , I mean shit, 15-25k$ for something barely bigger than the size of your fists? no freaking way it cost that much to make, prob less than a hundred dollars in parts and plastic( or at least in the hundreds of $'s). one of those would be a dream come true for me. we are getting closer to the tricorder from startrek and I am excited I live in the era I do.

unionised - 18-4-2015 at 05:11

I look forward to the explanation of the ability to distinguish oxygen from nitrogen using this device.