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  • Morawka - Monday, January 9, 2017 - link

    how long before apple buys this company? this is game changing tech right here. if they can continue to refine it, it will make the dream of having a Star Trek Tricorder real!
  • BrokenCrayons - Monday, January 9, 2017 - link

    Chemical sensors might be useful, but if the mechanisms for doing so become small and unintrusive (meaning outside of the perception of the person carrying the device) then it's likely they'll be active at times when the end user isn't aware in order to measure things near the device to enhance marketing through data mining. Now your phone will not only know where you are and what you're doing, but also what you just ate and how your farts smell. It's just additional information that really doesn't need to be collected and stored someplace outside your reach.
  • JeffFlanagan - Monday, January 9, 2017 - link

    We already have app permissions, and they're only becoming better over time. Maybe you're paranoid.
  • HomeworldFound - Monday, January 9, 2017 - link

    I fail to see how different that is to someone taking a picture of their meal and uploading it online. To gather information about your fart, you'll need to put the phone 0.5cm to 2cm from your backside and keep it there for 1.5 seconds.. basically you'd need to fart on your phone.
  • ddriver - Monday, January 9, 2017 - link

    You are being shortsighted here. If you want to "smell scan" a particular object, then sure, you must hold the phone next to it. But that's not necessary for smelling the "general vibe". Solid state chemical sensors are nothing new, what's new is they are getting affordable enough to become widespread. A plethora of solid state chemical sensors have been employed for a long time in the industry to protect from harmful gasses or to control machinery, and there never was a necessity that they'd be .5 to 2 cm from the source. That's only necessary if you want to focus on a particular object, and even then it will pick a variety of other molecules that are in lower concentration.

    I guess the "smelling a particular object" would be to pitch it to consumers, whereas its actually purpose would be to "spy on smells around consumers (and find ways to exploit that to make money). Pretty much like everything else.

    And sure, we've long had app permissions, but even further back in time we've had that thing called "backdoors". Every manufacturer implements a variety of backdoors to grant "god mode" access to the device below the layer of app permissions when necessary. That's why not a single big corporation has 100% open source product. They hide stuff in their proprietary binary blobs, and if some of that would be discovered by accident, they will claim it was an overlooked vulnerability, and immediately offer a patch that will fix it so 3rd party players don't get to exploit it while also introducing another "vulnerability".
  • Reflex - Monday, January 9, 2017 - link

    It's all true! And all of us kernel engineers keep the back doors secret. We are paid a ton of hush money so we don't reveal the secret even when we change jobs! Its why we all drive the latest Bugatti's. Plus they give us a lifetime supply of tinfoil to protect us from the results of all the other conspiracies the tens of thousands of us in the industry are a part of...
  • AndrewJacksonZA - Tuesday, January 10, 2017 - link

    Shhh Reflex! Why did you let the cat out of the bag?!?! ;-)
  • close - Tuesday, January 10, 2017 - link

    @Reflex, considering the host of revelations that came in the past years regarding manufacturer built backdoors and also ones slipped in by state actors (and not only) I wouldn't be so confident if I were you. It's not like you are responsible for every line of code of such complex software and can guarantee the integrity at every step.
    I know you want to think that the engineer is a little God in that world and that he has 100% control but the truth is he doesn't and he can't. If someone is determined enough "things" can get by and slip unnoticed except for the people who have to know.

    And before you claim this is paranoia just be aware of the fact that it has already happened, it's not up for debate anymore, it's not an "if" issue. Fighting to "prove" it can't happen is just a matter of your ego.
  • Reflex - Tuesday, January 10, 2017 - link

    Totally true! It's not like we don't all put our code into a central repository with a large cast of engineers and managers who have the ability to audit it. It's super secret, not even QA can verify it!

    The whole code repository is hosted on servers wrapped in multiple layers of tinfoil to prevent interference from 'them'....
  • Flunk - Monday, January 9, 2017 - link

    They already did that, look up the "Vital Technologies TR-107 Tricorder Mark 1". It did cost a fortune and it did put it's manufacturer out of business, but they did build one.
  • jwcalla - Monday, January 9, 2017 - link

    This is very interesting. I doubt it can measure bodyfat accurately and for the average consumer I think the novelty will wear off eventually, but it'll be nice to see what people do with it.
  • Gc - Monday, January 9, 2017 - link

    Such a phone sensor might benefit people with serious allergies if it is sensitive enough.

    Is it sensitive enough to detect low levels of allergens? Such as peanut oil or shellfish oil mixed into a sauce or cake, for people allergic to peanuts or shellfish.

    How deep into food does the near-infrared light penetrate and reflect? Such as foods wrapped in a pasta, pastry, or candy, or frosting.

    Is it effective through through plastic wrap? cardboard?

    Examples shown in video are unwrapped, but use cases such as muscle fat analysis require penetrating a skin. (Fruit and pills may also have a skin or shell.)
  • Matt Humrick - Monday, January 9, 2017 - link

    It is not sensitive enough to detect very low levels of an allergen (think trace amounts). And while it can detect slightly higher concentrations, the company is not focusing on this application for liability concerns.
  • MrSpadge - Tuesday, January 10, 2017 - link

    A lot of materials are active in some way or another in the near-IR. There are some general trends, though:

    - organics: the "fingerprints" being used here, mostly transparent otherwise
    - dielectrics: mostly weak absorption
    - metals: reflecting, small absorption

    So the penetration depths obviously depends on the specific material composition... and the wavelength of interest. Even if a material absorbs 2/3 or the wavelength range, it might suffice to detect 2 or 3 fingerprints in the remaining spectrum of you know approximately what you're looking at. Furthermore organic materials usually strongly scatter incoming light, limiting the penetration depth further. So I suspect most of the things you've asked for won't work, with the caveat "it depends".
  • boeush - Tuesday, January 10, 2017 - link

    I can see this being really popular with [illicit] drug users. When you're about to buy that pill or powder off a stranger on a street corner, sure would help to know what's in it before you swallow, shoot, inhale, or smoke to find out the hard way... Dealers would also find it useful, as a quality assurance device for their merchandise....

    But I'm totally SURE the makers of this device had no such use cases or markets in mind, not at all! (Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.)
  • SydneyBlue120d - Tuesday, January 10, 2017 - link

    Coming soon to Snapdragon 2018 SOC?
  • shadarlo - Tuesday, January 10, 2017 - link

    This seems pretty amazing.... analyzing food content and body fat alone would be enough for me to seek this phone out among a sea of competitors.
  • NoSoMo - Thursday, January 12, 2017 - link

    What about using pico lasers? Looks like we're rapidly approaching the star trek tricorder devices (or whatever it's called)
  • helvete - Tuesday, February 7, 2017 - link

    This could be useful for measuring quality of narcotics:-)

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