Another Trick for Your Cell Phone: Smelling
By Emily Schmitt TechNewsDaily Contributor posted: 20 May 2010 Who needs a bloodhound – or even a nose? The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is hoping that soon your cell phone will sniff out poisonous gases. It’s funding three companies to create a small chip – about the size of a dime – that would sit inside of cell phones and alert users to potentially deadly smells. Michael Sailor, whose research team at the University of California , San Diego works for Rhevision Technology, Inc. to create the chip, says the chips are most useful for first responders or other emergency workers. Firefighters and police could track the location of, say, a noxious cloud in a subway, by monitoring GPS signals from the passengers’ cell phones. They could then use the information to better coordinate a response. It’s a laudable goal when you think of it like that,” Sailor said. The technology is similar to that of a computer chip. Scientists start ...