Israel-based company Consumer Physics Inc. invented SCiO, a USB-sized sensor that identifies the chemical make-up of food and send it directly to a smartphone.
SCiO is a handheld device which scans the molecular fingerprint of a physical matter and immediately provides information about it such as protein, nutrients and calories in any food. It can also measure how ripe a fruit is even without peeling it. The gadget might be able to transform how people eat. SCiO is capable of identifying and authenticating a medicine's molecular makeup with its vast medication database. In the future, the device might be able to analyze bodily fluids and human tissues.
SCiO can deliver real-time findings to its mobile app on a smartphone through Bluetooth with the use of near-IR spectroscopy which reads an object's molecular fingerprint. It stimulates the object's molecules and documents the reactions. The said apps will be included when the product arrives to its consumers.
The technology behind SCiO has been around for decades, particularly in sewage, oil and chemical quality control. However, SCiO is the first to bring a portable spectrometer to consumers, offering an application that's a lot more versatile. Its developers are engineers from Harvard and MIT who tested the product with high accuracy in live presentations.
"The first application is for consumers interested to know the nutritional value of what they are eating," Consumer Physics CEO Dror Sharon said. "I often meet people who don't know what's in cheese, fruit and vegetables and have a hard time discerning what they should eat. I think this can be empowering if people want to change their intake, whether for medical reasons or training, and can be educational in teaching us to make better nutritional choices."
Consumer Physics started a Kickstarter project to raise funds for SCiO. The campaign was able to receive almost $500,000 in pledges from backers from different parts of the world. The company hopes to deliver SCiO by the end of 2014, focusing only on food and drugs at this time. Consumer Physics is also working on an app for plants, scanning if and how much water the plants still need.
