14 DAY TRIAL // Having trouble deciding whether you should be making an omelet out of those eggs that you had since forever or if it’s safe to drink milk from that carton you left on the kitchen counter overnight? Well, you’re probably not the only one.
A group of researchers at MIT want to help you stay away from food poisoning, so they have developed a new type of smartphone-friendly sensor tag that’s capable of transmitting a very important piece of information: is this food still yummy or not?
Yay or nay on the food?
The new sensor is the result of modifying the near field communication (NFC) chip that you find in smartphones today. But this particular one has been slightly transformed in order to detect the presence of specific gases.
The new sensor technology relies on carbon nanotubes by means of which it can achieve this impressive feature. The MIT team says the sensor can be easily read by any smartphone with NFC connectivity.
So, not long from now, you will go to the kitchen, wave your smartphone over a piece of food and immediately learn whether the item is safe for consumption or not. This will be a relief because as we all know, the listed expiration date on the package is roughly a guideline.
Sensors such as the one deployed by MIT aren’t exactly an absolute novelty. A few years back, scientists at the Tufts University designed an edible sensor which could be attached to fruits and vegetables, left floating in milk and so on in order to determine the state of the food.
The sensor changes color when it detects abnormal levels of chemicals.
But the MIT sensor works in concert with a smartphone, which is very convenient since we all tend to own one these days.
What’s more, these sensors are extremely cheap to produce. They also require almost no energy and can function in ambient temperatures without problems. Basically, you just put them on a package, they sit there and when it’s time, you take out your smartphone and read it.
MIT wants to add Bluetooth on the sensor
The MIT team is currently working to equip the sensors with Bluetooth in order to extend their functionalities.
One possible scenario is that the sensor-tags could be used by employees working in dangerous environment to send alerts when abnormal levels of gas or such are present.
For the rest of us, receiving an alert on our smartphone that the veal we purchased is going down the drain is cool enough.
The MIT scientists who developed the sensor have already applied for a patent on the technology, but there's still no word on when we might be able to take advantage of it commercially.
