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Star Trek's tricorder finally reaches the shops

Posted: Sun Apr 09, 2017 1:51 am
by spot
After a 2 year wait of a Kickstarter campaign which raised, I think, around $2m, in which I didn't participate, I just bought a "Scio molecular sensor".

It pairs with a smartphone, creates a visible to infra-red absorption spectrograph and compares it to an on-phone library of known materials, and displays the closest match.

It's the size of a small matchbox and it's dust-proof in a pocket. It has a Go button, a blue light to show it's active and a charger LED.

All the drug dealers in creation will use one instead of towing in a 40 year old addict to lick the product off his fingers and say This is Grade A stuff boss. The phone will say 35% Cocaine and the dealer will bargain accordingly. The world is a safer place.

The graphs are very reproducible, I'm extremely impressed. Until this arrived you needed a 20kg box attached to a USB port, disgracefully expensive quartz sample tubes and $8,000 at least for just the basic model. This pocket tricorder is a mere $300 and every child should have one.

The App originally said it would reference a world-master database to make a wider comparison, I do hope the makers implement that instead of relying on the local trimmed-down copy. I'm glad there's a DIY library extender for specialist topics.

The Australian Euthanasia Club, or whatever it's called, has a database add-on for Nembutal, so you can buy by post and know you're really going to die when you take it instead of waking up from a dose of Valium. It just shows how caring the world can be when it wants.

Star Trek's tricorder finally reaches the shops

Posted: Sun Apr 09, 2017 4:04 am
by Clodhopper
So far I've mostly avoided mobile phones but if/when this becomes integral to them I will succumb. Especially if it opens like a proper Star Trek Tricorder. Sad, I know, but there are some things you don't grow out of.

Star Trek's tricorder finally reaches the shops

Posted: Sun Apr 09, 2017 4:24 am
by spot
Clodhopper;1508242 wrote: if/when this becomes integral to them I will succumb


https://www.phone.consumerphysics.com/

Smartphones also run Googe Earth, the nearest thing we have to Star Trek Transporter technology. If the only thing a smartphone did was allow a five year old to drop the little yellow man on a dirt track and wander around the back streets of Kinshasa alone for half an hour without fear of kidnap then it would still be worth the price. It's a working videophone too. It tells me when to catch a bus to get to Perranporth before the first set starts, when I have a ticket for a beach concert. The Stranglers are playing in a couple of weeks. I have a ticket to see The Underground Hippy next month too. My phone has their latest album stored and it takes noise-cancelling headphones when I'm traveling. How can you not have a smartphone?

Star Trek's tricorder finally reaches the shops

Posted: Sun Apr 09, 2017 5:11 am
by Clodhopper
...cos I'm a techno-twit.

In addition I don't run a car, reduce reuse recycle, compost, grow my own, now have a girlfriend who makes clothes...I'm becoming a caveman.

Star Trek's tricorder finally reaches the shops

Posted: Sun Apr 09, 2017 8:18 am
by Bruv
How did we all manage without it ?

Star Trek's tricorder finally reaches the shops

Posted: Sun Apr 09, 2017 10:43 am
by spot
Much guesswork and replaceable addicts.

Star Trek's tricorder finally reaches the shops

Posted: Sun Apr 09, 2017 12:03 pm
by Bruv
spot;1508256 wrote: Much guesswork and replaceable addicts.


May I be impertinent to ask, what your Scio molecular sensor will be employed for ?

Star Trek's tricorder finally reaches the shops

Posted: Sun Apr 09, 2017 12:31 pm
by spot
Educating a five year old. And educating me, naturally.

Star Trek's tricorder finally reaches the shops

Posted: Sun Apr 09, 2017 1:12 pm
by Bruv
spot;1508260 wrote: Educating a five year old. And educating me, naturally.


And to test if your apples are sweet enough ?

No more counterfeit rolling baccy for you in future then.

Star Trek's tricorder finally reaches the shops

Posted: Sun Apr 09, 2017 3:43 pm
by Betty Boop
Would that thingymajig tell me if there was the dreaded wheat or gluten in my food too? Could it save me days of being ill?

Star Trek's tricorder finally reaches the shops

Posted: Sun Apr 09, 2017 4:29 pm
by spot
You're affected by trace quantities, it's too small a difference for this sort of analyzer to notice.

What's needed is a molecular key that fluoresces if there's even a trace of gluten. The bit in your system that reacts so badly is a perfect key, so it's not as though nobody knows what it ought to consist of. Nobody's made a kit to use it yet. I think someone ought to.