Patent awarded for cell phone-mounted airborne particle detector
Bio and chemical terrorism detection one possible application; allergy suffers will benefit from pollen alerts
Paging Dick Tracy. Washington, D.C.-based Gentag has received a patent which covers the use of sensors in a watch, cell phone, or PDA to detect chemicals and other noxious airborne particles. Fighting terrorism is one obvious application, and one can imagine a set of linked cell phones capable of detecting a chemical or biological attack and, by triangulation, locate its exact area of dispersion. This, however, is still far in the future. In the short term the company hopes the system will help alert allergy sufferers to high levels of pollen and other irritants. A child, for instance, might use the device to decide whether he should go out for recess or instead play inside with his blocks.
-read more in Bill Ray’s The Register report
