We all know how technologically remarkable our cell phones have become. Their ability to search the web and have us interface with a variety of apps with just our voices or a swipe here or a swipe there is incredibly impressive. Simply put, the amount of computing power stuffed into our pockets is awe-inspiring. Suffice it to say, we’ve certainly come a long way.
Without a doubt nowadays our devices truly are “smart” phones. But just when you think you’ve seen it all come a handful of new innovations that take phones to a whole new level. Instead of smart phones these are “genius” phones.
For instance, it may soon be possible to use your phone’s camera to diagnose diabetes. According to New Atlas:
“A team from University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) has demonstrated promising potential in using a smartphone camera to diagnose type 2 diabetes. The innovative research demonstrates a technique that needs no additional hardware other than a functional smartphone camera, and currently is more than 80 percent accurate in detecting diabetes.
‘Diabetes can be asymptomatic for a long period of time, making it much harder to diagnose,’ says lead author on the new study, Robert Avram. ‘To date, noninvasive and widely-scalable tools to detect diabetes have been lacking, motivating us to develop this algorithm.’
The proposed system is based on photoplethysmography (PPG), a technique where light can be shone into tissue to detect blood volume changes. PPG is perhaps most commonly known for the little finger clamp doctors use to measure heart rate and blood oxygen levels.
As soon as smartphone cameras appeared a decade ago, researchers immediately suggested the devices should be able to capture PPG measurements. In this study, the researchers hypothesized PPG data, captured by a smartphone camera, may be able to detect vascular damage caused by diabetes.”
But that’s not all. Your genius level phone can also detect if you’re drunk.
Futurism explains:
“In a trial, 22 adults aged 21 to 43 drank mixed vodka drinks until they had a breath alcohol concentration of .20 percent. Every hour for seven hours afterward, they were asked to perform a walking task while wearing a smartphone attached to their lower back with an elastic belt.
Using data collected by the smartphone’s suite of sensors, the researchers were able to identify with 90 percent accuracy whether each participant had a breath alcohol concentration higher than 0.08 percent, the legal driving limit in the US.
‘This controlled lab study shows that our phones can be useful to identify ‘signatures’ of functional impairments related to alcohol,’ [researcher Brian] Suffoletto said.
The trial was mostly a proof of concept and will require future tests, with, for instance, participants carrying the phones in either their hands or their pockets.
Suffoletto envisions a future smartphone feature that can alert those who are impaired and make sure they’re protected from ‘high-risk events like driving, interpersonal violence and unprotected sexual encounters.'”
Detecting illnesses… Preventing drunk driving…Is there anything that our genius phones won’t be able to do?! Awe-inspiring indeed.
Are genius phones the Greatest Idea Ever?
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