Future Smartphone Could Take Your Temperature, Analyze DNA

The future of smartphone might detect if you have a fever and could analyze your DNA as well.

Researchers from Polytechnique Montreal and Gorilla Glass manufacturer Corning are working together to develop a display sensor. The sensors will be embedded within the smartphone’s display and allow users to take their temperature, assess blood levels(if diabetic) and in theory, work alongside platforms such as Apple’s HomeKit to give users more information about their health in real time.

The hope is that tech companies could embed these biomedical sensors into other devices too, such as windows or tabletops.

To make this possible, the researchers shot lasers into glass to create pathways that transmit data in the form of small beams of light. The waveguides act as tunnels that channel light, similar to how electronic wires convey electrical signals.

By adding these waveguides to mobile phones and adding a readable code, it opens up opportunities for manufacturers to get creative. While waveguides aren’t new, the researchers say its new approach created by the team are 10 times better at minimizing such loss than previous ones made with lasers, Corning said.

There are also use cases for the display to monitor carbon-monoxide levels in the air and add security to mobile devices too.

For now, both the temperature sensor and authentication system are patent pending.

Source: mashable.com

Photo above: An invisible waveguide (pathway for light) being written via laser into a smartphone (Image Credit: Mashable)