Can smartphones power satellites, become mobile labs, drive cars, screen health,

detect metals and save rain-forest?

One can hardly establish a direct connection between satellite and detecting metal or saving rain-forest, but with smartphones, this is possible too. A smartphone, and with dedicated mobile application development, it’s not difficult to put today’s mobile technology in the center of everything. And thus it’s true that a smartphone can power satellites, become mobile lab, drive cars, screen health, detect metals and save rain-forest. Let me refer some examples:

Smartphone powered satellites

In February 2013, a Google Nexus powered nano-satellite was sent into orbit under the joint project of University of Surrey’s Space Center and Surry Satellite Technologies limited. Of course, the satellite had some experimental applications which were put in the phone to collect data from space.

Smartphone powered medical labs

With a dedicated mobile application development, smartphones can easily be turned into medical labs, and that’ what researchers at the University of Illinois tried to do in 2013, according to the reports from RedOrbit.com. Researchers have developed an iPhone cradle and app that make a device a complete medical lab. It uses the camera of phone to detect toxins, proteins, viruses, bacteria and other organisms.

Smartphones driving cars

Google’s own self-driving car runs on $30,000 of high-tech hardware and various other sensors but at Griffith University, Australia, students did it with a single smartphone. They relied on smartphone’s built-in GPS system.

Smartphone health screening

Smartphones can also screen health. In 2012, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology found that smartphone screens can be turned into digital doctors working on same tap and swiping mechanisms for screening health. Screens could detect protein and DNA molecules just by taping or swiping on them.

Smartphone based metal detectors

Many Android smartphones come with built-in magnetometer, and it has quite beneficial use as explained by Medgadget “Imagine having a metal detector handy when you, as an emergency physician, have an unconscious patient come in and you need to know whether he has an implant.”

However; magnetometers in today’s smartphones are not that much effective and can detect metals in range of a few inches but in future, more powerful magnetometer detection system can be added to smartphones for the purpose of detecting metal in emergency conditions.

Smartphone saving rain-forests

In 2013, a nonprofit in Indonesia launched an Android application that listens for the telltale growl of chainsaw and triggers an alert. Powered by solar panels, these smartphones have an application that keeps their microphones on all times and listens for the sound of chainsaw.

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