Generation after generation, our smartphones are increasingly equipped. Before long, these devices may have everything they need to detect Covid-19 in its owner.
Our smartphones are true concentrates of technologies. Year after year, they are always more impressive, always more capable, with sensors always more astonishing and varied. In this period of the Covid-19 pandemic, our future phones may be equipped with the necessary to detect the presence of the virus in its owner.
Smartphones capable of detecting Covid-19?
Technology, and especially medical technology, has come a long way from the days when you necessarily had to see a doctor or go to the hospital for certain things.
Today, our smartwatches are equipped with heart rate monitors, sensors for oxygen in the blood and even the necessary to perform electrocardiograms. In the more or less near future, our smartphones may be able to detect the presence of Covid-19.
The work of these General Electric researchers is very promising
The thing could be made possible thanks to researchers at General Electric, who recently received an award from the National Institute of Health to allow them to continue their work on sensors that could easily be integrated into smartphones and that can be used to detect elements such as Covid-19.
According to the researchers, their sensors have the same detection capabilities as dedicated analytical instruments that can be found in a lab. And these would be sensitive enough to be able to isolate virus particles without experiencing interference from other elements.
As promising as this work may be, we should not expect to see this technology commercialized for a long time. The team will spend the next few years improving and further refining their technology. And even then, there can be no guarantee that manufacturers will decide to adopt it.
That being said, this work shows the possibilities offered by this kind of technology. In the future, for example, our smartphones may be able to alert us to the presence of dangerous biological substances in the air.