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How can you determine which watermelon is sweetest at the grocery store?

Answer: a smartphone-connected molecular sensor

A new smartphone peripheral called Scio allows users to scan objects in the physical world to learn about their molecular makeup. Users can scan foods, drinks, plants, clothes, medicines, soils, cleaning products or anything else the user can think of.

The sensor contains a spectrometer that scans and sends data to Scio’s cloud-based analysis service, which returns results to the user’s smartphone for real-time sensing. The device is now heading into mass production, and the Scio team explains in a video that users won’t just learn about the world around them, they’ll also be helping to build the world’s first database of matter.