CES 2017: Food sense

Las Vegas – Chinese technology company Changhong’s latest H2 smartphone can scan items to determine their molecular properties.

• Changhong worked with Israeli company Consumer Physics to use its SCiO molecular spectrometry technology in its phone
• The sensor has been shrunk to the size of the phone’s camera lens, and is accompanied with an app that analyses items scanned by the phone

Consumer Physics has been touting its SCiO technology since 2014, but the molecular scanner has thus far been a stand-alone device that people can carry with them. The partnership with Changhong brings the same technology to a smartphone, eliminating the need to carry an extra device when a person wants to scan an item.

The phone can scan food to determine its molecular content, from water level to how many carbohydrates it contains. Other apps enable users to verify pills to ensure they are not counterfeit and to analyse body fat composition.

‘Consumers usually just consume what they are given, but we wanted to provide people with the ability to gain more information about their physical world,’ Dr Damian Goldring, co-founder and chief technology officer at Consumer Physics, told LS:N Global.