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A comment on People leave molecular wakes that may give away their secrets. Parent comment

Re:People leave molecular wakes that may give away their sec... by ASalazarMX on Saturday February 22, 2020 @10:34AM (#22391483)
There was a time when mobile phones gained many sensors, and it all kind of stopped 10 years ago. I expected high-end phones by 2020 would measure distances and temperatures, air quality, UV exposure, radioactivity, infrared photography, etc. In essence, baby tricorders.

In fact, several of these they can already do with a combination of the existing hardware, but sadly, the market has laser-focused on visual social media.

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Re:People leave molecular wakes that may give away their sec... by myself248 on Saturday February 22, 2020 @11:24AM (#22391772)
CAT was branding a phone some time ago with a low-res thermal camera, but it was locked to some already-ancient version of Android and otherwise total lamesauce.

Sad, because I'd buy one if it was just a normal phone plus IR. Presently I make do with a plug-in accessory module.

I share your frustration. Consider a sled-backpack-case sort of thing with "all the missing sensors", instead of piecemeal accessories you carry a gaggle of and have to swap out. If it was like one of those extended-battery sled cases, you could just leave it on and write apps that expect it to be there...

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Re:People leave molecular wakes that may give away their sec... by nitrogen on Saturday February 22, 2020 @11:37AM (#22391860)
You'd probably want the sensor pack to be separable from the phone case, so you can buy a new phone (whose shape changes every year, forcing new accessory purchases).

I do think it's simultaneously cool and ridiculous that instead of just adding a simple distance sensor, companies making measurement software for phones double down on the software-only approach with computer vision.

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Re:People leave molecular wakes that may give away their sec... by NickNameNick on Saturday February 22, 2020 @01:14PM (#22392385)
Friend-of-a-friend was involved in this

https://ikegps.com/spike/

I think they licenced it to Stanley or similar.

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Re:People leave molecular wakes that may give away their sec... by ta999999171 on Saturday February 22, 2020 @10:39AM (#22391518)
Because "we" keep incentivizing them to.
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