DHS S&T is working on a chem-danger-alert app for your smartphone

Would you pay an extra dollar or so for your next smartphone if it included an app that alerted you -- and DHS -- when you were near dangerous chemicals?

That’s approximately the value proposition that DHS’ Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) is suggesting will result from its Cell-All initiative.

According to S&T, “Cell-All aims to equip your cell phone with a sensor capable of detecting deadly chemicals at minimal cost—to the manufacturer (a buck a sensor) and to your phone’s battery life.”

 “Our goal is to create a lightweight, cost-effective, power-efficient solution,” Stephen Dennis, Cell-All’s program manager, said in an S&T statement.

This is how S&T envisions Cell-All will work: “For personal safety issues such as a chlorine gas leak, a warning is sounded; the user can choose a vibration, noise, text message, or phone call. For catastrophes such as a sarin gas attack, details -- including time, location, and the compound-- are phoned home to an emergency operations center.”

One other benefit of Cell-All is that it takes advantage of so-called “crowd-sourcing,” to activate alerts from many people at once, thereby avoiding the “longstanding problem of false positives.”

Currently, says S&T, three teams are working on the project: one from Qualcomm, one from NASA and one from Rhevision Technology.

Qualcomm knows miniaturization and “how to shepherd a product to market,” says S&T, while “scientists from the Center for Nanotechnology at NASA’s Ames Research Center have experience with chemical sensing on low-powered platforms, such as the International Space Station. And technologists from Rhevision have developed an artificial nose—a piece of porous silicon that changes colors in the presence of certain molecules, which can be read spectrographically.”

S&T also is working on the project with four cell phone manufacturers: Qualcomm, LG, Apple and Samsung.

Multiple prototypes, beginning with one that detects carbon monoxide and fire, are expected to be available in approximately a year, according to S&T.