Mobile Phones

Cellulose nanofibril (CNF) chips made from wood could lead to flexible, biodegradable electronics that leach far less potentially toxic chemicals into the environment.

These New Computer Chips Are Made From Wood

A new technique replaces the bulk of smartphone-friendly microchips with a transparent, flexible material made from wood pulp

Forget Credit Cards, Now You Can Pay With Your Eyes

A new Japanese phone with an iris scanner may mark a new era of password-free mobile payments

A Harvard Student's App Could Bring 911 Into the Future

With just one click, RapidSOS sends GPS and medical information to emergency dispatchers

CellScope automatically detects and quantifies infection by parasitic worms in a drop of blood.

This Smartphone Microscope Uses Video to Spot Moving Parasites

A team of Berkeley bioengineers has created CellScope, a mobile phone attachment that can quickly test blood for tropical diseases

Why You Can’t Listen to Radio On Your Smartphone

There’s an FM radio on your phone…but you likely can’t use it

MIT Researchers Think They Can Spot Early Signs of Parkinson's in the Way People Type

By monitoring how long we hold down keystrokes, it may be possible to detect neurological diseases years before other symptoms appear

A man holds his mobile phone as he sits in the ruins of a house in Minamisanriku, Japan, after the area was devastated by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.

Getting a Push Notification on Your Cell Phone? It Could Be Warning You About an Earthquake

Sophisticated GPS sensors in the average mobile device could be harnessed for seismic early warning systems around the world

Christopher Gray, one of the Scholly founders, pitches on Shark Tank.

An App Matches Students with College Scholarships They Can Use

More than $100 million in scholarships go unclaimed every year. Scholly is connecting students with these and other funds

Volunteer Rosheka Robinson serves plates of food to guests at Sister Jean's Kitchen in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

This App Recommends Volunteer Opportunities Based on the News You Read

Ideal Impact connects people that show an interest in a particular cause with organizations that could use their help

Personal environmental monitors, such as TZOA (shown here), measure air quality and stream that information to users who may otherwise have no idea what they are breathing.

With Wearable Devices That Monitor Air Quality, Scientists Can Crowdsource Pollution Maps

Emerging technology means anyone with a smartphone can become a mobile environmental monitoring station

How Dick Tracy Invented the Smartwatch

The detective’s two-way wrist radio paved the way for the Apple Watch and other wearables

Solar Panels in the Screens of Smartphones Could Power the Devices

Kyocera unveils a prototype for a phone with a layer of transparent crystals in its screen that helps to charge it both indoors and outside

This "smart" mattress cover can track sleep patterns along with respiration and heart rates.

A "Smart" Mattress Cover and Other Wild Ideas That Just Got Funded

Don't have a green thumb? A sensor for your potted plants alerts you when they need watering

The lab-on-a-chip gets the power it needs for testing though the headphone jack on a smartphone, and sends the results through the port to the phone for computation, display and storage.

This $34 Smartphone-Assisted Device Could Revolutionize Disease Testing

A new low-cost device that plugs into a smartphone could cut down on expensive lab tests

As a kid, you may remember getting your first glimpse of paramecium in pond water or the cell structure of an onion by peering through a microscope.

Ultra-Cheap Microscopes Could Save Millions of Lives

Researchers are designing portable microscopes that cost just a few dollars to make

Trained in CPR? This Life-Saving App Could Make You a Superhero

When someone is experiencing cardiac arrest, PulsePoint sends alerts to CPR-certified invidividuals nearby

Has Facebook Become the Internet?

The social network’s worldwide reach is leading to some serious confusion

This personal robot can listen, talk, take photos and even feel temperature.

Five Wild Ideas That Just Got Funded: From an Automated Home Brewery to a Personal (Robot) Assistant

Two other quirky inventions teach music in novel ways

Social media may be more relaxing than anticipated.

Social Media Is Not Making You a Ball of Stress

But perhaps unsurprisingly, Facebook and Twitter can cause stress to spread when bad things happen to friends and family

A startup called Roost is developing a WiFi-enabled battery that listens for an alarm and sends a message to your phone when your smoke detector blares.

This Smart Battery Sends a Message to Your Phone When Your Smoke Detector Sounds

It also alerts you weeks in advance of dying—sparing you from that annoying chirp

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