Could Your iPhone Be Your Pregnancy Test?

NFC Technology Gets Interesting

Jan 29 2011, 7:08pm CST | by Robert Evans

Could Your iPhone Be Your Pregnancy Test?

You can't spend ten minutes flipping through tech blogs without reading something about Near Field Communications chips and readers. The most noted feature of the technology allows smartphones to act as debit / credit cards. The huge potential behind mobile payment technology has Apple ready to throw money at retailers to encourage them to hop on the NFC bandwagon.

And now, those early adopters who nab phones with NFC technology will be able to do even more than pay with their phones. NFC World reports that a company called Gentag has created a new product that combines NFC technology with something called an immunoassay patch. This little nicotine-patch looking dealie allows anyone with the phone to perform a variety of tests.

You can self-test for pregnancy, certain pathogens and illnesses (including AIDS), allergens, fertility, drug use. It even works on "certain types of cancers". So there you go. The ultimate hypochondriac's toolkit, and the pregnancy test with the least reliance on pee. Gentag expects the first mass-market devices to hit at the end of 2011.

So we're just months away from being able to learn about pregnancy, cancer and STDs with the help of our phone and a sticky patch. Sure beats getting swabbed by a hungover lab tech.

NFC technology is just now starting to pop up on the consumer market. The new Nexus S has an NFC reader and is even capable of writing on tags. The new iPhone is expected to have NFC technology, along with the new iPad. Orange and Barclaycard have just announced the first consumer NFC service in the UK.

This is technology right on the brink of breaking through to ubiquity. In another two or three years, those of us in Gadgetopia will wonder how we ever got along without NFCs. Until we lose our phones.

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Robert Evans
The excitement about new smartphones, tablets and anything mobile drive Robert to unearth the latest rumors and developments in this fast moving space. He adopted 4G as soon as it become available and knows where the mobile market is going.
Robert can be contacted directly at robert@i4u.com.