It is interesting to note that rap mogul P. Diddy’s latest fragrance, I Am King, is inspired by his breath (yes, he actually said that in an interview with Ryan Seacrest on American Top 40!), and I guess this man must win all the best smelling breath competitions worldwide hands down if such a thing existed. Well, we’re going to look at the human breath today in a different light as Applied Nanodetectors Ltd (AND) of the UK has successfully rolled out a prototyped cell phone which was specially developed to detect a range of diseases, all from the user’s breath. It was being paraded at the International Nanotechnology Exhibition & Conference 2009. More on this special phone right after the jump.

The phone itself was developed by nobody else other than Nokia Corp. of Finland, and this is but a preliminary effort as AND is hoping to do businesses with Japanese mobile carriers in the near future. How does it work, you ask? Well, for starters, the cell phone will come with an integrated AND chip that uses built-in sensors in order to detect a bunch of gases including CO2, NOx and ammonia (NH3). This chip is smart enough to break down the composition of the user’s breath, while tabulating the density of each gas. Results are matched with the characteristics of various diseases in order to detect them, making the matching process akin to fingerprint matching.

AND is bold enough to claim that such an equipped cell phone is able to detect ailments such as asthma, diabetes, lung cancer, a kind of food poisoning called “gastro” in Europe, oral odor level and breath alcohol concentration among others. This might not sound too new at point of publishing as there are already some devices on the market at this point in time which are able to measure oral odor level, but this is the seminal chip that touts itself to detect a variety of factors while being embedded in a cell phone. Should the handset detect one or more of these diseases or abnormalities, it will notify the user or his/her doctor automatically so that early treatment can be sought, where the chances of recovery is much higher then. Sounds neat and all – imagine getting off the phone after a lengthy conversation just to realize that you’re about to fall sick. There is no word on a concrete marketing schedule yet, but we wonder whether this will catch on when available.

Source: Tech On