SCiO: A Pocket Molecular Sensor For All • Hacker News Board

Re: SCiO: A Pocket Molecular Sensor For All

#11

Post by sytelus » Mon, May 05, 2014, 10:33 AM UTC

There doesn't seem to be any mention of what exactly new technology is this. I would expect all the patents filed at this stage and this information be public - unless there is something fishy or they are going trade-secret route which would be very difficult.

They say the device can detect materials of 1% concentration. But what kind of materials? Spectroscopy is hard, precise measurements are even harder.

Also why are they running $200K campaign? It seems they already have significant staff and $200K would be peanuts as a goal.

Re: SCiO: A Pocket Molecular Sensor For All

#12

Post by InclinedPlane » Mon, May 05, 2014, 10:39 AM UTC

Does anyone have an email address to contact them directly? I'm concerned this might be a scam and I want to ask them a few in depth questions and I'd rather not be forced to do that through kickstarter or twitter.

Re: SCiO: A Pocket Molecular Sensor For All

#13

Post by idanman » Mon, May 05, 2014, 10:40 AM UTC

sytelus wrote: post #11

There doesn't seem to be any mention of what exactly new technology is this. I would expect all the patents filed at this stage and this information be public - unless there is something fishy or they are going trade-secret route which would be very difficult. They say the device can detect materials of 1% concentration. But what kind of materials? Spectroscopy is hard, precise measurements are even harder. Also why…

The technology is most likely Raman Spectroscopy.

Re: SCiO: A Pocket Molecular Sensor For All

#14

Post by allthatglitters » Mon, May 05, 2014, 10:54 AM UTC

Zarkonnen wrote: post #5

Hm, this is at best utterly misleading and at worst a scam.

Interesting that your comment was voted down! How many backers have ever done any spectroscopy? For that matter, how many of those commenting here have done any serious spectroscopy? I have to agree, this seems very misleading.

Re: SCiO: A Pocket Molecular Sensor For All

#15

Post by s_henry_paulson » Mon, May 05, 2014, 10:57 AM UTC

idanman wrote: post #13

sytelus wrote: post #11

There doesn't seem to be any mention of what exactly new technology is this. I would expect all the patents filed at this stage and this information be public - unless there is something fishy or they are going trade-secret route which would be very difficult. They say the device can detect materials of 1% concentration. But what kind of materials? Spectroscopy is hard, precise measurements are even harder. Also why…

The technology is most likely Raman Spectroscopy.

I think he was referring to the technology, as in the hardware.

To do this stuff properly, you often need big expensive equipment, so the real question is what they are doing to achieve results using cheap hardware.

Re: SCiO: A Pocket Molecular Sensor For All

#16

Post by collyw » Mon, May 05, 2014, 10:59 AM UTC

allthatglitters wrote: post #14

Zarkonnen wrote: post #5

Hm, this is at best utterly misleading and at worst a scam.

Interesting that your comment was voted down! How many backers have ever done any spectroscopy? For that matter, how many of those commenting here have done any serious spectroscopy? I have to agree, this seems very misleading.

I did not down vote, but maybe it is because there is no extra information.

Two people have mentioned the possibility of a scam, but there is no additional information as to what indicates that it might be. I don't know enough about chemistry to make an educated guess. It would be nice to know why others think this may be the case.

Re: SCiO: A Pocket Molecular Sensor For All

#17

Post by s_henry_paulson » Mon, May 05, 2014, 11:03 AM UTC

sytelus wrote: post #11

There doesn't seem to be any mention of what exactly new technology is this. I would expect all the patents filed at this stage and this information be public - unless there is something fishy or they are going trade-secret route which would be very difficult. They say the device can detect materials of 1% concentration. But what kind of materials? Spectroscopy is hard, precise measurements are even harder. Also why…

Very good note about the goal price. To me, more than anything, that suggests that this was designed to be intentionally misleading.

Re: SCiO: A Pocket Molecular Sensor For All

#18

Post by flyinglizard » Mon, May 05, 2014, 11:10 AM UTC

s_henry_paulson wrote: post #17

sytelus wrote: post #11

There doesn't seem to be any mention of what exactly new technology is this. I would expect all the patents filed at this stage and this information be public - unless there is something fishy or they are going trade-secret route which would be very difficult. They say the device can detect materials of 1% concentration. But what kind of materials? Spectroscopy is hard, precise measurements are even harder. Also why…

Very good note about the goal price. To me, more than anything, that suggests that this was designed to be intentionally misleading.

It's a common Kickstarter practice to set intentionally low goals. It makes the project seem more achievable to those pledging before the goal is met, it makes the project seem more successful mid-campaign as it exceeds the goal within a short time, and you can later brag to the press and potential customers about exceeding the target goal by hundreds of percents or more.

Look at all the successful projects of late, most of them adopted a certain Kickstarter formula in terms of goal, videos, page design, marketing language and so on. There's nothing casual about Kickstarter anymore, at least not in the big money campaign.

Re: SCiO: A Pocket Molecular Sensor For All

#19

Post by alkimie2 » Mon, May 05, 2014, 11:11 AM UTC

I see a sort of structural flaw. They seem to be matching measurements against known materials and then reporting that. But where is the utility? Figuring out whether a pill is asprin or tylenol? I'd be interested in identifying characteristic of -new- materials unknown to the database. That's where the raw information is really crucial.

Re: SCiO: A Pocket Molecular Sensor For All

#20

Post by teekert » Mon, May 05, 2014, 11:12 AM UTC

Zarkonnen wrote: post #5

Hm, this is at best utterly misleading and at worst a scam.

It would be nice if you said why you think this.

I have some experience with fluorescence spectrocopy, to me it seems that if you do a proper control as the first step and then a sweep of wavelengths, look at the reflected and scattered light you can certainly get a lot of info. It doesn't seem like they do a wavelength scan though. But they do look at the spectrum (they say in the movie), do they just excite with one wavelength? Which one? The lack of any information on the inner workings is annoying.

A very big shame though that they don't say anything about the raw data. One could imaging many things (authentication? pollution measurements? ITTT kind of stuff) people could build for this.