This reaaallllyyyy needs to be reviewed

A cup. But not just any cup. It is Vessyl. What is a Vessyl, you ask? A smart cup. It can tell you what you are drinking, (just in case you have no idea as to what it is that you just poured into your cup). It can tell you the name brand of what you are drinking. And it will connect to your smartphone to tell you that you need something to drink (just in case your built in thirst mechanism has just failed). AMAZE YOUR FRIENDS!! https://www.myvessyl.com/

I think that this needs to be reviewed on the show. Stuart would be good for this! The only trouble for @sil would be, would he get shampoo in it as he reviews it in the shower? :smile:

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Seriously? Why is does this exist.

It cost $100 and the first few seconds of the ad made me need to pee.

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Email to Vessyl sent. We’ll see when they have review devices ready to send out to press.

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Fantastic new cutting-edge technology! Which you need to wash by hand like the Middle Ages because you can’t put it in the dishwasher.

I look forward to seeing if they have review units, @bryanlunduke.

on a serious note this could help with telling if your drinks been spiked!

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Not sure if the initial model can do that. From the FAQ on the website:

“Does my Vessyl have the capability to detect toxic metals or contaminants?
Your Vessyl has sophisticated sensors that can analyze the content at the molecular level. However, the focus of Mark One is to help people improve their nutrition, so at the moment, the sensors are not intended to detect trace contaminants. We do know that detecting contaminants is a serious concern for many, so we do have a long list of projects to tackle soon.”

This would be fun if it had an open API for the sensors. Then I could play with the sensors to look for contaminants etc.

…if you often take your own glass to a bar. Which isn’t all that common, although it’d be a good use of the technology (once the company make it possible). A little handheld probe to go in one’s pocket or handbag might be a useful thing.

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Something else to review! The selfie hat.

http://liliputing.com/2014/09/acer-unveils-selfie-hat-pink-sombrero-tablet.html

I wonder what sort of sensor you would need to detect a spiked drink. I bet the cup is just guessing at sugar / vitamin levels with a cheap PH sensor (that’s just a guess.) I can’t imagine that you’d be able to detect knock out drugs with out some serious molecular analysis. PH sensors are cheap, and available, and there’s already plenty of people playing with them on arduinos. I can’t imagine the cup has anything more sophisticated than capacitive , optical, PH, and magnetic sensors.

Here is a group of arduino folk who speculated on the possibility of finding lead electronically via Arduino: http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php/topic,208457.0.html

Their assessment was that it was not possible. The page for the cup is very low on technical details, and the cup itself appears to be very small. If I were tasked with making such a thing, I would try to guess soda brands, and juice types by color and PH. I bet that there are subtle and detectable differences brand to brand that will make that possible. I am sort of skeptical that this cup does any significant molecular analysis of the drink, simply because I cannot find a device that does anything remotely like that, that would fit inside a cup.

Check out this quick bio-analysis tool: http://www.urimicrofluidics.com/index.php/research/60 - this is supposed to be very small. Not fitting in a cup, though. We’re talking shoe box sized at least.

Then again, he claims the ability to be able to detect how much protein is in a protein shake. I can’t imagine how you’d do that. Then again I’m not a chemist at all.

Maybe just weld a cup on to a gas spectrometer?

There are these things: http://store.drinksafetech.com/categories/ - which probobly work by some pre-coated chemical reaction. You could rig up some sort of cartridge with thousands of tiny tester patches that are exposed to the liquid, and an optical sensor tells if the color change occurred. I can’t see that being a massive advantage over the testing strips, which work on any cup so that you don’t have to be a cup carrying weirdo.

I have no idea of those strips are at all effective, by the way.

I poked around for electrical methods of detecting ketamine - a common knock out drug used by predators. Seems like the most common thing is mass spectrometry, which uses desktop sized device.

I’m not a chemist. I’d love to be proven wrong. Right now: highly skeptical of the vessyl.

I properly like the idea of going to the pub while carrying a GC-MS :slight_smile: It’d take up some room, mind.

In related news, there is now nail varnish which changes colour when dipped in a spiked drink which is doing so with chemistry rather than chemical analysis.

Airport security should offer such measurements as a service. Unless they let themselves be sold on neutered devices.

I think airports use chemical swabs as well.

For some reason that link isn’t working for me. But I’m assuming this is the same story you are referring to.

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The media’s excitement around Rosetta/Philae lander’s Gas Chromatograph sensor had a UK BBC TV show - Sky at Night, iirc, interviewing the folk behind the one that was developed here in the UK (at the open university, again iirc). They shrunk the detector down to small shoebox (ballet shoe size?) size for the lander. Might be a touch smaller than the example quoted already. Unless that’s the one being talked about.