My Blackberry As A Bomb Sniffer?

The race to deploy a mobile-detection system is on. The technology could soon cost less than $100 per cell phone, says John Peeters, CEO of Gentag, a Washington, D.C.-based company developing a system similar to the Purdue model. Simon Labov, an engineer at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in northern California, is working on a device, called RadNet, which he thinks will be ready to test in 18 months.

Funding at U.S. government labs and agencies has slowed, however, perhaps because of uncertainty over the budget priorities of the next administration. Even so, the Department of Homeland Security has said it will support the most promising system. This could include compensation for participating citizens, who will have to carry slightly larger cell phones equipped with radiation detectors. While cash might entice some, the designers of mobile-phone detection systems note that many people would likely opt in simply to play a new and surprising role in protecting national security.

© 2008