Toronto-based startup TellSpec has partnered up with Texas Instruments to incorporate the famous calculator maker’s “DLP (digital light processing) technology”. It’s all part of an upgrade to what TellSpec is calling the first consumer hand-held food scanner.
And you all thought the last time you’d use Texas Instruments’ tech was in grade 12 calculus!
The story was first reported by the Dallas Morning News.
TellSpec wrote on its website that the company “brings together spectroscopy and a unique mathematical algorithm in a revolutionary hand-held consumer product that can analyze the chemical composition of any food in less than three seconds.”
“The TellSpec handheld scanner beams a light at the food you wish to analyze, measures the reflected light with its spectrometer, and sends the data via your smartphone, computer, or tablet to the TellSpec servers in the cloud. Those servers use this data to deduce information about your food that is of interest to you. This information is then displayed on your computer, tablet, or smartphone so you can intelligently decide if you want to buy or eat the food.”
Dallas-based TI’s DLP technology, which includes up to 1 million programmable miniscule mirrors on a microprocessor, will replace lasers used in the earlier model of the TellSpec scanner.
“TellSpec is taking advantage of DLP technology’s capabilities in exciting new ways, by applying the DLP device to an advanced consumer food and health solution,” TI’s Mariquita Gordon told the Dallas Morning News. “TI’s DLP technology has been used in many devices from cinema projection and medical imaging to smart eyeglasses and security scanners.”