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Printable Smart Labels Tell You When the Milk's Gone Bad
chicksdaddy writes "Security Ledger brings news that the Norwegian firm, ThinFilm has successfully tested a printable electronics component that it claims is the first, fully-functional 'smart' label. The company claims its disposable Smart Sensor Label can track the temperature of perishable goods and is a 'complete closed system built from printed and organic electronics.' Smart Sensor is being marketed to pharmaceutical makers as a way to keep temperature-sensitive drugs and to food wholesalers, which can track the temperature their product is kept at throughout the supply chain. When 'critical temperature thresholds are reached, the Smart Sensor label will change to indicate that using an integrated display driver. Such labels could make it possible to easily monitor the condition of large quantities of product, keeping it safe and effective and preventing perfectly usable products from being destroyed. But the possible applications of printable electronics are huge: they can be produced for a fraction of the cost of comparable technologies because they don't need to be assembled. And, because they're flexible and paper-like, they can be deployed pretty much anywhere you can stick a label — something ThinFilm's CEO says could provide an extensible platform for the much-ballyhooed 'Internet of Things.'"
For 2,000 years the human nose (standard equipment on most humans) was not the correct way to detect foul and spoiled milk? We were drinking bad milk the whole time, or what? My bad milk detector? No production cost, and zero use cost.
There have been products that have liquid crystal foil labels that change color or have a rising bar to show temperature, similar to aquariums that have a stick-on temperature strip in a corner. I believe that beer with a can that tells you when it's Rocky Mountain cold uses that sort of technology but I don't know for sure.
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
Like a mood ring?
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
Nope. When the date is the 1st of October, I know it's already "bad" before I get it home. with a proprietary closed-source label, it could trigger off other factors to warn as soon as I get it home, so I buy it first, then throw it out to buy another.
The only use of these is for internal verification in the supply chain that storage parameters haven't been breached.
It's the same reason you should thump and break all shock sensors on receipt of sensitive equipment. You need to verify that the sensor works. If it doesn't break at listed load, then you don't know if the load received that shock and it didn't break.
Learn to love Alaska
What is desperately needed is a sticker to let you know if your beer has ever been permitted to sit on a loading dock too long, god forbid it might sit in the sun. Forget milk, we need to use this technology to win the war on skunky beer.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
70s not the 80s.
Along with the Pet Rock.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
There are already time-temperature indicators, which are low-cost, (usually) non-electronic devices affixed to perishable products to check whether they've remained in the appropriate range, and how long they were out of that range. Those are what this new tech is competing with, not the temperature-sensitive LCD strips you see on aquariums.
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