How funky is your chicken? This device detects if your meat is decaying

By Jenny McGrath February 5, 2015

If you’ve ever given your slightly-past-its-expiration-date milk container the side-eye and wondered if pouring some into your cereal will be a deadly decision, welcome to our life. Often these dates are confusing to consumers, because a “sell by” date is different from an “expiration” date, and sometimes these dates are more about quality than safety, says the National Resource Defense Council. If you eat something past it’s “best by” date, you may not find it as delicious and choose not to buy it again.

Roughly $165 billion worth of edible food gets tossed each year, the NRDC estimates. If one company has its way, that waste could be a thing of the past. It started as an Indiegogo project last year, the Foodsniffer is an “electronic nose” that users place in the proximity of food they want to test. Temperature, humidity, ammonia, and other organic compound sensors gather data from the air to tell if the beef, pork, poultry, or fish has spoiled. Via Bluetooth, the device sends the data to your smartphone or tablet (iOS or Android), so you don’t have to rely on visual or scent clues to tell if the meat is bad.

“Having suffered through the horrible experience of food poisoning myself, I decided to create a device that would help families quickly and easily check the freshness and quality of food,” creator Augustas Alesiunas tells the Daily Mail.

Because food waste is such a big problem, others are creating similar devices. MIT researchers recently modified an RFID tag to detect a chemical present when food decays, and recent winner of the UK James Dyson Award, the Bump Mark, is a label designed to decompose along with food. Neither of these are available yet, but the Foodsniffer is launching in March, and you can preorder one for $120.

If it works as advertised, the Foodsniffer will hopefully diminish some food waste and save people from some bouts of food poisoning. Unfortunately, it won’t do much for our morning milk conundrum.

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Former Digital Trends Contributor

Jenny McGrath is a senior writer at Digital Trends covering the intersection of tech and the arts and the environment. Before…

Cars

How to use Alexa in your car

Alexa in car, photo Erin Lawrence, alexa auto

Smart digital assistants like Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, and the Google Assistant are infinitely helpful entities, at least until you depart the house. Now, it’s possible to access your virtual butler while on the road, too -- Alexa is being offered in vehicles. What can Alexa actually do in the car, though, and is it helpful?

Let’s dig in to discover how well it works and whether it adds to the overall driving experience. If you want a primer on using Alexa devices in the home, check out our article all about what Alexa is and how it works, or read our Amazon Echo Show (2nd-gen) review.
What can Amazon Alexa Built-in do in your car?
For starters, let’s differentiate between the various Alexa products for your car. There is Alexa Built-in, which comes factory-installed in some new vehicles (see which ones here). If you have an older car but still want to get some smarts, you can add Echo Auto as an aftermarket module (learn how to install Alexa in your car). For the sake of this article, we’ll focus on the Built-in version, since it’s more reliable and connected than the add-on version.

Smart Home

How to use your Alexa device as an intercom

An Amazon Echo in living room.

Are you tired of having to yell upstairs to summon your spouse from their study? Fortunately, for those of us with more than one Alexa-powered smart speaker, you can use the Alexa app and voice commands to intercom with the different devices throughout your home. It's all through a useful Alexa feature called Drop In, and it's pretty simple to use. We've assembled this guide to teach you how to use Drop In with your Alexa gear, as well as how to make announcements to all of your devices at once.
What is Drop In?
The Drop In feature (available in the Alexa app and through Alexa voice commands) is a communication tool that functions like a two-way radio. When you "drop in" on a compatible Alexa device, such as an Amazon Echo speaker or Echo Show, the caller will be able to hear and speak through the Echo device they've pinged. If it's an Echo Show you're pinging, you'll be able to see through the device as well.

Likewise, the receiver of the Drop In will be able to respond to the caller, as well as hear the audio from the caller's room. If it's two Echo Shows that are sharing the Drop In, the receiver will be able to see the caller, too.

Smart Home

How to sell your old Amazon Echo devices

amazon offers 99 dot for auto renewal music unlimited subscription echo 3rd gen 0 and 1 month of 7 with 2

If you own an Amazon Echo device, then you know the benefits that come from having one of these smart devices in your home. Good quality speakers, displays, and an excellent voice assistant make Alexa-equipped devices some of the best smart home products around. Ultimately these devices go out of date, but you don't have to just send them to be recycled. They can help you afford an upgrade, or something else entirely.

If you want to sell your Amazon Echo or other Echo devices , you should know a few things, like how to wipe your device and how much money you can expect. Our guide has the answers to these questions and more, so you can sell an Amazon Echo device as smoothly as possible.
Prepare and wipe your device