Here are some links to background information, existing products, and applications of the underlying technology. They could be exaggerating the capabilities of

Here are some links to background information, existing products, and applications of the underlying technology. They could be exaggerating the capabilities of their particular miniaturized sensor, but as far as I can tell they are not making up any new science. Spectroscopy is useful and widely used - but also occasionally oversold, so some skepticism is certainly warranted. The concrete applications they cite have been previously demonstrated (links below). SCiO uses near-infrared spectroscopy (as clearly stated on the kickstarter page: "How does SCiO work"). Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-infrared_spectroscopy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-infrared_spectroscopy Scholarly review: http://www.odin.life.ku.dk/news_letters/Q2_Q3_2005/news001.pdf http://www.odin.life.ku.dk/news_letters/Q2_Q3_2005/news001.p... There are products on the market that do what SCiO claims to do - in field conditions, but generally with a larger form-factor, and at much greater cost. For example: http://www.asdi.com/products/fieldspec-spectroradiometers/handheld-2-portable-spectroradiometer http://www.asdi.com/products/fieldspec-spectroradiometers/ha... http://www.jdsu.com/ProductLiterature/micronir1700-spectrometer-ds-co-ae.pdf http://www.jdsu.com/ProductLiterature/micronir1700-spectrome... http://www.bruker.com/products/infrared-near-infrared-and-raman-spectroscopy/ft-ir-routine-spectrometers/mobile-ir/overview.html http://www.bruker.com/products/infrared-near-infrared-and-ra... http://www.ahurascientific.com/material-verification/products/microphazirpc/ http://www.ahurascientific.com/material-verification/product... Some NIR application examples: Agriculture, plants and soil quality assessment: http://blog.cimmyt.org/pocket-sensors-for-precision-agriculture-to-reach-ethiopian-farmers/ http://blog.cimmyt.org/pocket-sensors-for-precision-agricult... http://www.hindawi.com/journals/js/2012/582028/ http://www.hindawi.com/journals/js/2012/582028/ http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf201468x http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf201468x http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/2/1/290 http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/2/1/290 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016706112003412 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016706112... Agriculture, meat assessment: http://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12161-013-9611-y#page-1 http://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12161-013-9611-y#p... Drug molecular composition (and counterfeit detection): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18703302 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18703302 http://irvinepharma.com/pdf/A_comparison_of_near_infrared_method_development_approaches_using_a_drug_product_on_different_spectrophotometers_and_chemometric_software_algorithms.pdf http://irvinepharma.com/pdf/A_comparison_of_near_infrared_me... http://www.americanpharmaceuticalreview.com/Featured-Articles/37319-Near-Infrared-NIR-Spectral-Signature-Development-and-Validation-for-Counterfeit-Drug-Detection-Using-Portable-Spectrometer/ http://www.americanpharmaceuticalreview.com/Featured-Article... Material characterization: http://ssmon.chb.kth.se/vol17/1_Steiner.pdf http://ssmon.chb.kth.se/vol17/1_Steiner.pdf Remote sensing for agriculture (only giving one example here, but this is a huge field. look up "MODIS" or "terra and aqua satellite"): http://quantalab.ias.csic.es/pdf/130222_e-Informa1832.pdf http://quantalab.ias.csic.es/pdf/130222_e-Informa1832.pdf