My daughter is leaving for college soon, and I reminded her of two things: 1) She’s too young to drink alcoholic beverages, and 2) never drink anything at a party or gathering unless she broke the seal on the bottle or can herself and it has never left her hand and her direct sight. Too many women fall victim to date rape because someone drugged her drink, and the founders of pd.id want to do something to stop it. Using their backgrounds in medical technology and in designing, implementing, and supporting highly available systems, they started with drug testing technology that has been available to drug enforcement agencies for years, and they developed a small, portable, personal device that can quickly check the safety of a drink. You dip the pd.id sensor into your drink, and it evaluates the drink using three separate tests and compares the results against a database of known drugs. An LED on the pd.id will quickly light to let you know if your drink is safe or not. You can use the pd.id over and over, until the battery needs recharging. (And of course, it’s ready to use again after recharging.) You can also use the pd.id in tandem with an app on your phone, which will “access an extensive database of drink profiles and alert you with a text or call that your drink has been tampered with.” (It is compatible with iPhone 4 and newer, some newer Androids, and Blackberry 10.) The databases can be updated to be sure you have the latest information to best protect yourself. They are seeking funding for the pd.id at indiegogo. A pledge of $75 gets you one pd.id. Funding continues until August 29, 2014 (11:59pm PT). They are attempting to raise $100,000 with this flexible funding account (meaning they will collect all pledges even if the goal isn’t met); shipping is expected for April, 2015.
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Most people at parties are drinking some sort of alcohol. Alcohol itself can be used as a date rape drug. While these type of devices might have some limited use I think even unadulterated alcoholic drinks pose a danger to people.