Imagine being able to quickly determine whether things in your fridge are about to expire by opening an app on your phone and checking your fridge. This is only one of the uses for a novel technology created by scientists at the University of California, San Diego. The system combines a phone software update with a chip that is built into product packaging. The phone becomes capable of identifying objects based on signals the chip emits from specific frequencies, in this case, Bluetooth or WiFi. In an industrial setting, a smartphone equipped with the software update could be used as