Stanford scientists figure out how to send texts using window cleaner and vinegar

Researchers at Stanford University have devised a way to allow for communication that sounds like something out of a science fiction film. The team working on the project figured out how to send messages using household chemicals. Researcher Nariman Farsad began working on the project and it is an area of study that few in the world are investigating at this time.

The first system that Farsad devised was able to send messages using vodka. The latest system that the scientist is working on us pulses of glass cleaner and vinegar to send messages and is faster than the original version. Rather than using normal binary code of on and off to send messages, the system the scientist have created substitutes pulses of an acid in the form of vinegar and a base in the form of the glass cleaner for the binary.

The system requires the scientists to type in their desired message in a small computer and that computer sends the message to a pump that creates the bits using the chemicals. The chemicals then travel through plastic tubes to a container that has a pH sensor. Those changes in pH are then sent to another computer that deciphers the encoded message.

Farsad says that vinegar and glass cleaner were chosen because they are easy to obtain and cancel each other out on the receiving end. The biggest issue that the team is working on now is how to separate the signal from the noise on the receiving end of the transmission since some of the chemicals are left behind in the tubes that transport them.

This might be the ultimate James Bond communication system, a way to send messages that anyone trying to intercept the message would have no idea existed. The team is also looking into the possibility of using this type of communication system for electronic devices inside the human body.

SOURCE: Stanford