Cool Stuff: Scan your food with this thumb-sized gadget to see calories

Good news for calorie counters everywhere!

Soon, there could be be a gadget the size of a thumb drive that that you can point at an apple, burger or anything you're eating, or intending to eat, to find out just how many calories it is.

Besides a calorie count, it will also tell you the product's chemical makeup. How cool is that?

A start-up based in Israel called Consumer Physics Inc is responsible for this little pocket marvel call Scio, Mashable reported.

When you place an item near the sensor it will quickly measure and analyse it, and then send the results to your phone via an app.

The device is actually a tiny handheld spectrometer and the makers have somehow squeezed down into the size of a USB thumb drive.

Which means, that the device measures the molecules of the object.

How very Star Trek.

Kickstarter campaign success

The makers' Kickstarter page which they started in April in the hopes of crowdfunding their project has garnered almost US$2.5 million (S$3.1million) worth of pledges.

Set to end on June 16, they had set the target of getting only US$200,000 of funding to help produce their device for the market. They've since exceeded their target by an impressive 1,050% in under 2 months!

Seems a lot of people want the ability to be able to count their calories in real time.

Source: Mashable, YouTube