Under the hood

The Seeker has GPS capabilities in order to stamp positive detections with time and place, as well as Bluetooth networking so that it can connect to portable communication units carried by police or soldiers to in turn send findings back to a central office or command center.

The Seeker runs on Windows CE 6.0, and its software was written using Microsoft's Visual Studio and Excel, according to David Headley, DetectaChem's director of software engineering.

"Linux is widely used," Headley said. "But Windows CE works well, we are familiar with Visual Studio, and there were a lot of drivers for off-the-shelf hardware."

DetectaChem worked with a systems integrator, Adeneo Inc., to create the Seeker.

Adeneo is accelerating DetectaChem's response to customer requests for the abilities to detect nerve gas, radiation, anthrax, salmonella, even... corn starch?

"The FBI in Houston asked us for that. Some little old lady might open up her magazine and some white powder will fall out," he said. "She'll think it's anthrax when it's really corn starch that publishers use to keep pages from sticking together."