CD players could serve as cheap lab tools

The average home-entertainment disc player is good for audio and video, but a talented hacker could apparently expand the machine’s horizons to include medical diagnoses and chemical tests.

LAB PLAYER. Researchers modified this compact disc player to detect small amounts of chemicals in lab samples. Maquieira

Normally, the devices’ lasers scan a CD (compact disc) or DVD (digital video disc) for microscopic bumps that encode sounds and images.