Milk Guardian/ Iphone Milk App?

Milk Guardian?

 A Canadian company, Dairy Quality, unveiled a new product called Milk Guardian, a small black box that slides onto the back of an iPhone. A farmer inserts a plastic slide containing a milk sample from one of his cows, and the device counts the number of somatic cells (a high somatic cell count can be an indicator of mastitis, an infection of the udder tissue). Counting somatic cells used to require sending milk to an offsite lab and waiting a week or more for results; using a microscope and an app, Milk Guardian can analyze a sample on location in six seconds or less. The accessory and app together cost $1,800.

After connecting with Gary Jonas, co-founder and president of app developer Mpengo, Mangan realized that most of what he needed could be found in a smartphone. “We needed a camera; a smartphone has that,” Mangan says. “We needed software; we could do that through an app. We needed to export the data; a smartphone’s designed to do just that.”

Do you think technology should or shouldn't be involved in natural situations such as using a phone to do what scientist are trained and paid to do?

I personally think technology can be used in certain situations but having a phone basically analyze and count somatic cells verses sending the milk to an offsite lab and waiting a week or more for results using a microscope? I personally feel like science that requires a microscope to see and discover should be done by scientist with a microscope no matter how time consuming it may be.
What do you think?

To read more about the Technology used on the dairy farm " robot cow milkers" possibly texting farmers when cows are in-heat  go to:
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-10-18/big-dairy-enters-the-era-of-big-data#r=tec-s