Engineers from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have designed a phone which contains a compact radiation detector, making easy for police forces to check for radioactive material hidden in large cities.

In “Cellphone sniffs out dirty bombs,” New Scientist writes that the phone measures continuously the level of radiation around it and transmits it to a central computer via an always-on Internet connection. The phone will also send time and location information gathered from its GPS unit. When these phones are deployed around the U.S., they will form a radiation monitoring network dubbed the RadNet.

Such phones should be available for about $1,000 in a few months first to military personnel or police officers, then to U.S. Postal service personnel or delivery service workers. It should take more time before you can buy one yourself at a Wal-Mart store. This overview contains more details, references and a picture of a prototype of such a smart phone.