In Cecil’s column from January 29th of this year, at http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2920/followup , Cecil quotes Jacquet and Pauly as saying:
Well, guess what! The folks over at Agilent Technologies have just unvelied a hand-held fish species identifier that uses the fish meat’s DNA. The (rather glowing, and probably optimistic) press release is here: http://www.agilent.com/about/newsroom/presrel/2010/01mar-ca10014.html
I’ve seen the pictures of the thing. It’s about an inch-and-a-half on a side and less than a quarter inch thick – although that might jsut be one component of a much larger system. Agilent claims “customers can guarantee their red snapper isn’t rockfish and their halibut isn’t sea bass,” but Agilent’s “customers” might be fish inspectors and not random diners sitting down at a restaurant, for all I know.