Paper Mounted CPUs

Posted by Hemos on Monday February 3, 2003 @12:04AM from the disposable-pcs-are-the-future dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "Rafe Needleman discovered an interesting young Swedish company which is printing really cheap chips. "The company, Cypak, has technology to mount a very small microprocessor, which it created, on paper (or inside a credit card), as well as a technique to print sensors, switches, and very short-range antennae on the same paper, using special conductive inks." Here is one possible application designed for drug trials. "Drug trials need data about how and when subjects consume the drugs being tested. In this application, a pill pack registers when individual pills are popped out of their plastic bubbles; it then can beep and ask the user a question like, 'Are you feeling better today? Press Yes or No.' (The answer buttons are on the pack itself.) When the patient visits the doctor, the package is placed on a Cypak reader and the data is downloaded to the physician's computer." Visit this page for more information about Cypak or read the full Business 2.0 article."

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