RFID Tattoo for Tracking Cattle and Humans

ack154 writes "The Register reports that a St Louis based company, Somark Innovations, has successfully tested RFID tattoos to be used for tracking cattle and other animals. Details are limited for the actual tattoo, but it's said to contain no metals and can be read up to about four feet away. Engadget has some more details on the matter. And yes, the article does mention RFID tattoos are possible for people, specifically the military. From the article: 'The system developed by Somark uses an array of needles to quickly inject a pattern of dots into each animal, with the pattern changing for each injection. This pattern can then be read from over a meter away using a proprietary reader operating at high frequency.'"

Comments

Re:eh?

[mrogers]

My guess is that it uses reflective glass beads injected into the skin with compressed air. The pattern could then be read with any electromagnetic wave that can penetrate a few millimetres of skin, eg microwaves.

Re:Could have just said 'tracking cattle'

[Kozz]

... it is useful for identifying bodies that have been badly mangled due to things like bombs, mines, and other explosives.

Or it could also be used specifically to TRIGGER bombs, mines and other explosives upon detecting a particular group of persons, or even an individual that matches an exact code.