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Edible "Intelligent Pills"
Ian Lamont sends along a brief note from the Industry Standard about "intelligent" pills that can help doctors record information about drug dosages, heart rate, respiratory rate, and other metrics. The pills, being developed by Proteus Biomedicals, have "digestible sensors" made out of food products and are activated by stomach fluids. A receiver that is similar to a skin patch picks up the data and can be passed on to a 3G mobile network, and from there to hospitals or doctors' offices. According to the Proteus site, the sensors cost a few cents per pill. The devices, currently in clinical trials, made #8 on Wired's list of the top technology breakthroughs of 2008.
Oh this is going to be a boon to compliance monitoring. With that kind of 24/7 monitoring
it becomes easy to really lock down a person's life. All kinds of monitoring comes to mind,
from drug use to the absence of using prescribed medications, ingestion of approved or
unapproved foods or even 'unapproved' activities say that raise heartbeat or blood pressure
or again the lack of activities.
Oh you mean like when the computer displayin MRI imagery screws up? Or the computer talking between the hospital and your insurance policy? Or the computer doing traffic lights? Or the computer running your car? Or the computer reading radar data for an air control tower?
... hell, they can probably make the complex stuff work too since it's obviously worked rather well in the past.
Seriously, there ARE other companies out there making software that are not diebold and can make something as simple as a counter
Waiting patiently for Mentats, eh?
200 bucks to buy. That's what I have trouble digesting.