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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.
can be passed on to a 3G mobile network
So... how secure is this? I can't imagine anyone other than my doctor (and not even him, probably) are that interested in my biometrics, but I am not comfortable with the information being broadcast over a network.
The summary links to a stub which links to the actual article, which describes how the network-enabled system could be used:
Caregivers or relatives will know when and what pills patients have taken or if the patients failed to take their medications.
So you can watch Grandma forget to take her pills - in real time!
Proteus ingestible event markers (IEMs) are tiny, digestible sensors made from food ingredients, which are activated by stomach fluids after swallowing.
The IEM is manufactured on silicon wafers...
Last I checked, humans cannot digest silicon, so this thing is not entirely "made from food ingredients".
Also, I would have been mighty surprised if food ingredients could transmit digital signals.