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Microchips Now In Tombstones, Toilets, & Fish Lures
Hugh Pickens writes "Steve Johnson writes in the Mercury News that microchips are going into a staggering array of once decidedly low-tech items — from gravestone markers and running shoes to fish lures and writing pens. In the future, 'where won't we find chips?' asks analyst Jordan Selburn. 'The answer is pretty close to nowhere.' For example, one company sells a coin-size, stainless steel-encased microchip for gravestone markers that tells the dead person's story in text, photos, video or audio histories, which visitors can access by pointing their Internet-enabled cell phones at it. The company says it has sold thousands of 'Memory Medallions.' There's AquaOne Technologies, who sell a toilet containing chips that automatically shut off the water when it springs a leak or starts to overflow, but Japanese company Toto goes one better with an intelligent toilet that gathers health-related data from the user's urine. Pro-Troll puts a chip in its fish lures that 'duplicates the electrical nerve discharge of a wounded bait fish,' prompting other fish to bite it."
Pro-Troll puts a chip in its fish lures that 'duplicates the electrical nerve discharge of a wounded bait fish,' prompting other fish to bite it.
Hmmm, I seem to remember hearing about this gimmick and also hearing that it varies in effectiveness with the bigger fish being a little bit more responsive (although I wish someone would bust out some statistics so I know this isn't snake oil).
...
Anyway, my point is that I was unaware this used either an integrated circuit or microprocessor (which is sorta what I expect when someone says "chip"). Took a peek at the patent they reference on their site (which was last updated in 2007) attached to their "Echip." What you got there is closer to a mechanical device that generates an electric field via a piezoelectric crystal inside an electrically conductive sealed rigid container.
Am I missing something? Did they update their product? And if so, what on earth do they need an integrated circuit for on something that is just a tiny voltage generator? To my knowledge, it has no power source other than the crystal inside the container. Did I miss something here or is pickens stretching to sell the Echip as more than it is? I think the marketing name took hold of the submitter and editor here
My work here is dung.
The same technology that is used to give a decent bidet clean and check the urine for problems can be easily used as evidence for job termination, or even probable cause for search warrants should it find certain chemicals in the pee stream.
As an avid fresh and saltwater angler, I can say right now that the 'microchip' in the lure is a long line of 'gimmicks' that will catch no more fish than any other 'gimmick' like that, such as the 'Laser Lure'. Yes, Virginia, it has a laser diode in it that lights it up when underwater; and it's even touted by professional angler Mike Iaconelli .
Fish respond first and foremost to the environmental conditions that induce them to feed, followed by sight, scent and vibration. There are other factors as well, such as 'matching the hatch' (meaning that your lures better be very close in color, size and shape to the forage in the area), weather, and yes even the phase of the moon to a certain degree.
I don't know about the other items, although the memory module for the headstone doesn't seem to be a bad thing;
In America today you can murder land for private profit. You can leave the corpse for all to see, and nobody calls the c
On behalf of myself and the rest of your distant ancestors, I'd like to (sorta) apologize for the huge pile of steamy and unintelligble shit you're going to be stuck with having to untangle, if you ever figure out what an RFID tag/chip was. You thought DRM was bad? Hah! good luck with this one, campers.
You're going to see these little critters everywhere, in everything, and not know WTF they do. No, we're not doing it to screw with you... well, not overtly, anyway.
Either case, with a little luck, maybe you'll figure it out. We're sorry about the migraines it'll create anyway.
(...what, you say nobody will be able to read this by that time? Feh - /. will still be around by then, no sweat. It'll be in the crusty-but still-running server powered by grits. Hot grits, to be precise. And uname -a on it will *still* cough up a version 2.4 kernel.)
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
The "Memory Medallion" for gravestones is not a microchip, it's a 2D barcode.
Just because I can hook a shark from a boat, I do no offer to wrestle it in the water.
Reminds me of the 3 part series that was done on Science Channel called "The year 2050" The first episode was about medical advancements and the wired home, second one was about the wired city with a old 2000's virus like outbreak, and the 3rd was about space.
Had some pretty good insights... One of which was the toilet that would analyse your urine and shoot the report to your health care provider. The guy in the scenario was using fake pee in the toilet to "pass" the screening because he didn't want the health provider to know about his binge drinking [or drug use] he did the night before.
STD checking, duh.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
You know there is a version of this that doesn't require any fossil fuels or electricity. One brand is called Sheep, another is called Goat.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Yo dawg, we heard you like micro-chips, so we put micro-chips in yo micro-chips so you can root while you root
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Is the PERFECT Baby Boomer technology. I mean, PERFECT.
And their byproducts are methane, urea and turds, and they are illegal to keep in many dense urban areas. I'll take the robots thanks.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
"1-bit DAC" is basically PDM (Pulse DensityModulation). Calling it "1-bit" is a confusing marketing term.
It's hard to make an accurate DAC, since the weightings of the inputs have to be perfect powers of two which is hard to pull off. So instead, they use a very high frequency and use an on/off signal in the time domain to indicate the desired voltage. For example, to indicate "one fiftieth" you just leave the signal on for one fiftieth of your chosen time interval. This is very easy to do accurately using a crystal oscillator and a counter.
Then in the end you use a low pass filter to make the final analogue signal. Cheap and practically errorless.
This image hopefully makes it clearer
If they are at the point of putting chips inside the lure, might as well add a mini tazer, and stun the fish to stop fighting...would be more practical!
Actually there IS a fish taser. More of a remote control for fish, actually. It's based on the reactions of fish muscles and/or nerves to pulsed DC currents in the water.
At a low threshold the fish starts to twich, in a way that turns it to face the positive electrode. At a somewhat higher threshold it involuntarily swims toward the electrode. At a third, still-higher level, it stops swimming, turns over, and floats up, stunned. Turn off the power and in a minute or so it comes to and swims away.
So if you put a central positive electrode in a body of water (with a corresponding negative electrode of pretty much any geometry - though a wide one sets up a bigger trap) the field will get progressively stronger near the fish gets to the + electrode. It will be captured at a distance, swim toward the electrode, pass out when it gets close, and float up to be netted. (You can also make them swim up a pipe and into a holding tank, where the field fades out. They're fine but can't escape because when they get near the exit from the pipe the field forces 'em to turn around and swim away from it.)
And unless I'm mistaken this is right up there with dynamite-fishing in the illegal category, and has been since the era of vacuum tubes.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way