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Microchip / RFID Implants: Technology & Tech News

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Sometime ago, a man named Kevin Warwick came to give a lecture in Durham University on how he thought cyborgs were going to take over the world. I don't know if you've heard of him, but you've probably seen him. Every time a documentary on AI or robots or whatever gets commissioned, Kevin Warwick goes on TV and explains how he has a chip in his arm that allows him to open doors in his lab... WITHOUT TOUCHING THEM!

Truly, this is the wave of the future.

Anyway, in a rather lengthy and self indulgent lecture, (no less than three TV clips of Kevin 'Davros' Warwick explaining various banalities in a patronising tone) he mentioned how he was getting a new chip that would allow him to share emotions with his wife. This chip monitored physiological changes and then relayed them to the partner chip, which discharged electrical signals into the nerves surrounding it. I have my reservations as to whether this would actually allow the sharing of emotions and not just be like someone sticking a rather low powered and tempermental tazer into your arm.

Kevin did seem adamant that cyborgs would one day become the norm, and that the human race as we know it would disappear. Does anyone agree?

I get the feeling that anything that might require surgery will be catered for externally. Take TVs for instance. Suppose someone said that you could have an implant in your eyes and ears that allowed you to watch, say, episodes of The Rise and Fall of Reginal Perrin without the aid of all that clunky CRT nonsense. Now, if someone said they could do the same thing with a pair of contact lenses, which would you pick? The thing is, surgery is always going to be expensive because you need surgeons, and surgeons like to charge lots of money.

Maybe technology will just develop down lines that ignore surgery. Things might change in The Future- a Surgeonotron would do the trick- but saying that is a bit of a cop-out.

Opinions?
 
As with all these things we have to ask - do we want them.

After all who wants to watch TV on your contacts or retinas? Probably very few people. Technology is always evolving and we'll probably have totally different forms of entertainment.

How about just jacking your mind directly into the entertainment bypassing all the eye thing? Kevin Warwick does some interesting research in cybernetics but I think he's a little way away from bringing in the Killer App that will sell this technology to us all.
 
I am not convinced that the cyborg work being undertaken is particularly good research, or perhaps it is just how Kevin Warwick portrays it. I have heard him interviewed on the Today program and he does talk down to the audience.

I am in full agreement about the “do we want it” quote. To open a door without touching it he could have had the chip added to his watch, an unobtrusive piece of jewellery or his anorak. The work being done on the recording of nerve signals followed by retransmission is very important, especially for those working out how to “patch” over broken spines to return movement. What Kevin is doing a several orders of magnitude short of what is needed and is probably a couple of years behind the work being done in the US without the need to attach the chip directly to the nerve fibre.

I don’t honestly see the future of mankind being in the realms of Cyborgs. I suspect that enhanced parts and replacement parts will be made from animals (cloned transgenic pigs in this weeks news) or grown in vats (cloned skin is already gown this way).

The whole “BORG” thing is a bit 1970s sci-fi for me. I think if people want to embrace the whole "replaced with machine parts" thing in the future, you may as well go the whole hog and have your brain transplanted into a machine or in the far future upload your mind into a computer.
 
tzb57r said:
To open a door without touching it he could have had the chip added to his watch, an unobtrusive piece of jewellery or his anorak.

To be honest he could do what everybody else does, and turn the handle and push the door open :)
 
Red Ted said:
Anyway, in a rather lengthy and self indulgent lecture, (no less than three TV clips of Kevin 'Davros' Warwick explaining various banalities in a patronising tone) he mentioned how he was getting a new chip that would allow him to share emotions with his wife.

Why doesn't he just talk to her/take her out for the day/have sex with her, etc. instead? Last time I checked this didn't need surgery ;)

Or does his wife really want to experience the 'Look! I opened a door by pointing at it!' moment repeated again and again ;) ?
 
Actually, his wife didn't seem too eager at the prospect. Her main rationale was 'If I don't do it, some other woman will'. Kevin is obviously trying to bring adultery into the new millenium
 
Poor girl. Doesn't sound like the kind of chap I'd want beaming his thoughts into my brain; it might cause a form of narcolepsy.
I'm not being Steve Austened for anything. If the war between men and machines does come one day (some folk seem to revel in this idea), I want to know that I'm all on the same side.
 
I'm waiting for Kevin Warwick to get lynched by televangelists as the old chip-under-the-skin which could replace cash is in fact the mark of the beast which heralds a one world government prior to the End Times.
I am not making this up.
Then again, since this could be part of the grand plan, would they want to stop it? I guess not. I recall Warwick's chip was more than just opening doors, it also tracked his movements :eek!!!!:
Warwick's applications would be more useful to medicine than recreation, I suspect, but even then we seem to be nearer to growing new body parts than building them from scratch.
Warwick's proclamations smack more of someone with books to sell and funding to attract, though many defend him saying he is attempting to "popularise" science.
I can't wait for him and his wife to get hooked up, no doubt when one of them reaches a climax all the lights will come on and the garage door will open.
 
Kevin Warwick is the type of person for which Tom Tomorrow coined the term CyberWanker. Aside from the reasons he might want to share emotions with his significant other (without the whole pesky business of talking to her, or pretending to listen when she talks), how do they know it will work as intended? Can we be sure that it won't just translate his emotions into a stabbing sensation behind her right eye? (His ideas do that to me, and I've never met him.)

Undoubtedly, there are potentially great medical benefits to be had from this type of research (bringing forward the day when some people who are unable to perform some everyday actions can do so), but I don't think many people want their garage door opener surgically implanted. (On the other hand, think of how much time you'd save if you didn't have to reach for the TV remote all the time.) Call me when Kev gets something useful installed (like a brain).
 
Dark Detective said:
Then again, since this could be part of the grand plan, would they want to stop it? I guess not. I recall Warwick's chip was more than just opening doors, it also tracked his movements :eek!!!!:
Warwick's applications would be more useful to medicine than recreation, I suspect, but even then we seem to be nearer to growing new body parts than building them from scratch.

I admit I was perhaps being a little flippant in my treatment of Warwick- the chip did allow for tracking his movements. However, it strikes me that the whole excercise was just to give the undergraduates something to do for a final year project.
 
tzb57r said:
The whole “BORG” thing is a bit 1970s sci-fi for me. I think if people want to embrace the whole "replaced with machine parts" thing in the future, you may as well go the whole hog and have your brain transplanted into a machine or in the far future upload your mind into a computer.

70s? 60s, surely? Am I the only one who regarded the Borg as just 'black leather Cybermen'? (Especially if you compare the surviving eps. of the Troughtan-era Who story The Moonbase and the 'Trek flick First Contact.)
 
chipped 11 year old

story from theregister on a story I just saw on the local news.

Following the recent abduction of ten year olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, the Mirror reports that Wendy and Paul Duval have decided to implant their daughter, Danielle, with "a microchip to track her every move. "If she was kidnapped her exact location would be discovered via a computer."

Its not in the story here but on the news report 'captain cyborg' Kevin Warwick stated it would be a good idea if in the future all people had these implants.
 
What's the betting that we never hear anything more about this story? Or is that just wishful thinking on my part?

I half-saw this item on the lunchtime news and first thought they were talking about the same sort of chip used in domestic dogs & cats (and possibly farm animals for all I know) - that is, a passive device that has to be physically scanned - completely useless for tracing their whereabouts but very useful if the wee beasties go walkabout and turn up at the local animal shelter... which is fairly unlikely to happen to a young girl.

But, they're talking about an active device which gives out a continuous signal (as used in posh cars)... practical considerations aside (battery life, size etc), couldn't this constitute a serious heath risk to the girl? Not to mention her civil liberties.

For some reason, this reminds me of the Philip K Dick story "The Pre-Persons" where children by law don't become "human" until the age of 12 and until then live in a constant state of fear that their parents will no longer want them and send them to the human equivilent of the dog pound (ie killed). (Okay, it's not a good analogy, I know).

Sorry for rambling, what I'm trying to say is: poor child. And pity the rest of us is this ever becomes reality.

Jane.
 
Sounds a bit too 1984ish for my liking or like the implants put into abductees. Next they'll be having us implanted at birth. :rolleyes:
I hope it's as far fetched as it sounds.
 
It's so unsafe out there. Could explain why the local parents park
their people carriers in a circle outside the school.

Beards might be the answer. Never seen any paedophile go for a
child with a full set of whiskers. :eek:
 
chips for children...


cages for teens(beastly things, they are)...
 
synthwerk said:
chips for children...
Now that would have been a sensible thread title!

Puny', were you going for FTMB 2002 award for the longest thread title? :rolleyes:

Some long titles might be justified, but the important key words should be at the beginning, to simplify recognition of email notifications in browsers. IE, no "Thread for people who want to.." titles - they're all threads, and mostly read by people (but any visiting aliens would be welcome!)
 
There is a tracking device available in the States for kids: it's like a wristwatch and hooks up to GPS satellites, via a control centre, People who want to know where their kids are can phone the centre, or access it directly online, and it'll show a grid ref for them overl;aid on a map. It's two way, too: there's a panic button on the watch, which flashes an alert to the control centre , who in turn contact emergency services and parents/carers with co-ordinates. The watch-strap is rip resistant, and lockable. I'll see if I can find a link.

It's going to be launched in the UK soon, apparently: the inventor was on the radio a couple of weeks ago. The downside? The watch itself costs a couple of hundred quid, and you have to subscribe annually to the control centre to keep the tracker active: costs another few hundred per year, but as the man pointed out the more who subscribe the cheaper it will become, ditto for development costs and improved technology.

As a parent, if we could afford it I'd leap at it. I'm not saying it replaces parental responsibility for one minute, but as a safety net I can see it's value several times over.

Stu
 
I liked the quote from the mother- you can have such a device in a car to have it tracked if it's nicked so why not a kid?

Yeah, and if you lose the kid you can always visit the kid showroom and buy another.


I bought all my family cheap mobiles and they call them 'Mum's electronic tags'.

As the NSPCC pointed out, most abuse takes place in the home and/or at the hands of people the kid knows so the microchip wouldn't help with that.

But I can see a market for this gadget among people who are at risk of kidnap, such as rich Italian families and spies!

Plus, I have a son in the military. I can see advantages in a post-battle situation of being able to pinpoint missing personnel.
 
I saw this on TV last night and couldn't believe what I was hearing. The parents were convinced it would make their child safer although I don't quite see how. Unless she's tattoed across her forehead that she's been chipped it won't actually stop her being abducted. If anything this will just speed up the process of finding the body.

Apparently the technology works in the same way as cell phones, the implant is a transmitter which sends a signal which can be picked up by a cell phone network. So let me get this straight, cell phones are seen as dangerous and we should limit the amount of time we use them. This girl is going to have a microwave transmitter implanted in her body which, I assume, will be transmitting 24hrs a day.

The parents of this poor girl are seriously deluded if they think this will have anything but a negative effect.
 
rynner said:
Now that would have been a sensible thread title!

Puny', were you going for FTMB 2002 award for the longest thread title? :rolleyes:

Some long titles might be justified, but the important key words should be at the beginning, to simplify recognition of email notifications in browsers. IE, no "Thread for people who want to.." titles - they're all threads, and mostly read by people (but any visiting aliens would be welcome!)

Sorry about that! In future I'll abridge anything so its concise.
 
My elder son has autism, and as such can easily get lost as he tends to wander if unchecked (happens less these days, but we lost him for three hours once in a big open area close to home; police involved, you name it: thankfully he was found safe and well, and heading for home).

I would pay loads not to relive those three hours again.

Our other son is seven, not autistic, but has the natural curiosity of a seven year old. He occasionally (and unintentionally) wanders off too, often in huge shopping complexes, and usually when you're at a checkout behind an Estonian who wants to pay in US Dollars for some maramalade (OK, extreme example, but you know what I mean). So yes, I can see it's value.

Stu

*EDIT* I am of course, referring to the wrist-watch tracker to which I alluded in my post above. I'm not about to implant anything in my kids' heads.

Here's a link as promised (don't be put off by the advert: it's a good idea.
 
Hmm, I saw some recent figures on the abduction and murder of children which put the odds at it happening as the same as a child being struck by lightning. So are people going to install lightning conductors on their children's heads too? ;)
 
Good God! I thought I was authoritarian!
You realise this will only make it quicker and easier to find your child's corpse, and then they'll find out that the cause of death was radiation sickness.
It's too barbaric and vile even for me.
 
"Right, kid, I'm Evil and I've got you! Know what I'm going to do now?
Yup, rip out your chip!" :madeyes:
 
I agree that the bracelet is a good idea especially for younger or autistic children who do indeed have a tendency to wander off. Old-fashioned reins can be used for toddlers of course (never seem to see them nowadays though), but I don't think a 7-year-old would be too happy with that solution!

What worries me about the implant is that the parents seem overly concerned about their daughter being abducted - which is extremely unlikely - whilst ignoring (or maybe just not knowing about) the possible consequences of an active transmitter in her body. They are also, I think, possibly scaring her unnecessarily and in a way not allowing her the freedom to just be a child.

Jane.
 
escargot said:
Plus, I have a son in the military. I can see advantages in a post-battle situation of being able to pinpoint missing personnel.

I imagine the enemy too would find it very useful to have a nice, concise map of where all those pesky marines were concealing themselves.

Are the government going to start abducting children, implanting chips, and then releasing them back into the wild? That would make fantastic television.
 
Now wait aminute... This chip is supposed to be just like the chip in a mobile phone, sending out a continous signal. Which is why you're supposed to switch off your mobile when you're inside a hospital, on board an aircraft in flight, or anywhere else that has sensitive electronic equipment. So is this kid going to have to keep out of hospitals and off aircraft....?
Plus, of course, any evil-minded abductor is simply going to cut out her chip (should be easy enough to locate, since it will be right under the skin) and attach it to some passing stray pooch.

Her parents should get psychological help for their irrational anxiety - she's more in danger from their neuroses than from any kidnapper.
 
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