| From: | Nexx nexx@********.net |
|---|---|
| Subject: | DocWagon Platinum Service: Here today? |
| Date: | Mon, 16 Oct 2000 17:46:07 -0500 |
Digital Angel: The New Eye in the Sky
Monday, October 16, 2000 By Michael Della Bitta
A network of satellites sends a positioning signal to a chip implanted
beneath your skin. That chip, powered solely by body heat, relays the signal
and your body's vital stats to a ground station.
The folks manning that ground station, as well as authorized Internet users,
can use that information for identifying you, tracking you and monitoring
your health.
It's not sci-fi. Applied Digital Solutions (ADS) will, on Oct. 26, unveil
and demonstrate Digital Angel, or DA, which is being touted for a number of
uses.
There's the potential for the technology to monitor chronically-ill
patients, track livestock to ensure food quality, track people who are
at-risk for kidnapping, enforce the terms of a parole and identify people
for security and e-commerce applications.
The Digital Angel system makes use of the Global Positioning System's
network of satellites to figure out the chip's position. On-board biometric
technology is capable of monitoring vital statistics such as body
temperature, pulse rate and blood pressure. This information is then relayed
via either another GPS signal or a wireless communications signal to a
remote monitoring system.
The whole system is powered by body heat, so the chip doesn't have any
batteries that need replacing. "The power source is building power all the
time," says Richard Sullivan, Applied Digital Solutions' CEO.
"In drawing together the GPS and wireless capabilities and the first-ever
integration of biosensor and heat-sensitive power regeneration," he says,
"we should become the benchmark of the industry - we should become the
industry leader in that area."
Subdermal Silicon
While implantation under the skin in humans is an issue still pending with
the Food and Drug Administration, that won't delay the release of Digital
Angel. "I think that FDA approval is, in the interim, not necessary because
DA can be a wristband or adhered to anywhere on your body via a patch," says
Sullivan.
But make no mistake - implantation is on the way. According to Sullivan, the
FDA is first interested in implanting livestock with the chip so the quality
of meat can be ensured.
Digital Angel doesn't transmit a signal all the time. Ordinarily, the only
way the chip would be activated would be by a controlling authority - a
parent in the case of a kidnapping, an owner in the case of a theft, a
doctor in the case of an ill patient.
"If you call upon it, it emits the appropriate information that's requested.
And/or in the case of an emergency, it has low-line minimums that cause DA
to turn on automatically," says Sullivan. These minimums would activate the
chip in an emergency - a heart attack, for example.
Throw Away Your Credit Cards?
Since Applied Digital Solutions is primarily an e-commerce solutions
company, one way the company wants to see the chip used is for
identification and authentication for electronic commerce. As Sullivan puts
it, "You want to access and go online with your MSN or AOL account, you'll
have DA transmitting your profile at request."
The same could be true for Amazon and any other electronic retailer.
One-click shopping is somewhat obsolete when competing against something
that identifies you by your mere presence.
***
Skald-Mark Mjöksiglandi
a.k.a. Nexx
a.k.a. Mark Hall
***
"If I lose the light of the sun, I will write by candlelight, moonlight, no
light. If I lose paper and ink I will write in blood on forgotten walls. I
will write always. I will capture nights all over the world and bring them
to you."
-Henry Rollins
***
http://www-personal.interkan.net/~nexx/index.html
Updated October 5th, 2000
