Wearable technology is the next big frontier in the coming years. Wearable products have brought the technological revolution with many companies already offering some innovative, disruptive and next-generation features. From implantable smartphones to cyber pills, not to mention Bill Gates’ Implantable Birth Control and smart tattoos, Implantable wearable technology will soon be proved to be very versatile.
The latest developments in the field wearable tech, the creation of a new wearable technology moves the whole computational interface inside our bodies. Check out the list of 10 Implantable Wearables that might soon be inside your body.
1. Implantable Smartphones
Researchers are experimenting with embedded sensors that turn human bones into living speakers. These days, we’re virtually connected to our smartphones 24/7 but what if we were actually physically connected to our smartphones? That’s already starting to happen. Last year, an artist Anthony Antonellis had a RFID chip embedded in his arm that could store and transfer art to his handheld smartphone.
Few Scientists are working on eye implants that let an image be captured with a blink and transmitted to any local storage. Guys at Autodesk are experimenting with a system that can display images through the artificial skin. Or the images may appear in your eye implants.
2. Healing Chips
Scientists in London are developing swallowable capsule-sized circuits that monitor fat levels in obese patients and generate genetic material that makes them feel “full”. It has potential as an alternative to current surgery or other invasive ways to handle gross obesity. Dozens of other medical issues from heart murmurs to anxiety have implant/phone initiatives under way. Right now, patients are using cyber-implants directly connected to smartphone apps to monitor and treat diseases in real time. A new bionic pancreas being tested at America’s Boston University, for instance, has a tiny sensor on an implantable needle that talks directly to a smartphone app to monitor blood-sugar levels for diabetics.
Right now, patients are using cyber-implants directly connected to smartphone apps in order to monitor and treat diseases in real time. A new bionic pancreas being tested at America’s Boston University, for instance, has a tiny sensor on an implantable needle that talks directly to a smartphone app to monitor blood-sugar levels for diabetics.
3. Cyber Pills That Talk To Your Doctor
A British research team is developing cyber-pills with microprocessors in them that can text doctors directly from inside your body.
Implantables won’t just communicate with your smartphone; they’ll “chat up” your doctor too. In a project named Proteus, after the microscopic body-navigating vessel in the film Fantastic Voyage, a British research team is developing cyber-pills with microprocessors in them that can text doctors directly from inside your body.
The pills can share inside info to help doctors know if you are taking your medication properly and if it has the desired effect.
4. Bill Gates’ Implantable Birth Control
The Gates Foundation is supporting an MIT project to create an implantable female compu-contraceptive controlled by an external remote control. The tiny chip generates small amounts of contraceptive hormone from within the woman’s body for up to 16 years.
Implantation is no more invasive than a tattoo. And, “The ability to turn the device on and off provides a certain convenience factor for those who are planning their family.” said Dr. Robert Farra of MIT. Gives losing the remote a whole new meaning.
5. Smart Tattoos
A company called Dangerous Things has an NFC chip that can be embedded in a finger through a tattoo-like process, letting you unlock things or enter codes simply by pointing. A Texas research group has developed microparticles that can be injected just under the skin, like tattoo ink, and can track body processes. All of these are much wiser choices than the name of a soon-to-be-ex.
Motorola has partnered with VivaLnk to launch the Digital Tattoo, an NFC-based skin tag that unlocks your phone with a quick tap.
Tattoos are hip and seemingly ubiquitous, so why not having smart, digital tattoos that not only look cool but can also perform useful tasks like unlocking your car or entering mobile phone codes with a finger-point? Researchers at the University of Illinois have crafted an implantable skin mesh of computer fibres thinner than a human hair that can monitor your body’s inner workings from the surface.
6. Brain-Computer Interface
Chip maker Intel predicts practical computer-brain interfaces by 2020. Intel scientist Dean Pomerleau said in a recent article, “Eventually people may be willing to be more committed to brain implants.” Imagine being able to surf the Web with the power of your thoughts.
7. Meltable Bio-Batteries
A team at Draper Laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is working on biodegradable batteries.They generate power inside the body, transfer it wirelessly where needed, and then simply melt away. Another project is looking at how to use the body’s glucose to generate power for implantables. Think the potato battery of grammar school science, but smaller and much more advanced.
8. Smart Dust
With smart dust, doctors will be able to act inside your body without opening you up, and information could be stored inside you.
Perhaps the most startling of current implantable innovations is Smart Dust: Arrays of full computers with antennas, each much smaller than a grain of sand, that can organise themselves inside the body into as-needed networks to power a whole range of complex internal processes.
Imagine swarms of these nano-devices, called motes, attacking early cancer or bringing pain relief to a wound or even storing critical personal information in a manner that is deeply encrypted and hard to hack. With smart dust, doctors will be able to act inside your body without opening you up, and information could be stored inside you, deeply encrypted, until you unlocked it from your very personal nano-network.
Also Read: Importance of Dust
9. The Verified Self
This technology could be used to ID every single human being, for example. Already, the US military has serious programs afoot to equip soldiers with implanted RFID chips, so keeping track of troops becomes automatic and worldwide.
10. Implantable 3D Smart Organs
The idea behind tissue engineering is that you take plastics, add cells to it, and if you use the right kind of plastics, the right structure and add the right media to the mix, then you have the ability to make skin, bone, or any tissue or organ in the body.
Source – Quora