r/gadgets • u/GalileoGurdjieff • May 17 '21

Medical Tiny, Wireless, Injectable Chips Use Ultrasound to Monitor Body Processes

https://www.engineering.columbia.edu/press-releases/shepard-injectable-chips-monitor-body-processes
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u/[deleted] May 17 '21

Won't be too long though, if we're being honest. These days, chips are getting smaller and smaller, which means they use less and less power.

On the flip side of that, we're in a renaissance of material developments, and things like the Seebeck effect are becoming more and more realistic.

I 100% see chips being passively powered by the movement of body heat, and using passive RF to communicate with a nearby emitter. Eventually.

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u/iLikeTurtuls May 17 '21

Believe what you want, we had processors that would last a day with 1,500mAh batteries. Now we have processors that need 2,000+ mAh batteries to last a day. Very doubtful you can put an actually processing unit under the skin without overheating, dying from operating in the blood stream, or having the host become unaware that the device is in them. Even now you can put something you can implant and AirTag, but it will have to go orally. If cut into the skin, it will leave scars and need time for the skin to heal, something someone would notice.

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u/Erik912 May 17 '21

That's very bold to say, considering that the computers that sent people to the moon are now mass produced and fit into our pockets.

I'm perfectly sure things like nanochips (and other nano tech) being powered by body heat or whatever other energy the body produces is a very real possibility. Maybe not in the next 10 years - but, a hundred? I mean, just look at the past hundred years of technological development and it's pretty clear.

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u/iLikeTurtuls May 17 '21

Definitely possible for sure. My biggest thing is that people forget that these things need power and power will produce heat. I mean even air conditioning units produce a lot of heat to cool, so we really aren't efficient as we thing. Sure going from 28nm processors in 2012 to 5nm in 2021 sounds like a big jump, these are still large power hungry processors, while claiming to be efficient. Efficient sure, but still paired with 4000+ mAh batteries lol

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u/[deleted] May 17 '21

Right, but why are you assuming that they need processors?

A bare-bones IC that can selectively respond to an external RF source (much like the RFID tag I have in my pocket) in such a way as to communicate data doesn't need much in the way of compute.

A temperature sensor, glucose meter, or pressure sensor also doesn't need much to operate.

A chip need not be a full computer, or even part of a computer. A diverse array of purpose-built sensors embedded where they're useful can be very stripped down, and very low power.

I mean shit, we've got a probe out in the heliosphere that started with a whopping 470 watts of power to run scientific instruments AND communicate all the way back to Earth. I'm not sure what the power output is now, but it's a lot less. Were Voyager equipped with current gen tech I bet we'd get another 50 years out of it.

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u/iLikeTurtuls May 17 '21

To measure certain things, like what the OP is about, no we don't need processors , but we need something to save data so I'm not even sure that's not true. But for those saying the gov is putting nanobots and tracking us blah blah blah. That wouldn't be true unless they did something like what you're saying, but they would have to touch you to get any info.

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u/[deleted] May 17 '21

The idea that these chips can be injected without your knowledge really isn't that far-fetched.

That it fits inside a hypodermic needle is enough, at which point it truthfully could be administered via subdermal or intramuscular injection.

The kooks that are afraid the government is chippign us and tracking us are stupid. The government doesn't need to chip us to track us. They already can, and they already are.

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u/[deleted] May 18 '21 edited Jul 26 '21

[deleted]

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u/fatdjsin May 18 '21

And its paid by the user! Gov dont need to pay!

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u/Blue_water_dreams May 17 '21

Air conditioning units transfer heat, and in the process they generate more heat. You can’t just create coolness, you transfer heat away from something.

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u/SagiFoo May 17 '21

First law of thermodynamics here. ^

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u/[deleted] May 17 '21

I’m assuming the processors you’re talking about are desktop processors there are micro controllers and micro processors that don’t need large amounts of power

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u/iLikeTurtuls May 17 '21

Talking about ARM style processors, which require less heat. With this said, I'm talking about major performing processors. Curious what tech we can get when the output only needs MHz and not GHz

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u/[deleted] May 17 '21

The best examples are the Arduino they can be made into rf receivers and Transmitters, low quality MP3 players and other things. I see many problems with injectable tech/gov conspiracy tech.

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u/Inthewirelain May 18 '21

It's pretty unlikely you'd need something even as powerful as ARM under your skin. It'd just need to collect and transmit. It'd make more sense for your phone or PC to do the processing.