Gizmodo

Three questions:

1. What powers this thing? A battery is impractical, expecially at that size, especially if it goes into the skull.

2. How is it transmitting? I would think it would take a much larger antenna to transmit a signal from any distance.

3. Can it be turned off?

That's pretty f--ked up.

Hmmmm...it always fascinates me how fiction forebode reality.

Manchurian Candidate anyone?

It's actually quite scary. Monitor vitals today, inject testosterone/some chemical cocktail tomorrow to increase killer instinct on the battlefield? What's stopping the government from using the same type of neuro-stimulus that are used in training rats? Score a kill and get a small electrical signal that simulates sexual pleasure. Drop 5 baddies and you get a testosterone high...

Quiet scary indeed.

3. Can it be turned off?

Well, seeing as to how Jack Bauer embedded a version of this into Dmitri Gredenko's BONE I bet it'll be a real PITA to get this out of you. Heck, Gredenko had to cut off his whole arm to get free him self from being tracked by CTU.

Of course, he died in the water under the pier of blood loss and shock.

Could this be powered by the natural electrical charge found in the human body? Even limited range - enough to reach your squad leader or the platoon medic would be enough.

Fuck it. I want one that reads when my girlfriend breaks up with me, and then floods me with endorphins for two weeks until I get over it.

Gimme a friggin microchip in my brain. Right now! Philip Dick dystopian future? Fuck that. Sure society wouldn't progress, but we'd all be happier.

Maybe it's powered by the device that reads the impulses, which could be located in the soldier's helmet or something and sent to an external unit for a longer-range broadcast.

To measure "vitals"...suuuure. I'm betting it all on "tracking device."

In soldiers now, in large angry simians next. Send in home bred gorrillas with brain control by remote. Expendable and highly powerful cannon fodder.8 foot of Silverback with a rocket launcher or chainsaw anyone?

Note to self: "Do not join the US miltary." Oh wait, I already had that one written down.

its seems pretty damn big to go in the skull, they will lose some childhood memories to make room for it, what does the government care

"Maybe it's powered by the device that reads the impulses, which could be located in the soldier's helmet or something and sent to an external unit for a longer-range broadcast."

Yeah. It probably has a small induction coil that powers the entire thing when you read it, exactly like an RFID chip.

Five'll get you ten it blows up if you go AWOL...

Since the medical world and pharma companies do not want to cure diabetes ($4 bln cash cow); something like this might be useful. Carrying equipment sucks. Then again, they would lose revenue on test strips, so this might not meet their desires.
Could be interesting. Rice grain is small, so could be embedded in arm or chest without much fuss.

This kinda looks like the thing they put in Keri Russell's nose in MI:3 (and later Tom Cruise) that exploded and made her eyes go all creepy.

I still have nightmares about that...

Someone was watching x-files

Something like this for a battelfield soldier would be pricless. especially if it could be used to locate a soldiers position. No more POWs or kidnappings or anything like that since we would know exactly who was where and in what condtion making rescue a very quick possiblity. id gladly accept a chip in my head to prevent my head getting cut off on al jazira.

next step full blown RTS control of real world battles full with unit statistics, awards and vital stats. Not to mention UAV's

That is one big ass grain of rice! Methinks we need a new measurement comparison standard for small items. Say, big as a grain of rice that's been on rice steroids for a few weeks.

YES now US soldiers can all have little health meters above them in their HUDs. Just like in Command n Conquer! %)

or a health meter even projected on their retinas...making combat finally resemble FPS.

Now if they could get working on those medikits that restore health when walked through, also implement a save function...then I might consider joining the Army.

Score, I'm all for a Logan's Run based society, big brother is my friend. All I demand in return are Jetson's flying cars and biblical mark of the beast UPC tattooing so I can stop carrying my damn wallet.

Totally with WESRUBIX and SPACEBOY, you've got the makings of real-life RTS here, and the ability (perhaps later) to know the position and health of all your soldiers in combat. A commanders dream, I would think.

Wow! I can just see what a PR win that will be when our enemies can advertise that it is okay with Allah to kill our soldiers since they have a chip implanted in their heads so they are less than human. Considering the high percentage of the Mid East that actually believes that the distruction of the WTC was an Jewish plot, and that all the Jewish people knew a priori and din;t show up for work that day (lies) and they also believ in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (a Czarist fiction), they will surely believe that chip implanted soldiers are like robots.

There's no chance in Hell the US Army will ever implant any of that shit on me. Hell no!

How about they implant it in prisoners before releasing them from places like Gitmo? Since a significant percentage of them seem to return to the Jihad, this would seem helpful.

Okay, so retarded claims of Meggido and the apocolypse asied (Didn't read all the comments, if you mentioned the apocolypse then crawl under a rock and die already) I more or less wanted to briefly explain how this works. It doesn't continuously transmit data, so it doesn't need some huge battery source. It is similar to the implants they have for your pet that is used for tracking purposes. An external device (likely the helmet in this case) transmits a signal to the implant, which it then responds. Since it is so close to the device that is requesting information, and only needs to respond periodically( every ten minutes or so I would assume) it doesn't have to be very big.

Giz should stop sensationalizing headlines and do some real digging once in a while. I followed the source trail and discovered that nowhere did the originating research institution claim that the chip was implantable into the brain. The chip was merely meant to be temporary and transmit vitals in a mass casualty scenario. ie when you have dozens of wounded after a terrorist attack. There was a second article on the same page dealing with a "Brain Tumour Biochip". It is likely that the source author bent on sensationalizing the story combined the two articles.

[www.clemson.edu]

It is this kind of shoddy sensationalistic writing that leads to the proliferation of all sorts of wackjob conspiracy theorists.....

The chip pictured above and in the article is a product by Verichip Corp [www.verichipcorp.com] They make implantable RFID chips primarily used to store medical history as well as other RIFD products. The chips are usually placed in the upper arm rather than the brain.
Thier sister company, Digital Angel Corp recently patented a glucose sensing one for diabetics.

Pretty grey considering the tracking aspects, but the baby safe products and the glucose chip sound useful.

We are the Borg U.S. Army. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.

This is the kind of shit that scares me. Real "mark of the beast" type stuff... A 'mark' on the wrist or forehead...

Like I say, live well, cause the end is near.

And so it starts.