very cool. WOW!
imagine the possibilities....uh...the downside as well.....
Tracking chips for humans
Applied Digital says that the idea for using these chips to identify humans came after the horrifying incidents of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. While watching the post disaster coverage on TV, Richard Seelig, Vice President of medical applications at Applied Digital, saw how firemen were writing their badge numbers on their arm with pen so that they could be identified in the event of a disaster. He then inserted one of these chips under his skin and tested their viability and was quite amazed at how perfectly they performed. As of now, about 9,000 VeriChips have been sold, of which about 1,500 have been inserted into humans. This number will soon increase, since even Federal Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared VeriChip for medical applications in the United States. However FDA hasnt yet cleared this device for usage in security, financial, personal identification and safety applications. It might not be long when these chips make their way into other parts of the world.
Well, speaking of other parts of the world, the Mexican Police Department has already chipped all of their personnel. The Italian Ministry of Health has also started a six-month trial of these chips for hospitals. The Baja Beach Club in Spain has also used them as electronic wallets to buy drinks and pay for usage of other facilities at their club. Most sales of these chips have taken place outside the US in Russia, Switzerland, Venezuela and Colombia.
How do you get micro chip under your skin?
An authorized medical practitioner or surgeon can implant this 11-millimeter RFID chip in the fatty tissue below your right tricep. This chipping procedure lasts just a few minutes and involves the use of only a local anesthetic followed by quick, painless insertion of the VeriChip. Once its inserted under your skin, not even you can tell whether you have an RFID chip implanted there. So where does the chip get its energy? Well, you dont have to worry about that. This chip is dormant most of the time and wakes up only when you pass your skin over an external proprietary scanner. When you do this, a small amount of radio frequency energy passes through the skin energizing the chip. The chip then emits a radio frequency signal containing the verification number. This number is then deciphered by the scanner and transmitted to a secure data storage site accessed by authorized personnel via telephone or Internet. "It is used instead of other biometric applications such as fingerprints, says Angela Fulcher, Vice President Marketing and Sales, VeriChip Corporation. Implanting these chips would cost about $150 - $200 per person.
