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back to article FDA clears edible medical sensor for human consumption

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has officially cleared edible computers to be used in medical applications for monitoring patient health. After four years of discussions, Proteus Digital has received approval for its Ingestion Event Marker, a silicon sensor about 1mm square that is encased in a pill and is meant to …

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  1. Eddy Ito

    Metallic flavored beans?

    "the chip emits a tone...is passed through the gut "like high-fiber food,""

    I assume the acid based reaction that powers the device produces some quantity of gas as well. Gotta love technology. Oddly no word on whether it's reusable.

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    1. dssf
      Reply Icon

      Re: Metallic flavored beans?

      Hahaha... It not only would be in bad taste, it would be in bad form, hahaha....

      Those beans would be "gone with the blend"....

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  2. Don Jefe
    Meh

    Total Required

    How many do I need to eat in order to shoot energy bolts from my fingers? If I eat 8-9 can I power my laptop while I'm on the plane?

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  3. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

    1 to 2 Volts of _Voltage_

    The units of power are Watts: Power = Voltage × Current

    Power is also Velocity × Force, which means there is already a Register unit of power:

    1 sheep·jub = 123.5MW

    The real challenge is to find the unit of power used by the wind turbine industry. 1 Windmill (when the wind is just right) is equivalent to so many million homes (with gas heating, hot water and cooking + free public transport). If anyone can find this home, we will be able to calculate the number of sheep jubs per windmill.

    Register units lack a direct unit of time, but one can be inferred from distance and velocity:

    1 second = 41970000 linguine per sheep

    Register units do not include a unit of charge or anything that involves charge, so there are no Register units of voltage or current.

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  4. PeteA
    Windows

    Redefining wetware?

    Sorry, but wetware is already a standard part of the computing stack - it sits in front of the hardware and interfaces with the software, usually with the assistance of peripheral hardware such as mice and keyboards. For example,

    "Why couldn't we access our remote office yesterday - was it a hardware problem or the software?"

    "Oh, it was just the wetware - lusers watching the Olympics and saturating the connection"

    And yes - I do know that we should be using QoS

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    1. JassMan
      Reply Icon
      Facepalm

      Re: Redefining wetware?

      I totally agree. It is poor journalism like this which got hackers a bad reputation from the exploits of crackers.

      Wetware tradionally applies to any computing with a biological component (eg the simple luser, or even a rat's brain guiding a missile). As far as I can see this is a perfectly ordinary computer powered by inorganic chemistry but just happens to sit inside a patient. Perhaps DAMPWARE would have been a better term, since it requires that the computer be sitting in a damp location before it activates.

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  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Mmmm

    Chips...

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  6. dssf

    I wonder what OD'ng on these would do...

    Excess Iron?

    FCC coming after the over-doser?

    Being put on a no-fly list?

    If DHLS rips off the patches, they'll have to re-patch your comms systems.

    This could result in one helluva fine mesh.

    Talk about FTTC (Fibre to the Curb)....

    The sewers could end up becoming SuperFund sites when 80% of a given country's population ends up on anti-psychotic drugs in compliance-based meds ingestion, creating endless "heavy metal dumps"...

    Butt, the use of it for human fertilizer could be justified: Rich in "heavily fArtified Iron"...

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  7. sjsmoto

    Cool, so one day Google will know what I'm eating to direct its advertising appropriately. And if I belch the audio could be posted on facebook.

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  8. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Happy

    Has to be said

    Brought to you by Doc Savage.

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  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm ashamed to admit

    I read "Dr. Eric Topol" as "Dr. Epic Tool".

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