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Old 03-21-2005, 08:14 AM   #1 (permalink)
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The Body Electric

New technology uses human body for broadband networking

By sending data over the surface of the skin, it may soon be possible to trade music files by dancing cheek to cheek, or to swap phone numbers by kissing

THE GUARDIAN , LONDON
Sunday, Mar 20, 2005,Page 12

Your body could soon be the backbone of a broadband personal data network linking your mobile phone or MP3 player to a cordless headset, your digital camera to a PC or printer, and all the gadgets you carry around to each other.

These personal area networks are already possible using radio-based technologies, such as Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, or just plain old cables to connect devices. But NTT, the Japanese communications company, has developed a technology called RedTacton, which it claims can send data over the surface of the skin at speeds of up to 2Mbps -- equivalent to a fast broadband data connection.

Using RedTacton-enabled devices, music from an MP3 player in your pocket would pass through your clothing and shoot over your body to headphones in your ears. Instead of fiddling around with a cable to connect your digital camera to your computer, you could transfer pictures just by touching the PC while the camera is around your neck. And since data can pass from one body to another, you could also exchange electronic business cards by shaking hands, trade music files by dancing cheek to cheek, or swap phone numbers just by kissing.

NTT is not the first company to use the human body as a conduit for data: IBM pioneered the field in 1996 with a system that could transfer small amounts of data at very low speeds, and last June, Microsoft was granted a patent for "a method and apparatus for transmitting power and data using the human body."

But RedTacton is arguably the first practical system because, unlike IBM's or Microsoft's, it doesn't need transmitters to be in direct contact with the skin -- they can be built into gadgets, carried in pockets or bags, and will work within about 20cm of your body. RedTacton doesn't introduce an electric current into the body -- instead, it makes use of the minute electric field that occurs naturally on the surface of every human body. A transmitter attached to a device, such as an MP3 player, uses this field to send data by modulating the field minutely in the same way that a radio carrier wave is modulated to carry information.

Receiving data is more complicated because the strength of the electric field involved is so low. RedTacton gets around this using a technique called electric field photonics: A laser is passed though an electro-optic crystal, which deflects light differently according to the strength of the field across it. These deflections are measured and converted back into electrical signals to retrieve the transmitted data.

An obvious question, however, is why anyone would bother networking though their body when proven radio-based personal area networking technologies, such as Bluetooth, already exist? Tom Zimmerman, the inventor of the original IBM system, says body-based networking is more secure than broadcast systems, such as Bluetooth, which have a range of about 10m.

"With Bluetooth, it is difficult to rein in the signal and restrict it to the device you are trying to connect to," says Zimmerman. "You usually want to communicate with one particular thing, but in a busy place there could be hundreds of Bluetooth devices within range."

As human beings are ineffective aerials, it is very hard to pick up stray electronic signals radiating from the body, he says. "This is good for security because even if you encrypt data it is still possible that it could be decoded, but if you can't pick it up it can't be cracked."

Zimmerman also believes that, unlike infrared or Bluetooth phones and PDAs, which enable people to "beam" electronic business cards across a room without ever formally meeting, body-based networking allows for more natural interchanges of information between humans.
"If you are very close or touching someone, you are either in a busy subway train, or you are being intimate with them, or you want to communicate," he says. "I think it is good to be close to someone when you are exchanging information."

RedTacton transceivers can be treated as standard network devices, so software running over Ethernet or other TCP/IP protocol-based networks will run unmodified.
Gordon Bell, a senior researcher at Microsoft's Bay Area Research Center in San Francisco, says that while Bluetooth or other radio technologies may be perfectly suitable to link gadgets for many personal area networking purposes, there are certain applications for which RedTacton technology would be ideal.

"I recently acquired my own in-body device -- a pacemaker -- but it takes a special radio frequency connector to interface to it. As more and more implants go into bodies, the need for a good Internet Protocol connection increases," he says.

In the near future, the most important application for body-based networking may well be for communications within, rather than on the surface of, or outside, the body.
An intriguing possibility is that the technology will be used as a sort of secondary nervous system to link large numbers of tiny implanted components placed beneath the skin to create powerful onboard -- or in-body -- computers.

................

One small step for a machine, one giant leap for mankind.

This story represents a significant contribution to the increasingly rapid computerization of the human body and its ineluctable transformation into a cybernetic entity. As such, it indicates we are on the threshold of "being on the Internet" - literally.

I have always thought of myself as a man/machine thing. It was clear from my early experiences that our lives are increasingly nurtured, maintained, and sustained by machines.

This began with the ancient development of the 6 simple machines - when we began the continual process of hooking ourselves up with mechanical force multipliers. The symbiotic relationship between man and machine has become thoroughly visceral and cerebral of late.

Not only do I see it as inevitable, I see it as a fait accompli...
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Old 03-21-2005, 08:41 AM   #2 (permalink)
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thats really cool

especially that it doesnt actually have to be in direct contact with the skin.
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Old 03-21-2005, 08:52 AM   #3 (permalink)
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I just saw a TV documentary a couple days ago that I never saw before about Marshall Mcluhan. I ran into his concepts and books in college over 30yrs ago and still respect his perspectives ...anyway, it sounds like now we are becoming the messenger, the media and the message all rolled into one.
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Old 03-21-2005, 08:56 AM   #4 (permalink)
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I love this. One step closer to my neural uplink - information at the blink of an eye.

*drool*
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Old 03-21-2005, 10:35 AM   #5 (permalink)
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Awesome! I am so excited about this kind of technological advances! It kinda reminds me of the move Tom Cruise did a few years back, oh what was it called... heh, well, it was in an age of technological advances, and some of the stuff they had in it was so cool.
But wow...that's just awesome, I can't wait to see what's next in store!
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Old 03-21-2005, 10:40 AM   #6 (permalink)
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I'm not a fan of this at all. I don't want a chip in my body. I see how this could be used effectively but I also see this being used for bad more than for good.
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Old 03-21-2005, 12:35 PM   #7 (permalink)
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Seems cool.

As far as bad and good is concerned, there will always be bad with the good, and vice versa. Whether or not you see more bad or good depends more on if youre an optimist or pessimist.
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Old 03-21-2005, 12:57 PM   #8 (permalink)
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Soon it shall be..
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Old 03-21-2005, 01:23 PM   #9 (permalink)
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Yes. I am in agreement with certain inevitabilities regarding the nature of our species to "technologize" itself.

I see us as, by definition, biocultural beings. And I define culture in technological terms.
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Old 03-21-2005, 01:40 PM   #10 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by guccilvr
I'm not a fan of this at all. I don't want a chip in my body. I see how this could be used effectively but I also see this being used for bad more than for good.
It doesnt require a chip in your body. It's more if you have wireless headphones they wouldn't use a radio signal, but the electric field of your body.
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Old 03-21-2005, 01:49 PM   #11 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ObieX
It doesnt require a chip in your body. It's more if you have wireless headphones they wouldn't use a radio signal, but the electric field of your body.
but it could lead to it

Quote:
An intriguing possibility is that the technology will be used as a sort of secondary nervous system to link large numbers of tiny implanted components placed beneath the skin to create powerful onboard -- or in-body -- computers.
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Old 03-21-2005, 02:50 PM   #12 (permalink)
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Yep it could technically lead down that road. But the main exits along that road are things like - pacemakers, implants to restore hearing in the deaf (already exist, and getting better), implants to restore sight to the blind (already exist, and getting better), and implants to restore movement to the paralyzed (also already exist, and getting better). Sure some of these things involve implants of small chips into various parts of the body including the brain, but i would rather be a sighted person with a chip in my brain that makes me able to see, than be blind. I would rather be a hearing person with a chip implanted in my brain that makes me able to hear, than a deaf person. I would also prefer to be a walking person with a chip implanted in my brain that gives me the ability to walk, than a paralyzed person.

There's also chips that already exist to allow a person to interact with a computer by their thoughts, so a person who is unable to move anything below the neck is able to control his wheelchair, or surf the internet (moving his mouse across the screen and clicking)

I'm not sure what you have against this type of technology, except maybe thinking that someone will be able to control your mind somehow through it, or track your every move. While the tracking thing will be coming up soon (if its not alrady available - possibly is through the army) it will be voluntary. When the government starts forcing citizens to put this stuff into their bodies then you would have a legitimate grievance. At this point that point of view is standing in the way of some pretty significant breakthroughs in medicine and every day life improvement. While you may not take advantage of any of these advances in any way, for whatever reason, you will eventually be at a large disadvantage compaired to people who do. Like for example, someone who has a phone would be at a better advantage to someone who doesnt believe phones are a good thing.

If you suddenly went deaf, would you prefer to stay deaf or get a chip implanted that would restore your hearing completely? Or if you suddenly went blind from, say, diabetes.. would you prefer to stay blind? or would you go for getting a chip implanted that would restore your sight?

edit: slight correction of first paragraph (fixed deaf/blind hear/see mix-up) weee
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Last edited by ObieX; 03-21-2005 at 03:13 PM..
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Old 03-21-2005, 03:03 PM   #13 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ObieX
Yep it could technically lead down that road. But the main exits along that road are things like - pacemakers, implants to restore hearing in the deaf (already exist, and getting better), implants to restore sight to the blind (already exist, and getting better), and implants to restore movement to the paralyzed (also already exist, and getting better). Sure some of these things involve implants of small chips into various parts of the body including the brain, but i would rather be a sighted person with a chip in my brain that makes me able to see, than be blind. I would rather be a hearing person with a chip implanted in my brain that makes me able to see, than a blind person. I would also prefer to be a walking person with a chip implanted in my brain that gives me the ability to walk, than a paralyzed person.

There's also chips that already exist to allow a person to interact with a computer by their thoughts, so a person who is unable to move anything below the neck is able to control his wheelchair, or surf the internet (moving his mouse across the screen and clicking)

I'm not sure what you have against this type of technology, except maybe thinking that someone will be able to control your mind somehow through it, or track your every move. While the tracking thing will be coming up soon (if its not alrady available - possibly is through the army) it will be voluntary. When the government starts forcing citizens to put this stuff into their bodies then you would have a legitimate grievance. At this point that point of view is standing in the way of some pretty significant breakthroughs in medicine and every day life improvement. While you may not take advantage of any of these advances in any way, for whatever reason, you will eventually be at a large disadvantage compaired to people who do. Like for example, someone who has a phone would be at a better advantage to someone who doesnt believe phones are a good thing.

If you suddenly went deaf, would you prefer to stay deaf or get a chip implanted that would restore your hearing completely? Or if you suddenly went blind from, say, diabetes.. would you prefer to stay blind? or would you go for getting a chip implanted that would restore your sight?


I'm just anti-machine I guess. I've never been a fan of where technology is headed. I'm sure I never will be either. As far as your last statement goes, if it meant to stay deaf or blind or have a chip implanted... I'd stay deaf or blind. No doubt in my mind.
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Old 03-22-2005, 09:54 PM   #14 (permalink)
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Wow! I am all about this. Guccilvr, I can see how you could have ethical qualms with something like this because it's a very powerful technology and will probably lead to more powerful technology, but my own fears of the kind generally center around the way people are raised and not how advanced technology becomes. To use a cliche: guns don't kill people; people kill people.

I love how this integrates all the meanings the word "networking" - hook me up!
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