Silicon implant turns professor into 'cyborg'

Silicon implant turns professor into 'cyborg'

JAKARTA: In a bold experiment, British scientist Kevin Warwick has had a silicon chip transponder surgically implanted in his forearm to communicate remotely with computers which can operate the doors and lights and control the temperature in his office -- demonstrating the potential of intelligent building systems.

Warwick, who is a professor of Cybernetics at Reading University, southern England, has even arranged for a computer to recognize what telephone he is sitting next to.

"Cybernetics is all about humans and technology interacting and for a professor of cybernetic to become a true 'cyborg' -- part man, part machine -- is therefore rather appropriate," he said.

The glass capsule, about 23 millimeters long and three millimeters in diameter, contains a transponder consisting of an electromagnetic coil and a number of microchips.

When a radio frequency signal is transmitted to the transponder, the coil generates an electric current. This is used to drive the silicon chip circuitry which transmits a unique 64- bit signal. A receiver picking up this signal can be connected to an intelligent building network.

Through a computer it can recognize the code and thus, in the case of an implant, the individual person. It can then operate a range of computer controlled-devices, such as doors, lights, heaters, or even other computers in a specially adapted building, according to the pre-programmed requirements of that person.

Professor Warwick, the first person to have such a transponder surgically implanted, says the "potential of the implant is enormous". It could for instance be used to replace credit and bank cards. Businesses could use it to register employees in and out of their offices automatically.

But he warns that it has shades of writer George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four: "With an implant a machine will know where an individual is in a building at all times. They might not even be able to pay a visit to the toilet without a machine knowing about it. Is this what we want?".

-- London Press Service