'Digital pill' with chip inside gets FDA green light

http://money.cnn.com/2012/08/03/technology/startups/ingestible-sensor-proteus/index.htm

Not sure if this is old news, but this is some Alduous Huxley shit. Isn't this the penultimate step in establishing a global Matrix?

lol, so you eat it and it's supposed to remind you when you took the pills...but it relies on a transmitter that you have to remember to stick to your arm. Genius!

Why not? Might as well.

i think it would be cool if instead of this, they could come up with a non-demeaning, non-invasive way to determine whether people who have prescriptions are actually taking those pills rather than selling them on the street. that way the working class tax payers will have a few million less pill addict couch lump welfare leeches to pay for. but part of me thinks that the government loves it the way it is.

There's a much easier way to do this: eat a time-release capsule that doses you with your medication in a timely fashion. This prevents abuse (can't take more than the prescribed amount at once, it's not up to you anymore), it eradicates the problem of forgetfulness, and it stops people from being able to sell their medications, as MisterE mentioned. It's arguable invasive though, and I'd never suggest it become the default method of drug-taking, but it's an option for some - especially for doctors who are wary of giving patients with histories of abuse dangerous drugs.

  On 2/6/2013 at 2:27 AM, luke viia said:

There's a much easier way to do this: eat a time-release capsule that doses you with your medication in a timely fashion.

I'm fairly certain it exists, but can't seem to find any good results about it in google atm. I'll get back to you if I come up with anything. Doesn't seem too hard to engineer something like that though (there would be hurdles to get it to work safely, but it's doable)

seems like an overly complex technology for such a silly purpose.

  On 2/6/2013 at 2:23 AM, MisterE said:

i think it would be cool if instead of this, they could come up with a non-demeaning, non-invasive way to determine whether people who have prescriptions are actually taking those pills rather than selling them on the street. that way the working class tax payers will have a few million less pill addict couch lump welfare leeches to pay for. but part of me thinks that the government loves it the way it is.

some day someone will make a line of drugs that can be biologically linked to the patient so if someone else took it, it would be inactive

do you mean like a thing that would be administered by a doctor, in his/her presence, and then it would somehow stay in the body for maybe even up to a month, and would administer new doses as needed? sounds like it'd be pretty hard to engineer, and it probably would be considered invasive by many, but it sounds like something to consider maybe..

  On 2/6/2013 at 3:03 AM, MisterE said:

do you mean like a thing that would be administered by a doctor, in his/her presence, and then it would somehow stay in the body for maybe even up to a month, and would administer new doses as needed? sounds like it'd be pretty hard to engineer, and it probably would be considered invasive by many, but it sounds like something to consider maybe..

Yeah, that's what I mean. And yes, it will be considered invasive by many.

As a student of nanotechnology, I have to say that the sort of technology we're talking about here doesn't even scratch the surface of what "invasive" can mean in the future...

IDM of the year candidate

only analogue pills for me thanx