Blood Simple
by Imran Ali
Earlier this year we covered the emerging field of crowdsensing - the ability to aggregate sensor readings from networks of mobile devices.
Last week, CNET highlighted research underway at Georgetown University that’s exploring the use of mobile devices to track the glocose levels of diabetes patients…a more personal form of mobile sensors that may have some ‘crowd’ applications but are very much about individual users…
- RFID-enabled skin patches sense glucose levels.
- The patch sends glucose data to a nearby mobile handset.
- The handset can do any number of things - submit data to a healthcare tracking service, emergency services and first responders or use the data to direct a dispensation device to administer insulin.
The process and the technology are still in teh early stages of development, but have exciting implications for healthcare, further underlying the emerging role of cellphones as mobile sensing platforms.
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In a bizarre inverse of the Georgetown project, a recently published design concept for a digital tattoo display also uses blood - this time to power a fuel cell that runs a display surface implanted under the skin of the user! The display, could potentially be used in concert with mobile technologies and as the author points out, it would be ‘waterproof and powered by pizza’!
A food shortage coupled with a profilerating mobile market, potentially powered by said food? Oops!
