Microchips are making football helmets, toilets and even cat doors smarter
To help make football a little safer, Intel Corp. last month proposed having players’ helmets outfitted with microprocessors that would wirelessly alert doctors if the athletes suffered a hit hard enough to cause head injuries.
And why not? Microchips aren’t just for ATMs, airport check-in kiosks, pacemakers and ocean monitoring sensors anymore. They’re also being installed in a staggering array of items that were once decidedly low-tech — including gravestones, fish lures and writing pens.
The potential market is huge. Chip sales of all types generate about $300 billion a year in sales worldwide, with personal computers and smart phones accounting for up to half of that, according to some experts. That means $150 billion to $200 billion in sales come from so-called embedded semiconductors, which go into pretty much anything a person can think of.
“Now these devices are taking on more intelligence,” said Shane Rau, a chip expert at market research firm IDC. “They’re becoming more programmable, they’re getting faster, and they’re getting communications functions built into them.”
Consider these examples:
• Intelligent pens: Livescribe of Oakland sells a chip-powered ink pen equipped with a camera and audio recorder that’s designed to help people remember precisely what was said when they review their handwritten notes. It synchronizes its voice recording with the pictures it takes of the words as they are jotted down. If the pen is tapped on one of the scribbled words, it replays what was said when that note was taken.
• Computerized commodes: AquaOne Technologies of Westminster has introduced a toilet containing chips that automatically shut off the water when it springs a leak or starts to overflow. And Japanese company Toto reportedly has developed an intelligent potty that gathers health-related data from the user’s urine and automatically sends the information to the user’s doctor.
• Fish beware: Some fishing reels, including those made by Shimano of Japan, now have chips in them to help control how fast the spool of line spins. Some enthusiasts of the sport say that results in longer, smoother casts. Pro-Troll of Concord, Calif., also puts chips in its lures. The result, the company claims, “duplicates the electrical nerve discharge of a wounded bait fish,” prompting other fish to bite it.
• Smart shoes: Adidas was widely hailed five years ago as the first company to outfit a running shoe with a chip, which automatically adjusts the shoe’s cushioning to the wearer’s weight and running style. Nike Inc. then followed with its own running shoe featuring a chip that fed data on the wearer’s pace, distance traveled and calories burned to an Apple iPod or iPhone.
• Tombstone tech: A Waynesburg, Pa., company sells a coin-size, stainless steel-encased microchip for grave markers. Called the Memory Medallion, it tells the deceased’s story in text, photos, video or audio histories, which visitors can access by pointing their Internet-enabled cellphones at it. The company says it has sold thousands of the medallions, which recently were installed at a New York cemetery’s memorial to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
• Digitized pets: Million of cats and dogs have been equipped with chips that contain their owners’ contact information. Taking that concept a step further, a British company sells a SureFlap cat door that opens for pets whose microchip it recognizes but stays locked for other animals.
Intel isn’t wasting time looking for ways to take advantage of its technology, said Ton Steenman, general manager of the Santa Clara, Calif., company’s embedded and communications group. Among other ideas, it’s conferring with farm-equipment manufacturers about potentially using chips to make remotely controlled tractors that would let farmers till their fields, plant seeds, dispense fertilizer and harvest crops from their office desks.
“The possibilities,” Steenman noted, “are pretty much endless.”
Johnson writes for the San Jose Mercury News.
