Are Implantables the New Wearables?
Photo via WIRED
By now, you’ve heard of wearables, the catch-all phrase that refers to tech-based apparel and accessories. You may even be an owner of one of the estimated 72.1 million wearable devices projected to ship in 2015. But would you go so far as to implant one in your body?
WIRED takes a look at Alexia McKenzie, a San Francisco-based hardware designer, who has taken her love of tech-enabled efficiency one step further than most by implanting both a magnet and a radio tag under the skin in her left hand. The radio tag serves as a replacement to carrying a set of keys, while the magnet allows McKenzie to keep small metal parts easily accessible while she works.
The “implantables,” as they’re sometimes called, serve as an extension of McKenzie’s carefully concocted system of living that includes her smart home, rigged with a webcam by her front door that streams to her phone, a homemade irrigation system for plants and temperature controlled ceiling fans.
McKenzie isn’t alone in her experimentation with implantable tech devices. USC is home to the Center for Body Computing, devoted to implantable technology, and researchers hope to take embeddable exenatide pumps for people with diabetes to market soon.
But whereas those implantables are primarily used for health and wellness, embedding an implantable for convenience is another story, one that raises questions about everything from privacy concerns to possible infection.
Still, some are optimistic that implantables will reach more widespread use in the near future.
“It will happen in three or four years time,” Piers Fawkes, founder and editor in chief of PSFK, told USA Today last year. “We will just gently start integrating these things into our bodies.”
