Wireless health gathering features radio pill

Proteus Biomedical is developing an ingestible sensor small enough to be imbedded in a pill.

Imagine a world where a tiny sensor embedded inside a blood pressure pill tells your doctor exactly when you take the medication and what your vital signs are at the time.

High-tech health care gadgets that were the stuff of science fiction just a few years ago are right around the corner, according to many of the people attending the Wireless Health 2010 conference in La Jolla on Wednesday.

Dr. George Savage with Proteus Biomedical delivered an update at the gathering on his Redwood City company’s efforts to develop a so-called ingestible event marker.

The silicon and metal sensor turns on once it comes into contact with liquid in the stomach, transmitting a faint radio signal that says, “I’m here,” Savage said. The electronic message is picked up by a small receiver patch attached to the skin outside of the body, confirming the medication has been taken...

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'Smart Dust' Aims To Monitor Everything

Palo Alto, California (CNN) -- In the 1990s, a researcher named Kris Pister dreamed up a wild future in which people would sprinkle the Earth with countless tiny sensors, no larger than grains of rice.

These "smart dust" particles, as he called them, would monitor everything, acting like electronic nerve endings for the planet. Fitted with computing power, sensing equipment, wireless radios and long battery life, the smart dust would make observations and relay mountains of real-time data about people, cities and the natural environment...