It all seems so innocent, until the government or employers start forcing chipping on us, on our livestock and on our property. Once the government and businesses have all their “assets” tagged there are all sorts of interesting tracking things they can do such as monitoring body temperature…
Researchers at Radboud University in The Netherlands were able to monitor the body temperature of participants at the world’s largest marching event using RFID technology. Volunteer participants in the annual Four Days Marches of Nijmegen swallowed an RFID-based temperature sensor that measured their internal temperature and helped researchers identify potential health issues.
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The RFID study builds on the results of a previous manual study carried out in 2007, which monitored volunteers to ensure their body temperatures did not exceed recommended levels. The University began studying ways to monitor the health of marchers during the event after the deaths of two participants in 2006. That same year, 69 people were hospitalized for exhaustion or overheating.“Based on their height, weight and age, the system was able to alert the volunteer if their core body temperature had reached a dangerous level,” says Martijn Bakkers, branch manager of healthcare at Progress Software.
Radboud University developed the temperature tracking solution to help marchers avoid overheating and dehydration. Using complex event processing (CEP) technology provided by Progress Software, researchers were able to monitor and record the ten volunteers’ temperatures via a signal transmitted every ten seconds from the RFID “pill” to a receiving device in the volunteer’s backpack. That data was then transmitted via Bluetooth to a GPS-enabled mobile phone (provided by Dutch telecommunications operator KPN) to the operations center at Radboud.
CEP is an event processing technology that allows an application to analyze multiple streams of event data, and then react to those conditions quickly. The Progress Apama CEP platform processed and analyzed the temperature data in real time. If a volunteer’s body temperature was too high, officials could alert them to either rest or rehydrate using SMS text messaging, calling them on the mobile phone, or by alerting the onsite medical team to take action if needed. Because location information was available via Google Maps, it was also possible to alert other walkers in the vicinity of the volunteer if they were in danger of dehydrating.
“The test went really well,” says Bakkers. “We were able to see the volunteers’ locations and body temperatures in real time. It rained during the marches this year, and we were actually able to see when their body temperatures fell or rose by as little as half a degree depending on whether they were wearing a raincoat or not.”
The RFID-based temperature sensor was provided by Florida-based HQ Inc. The company’s 262 kHz CorTemp sensor has been used by a number of other organizations, including the National Football League (NFL), to track the core body temperature of athletes.
-RFID Update
Next could come heart rate, breathing rate, blood pressure, neurological activity… why’ it’s all the workings of a Big Brother lie detector. Easily add remotely activated electrical shocks and medication delivery and we have an RFID slave whip all in one neat little pill the size of a grain of rice.
You better watch out
You better not cry
Better not protest
I’m telling you why
RFID is coming to town.Big Brother’s making a list,
And checking it twice;
Gonna find out who’s naughty and nice.
RFID is coming to town.He sees you when you’re sleeping
He knows when you’re awake
He knows if you’ve been bad or good,
So be good for goodness sake!Ooo! You better watch out!
You better not cry.
Better not protest, I’m telling you why.
RFID is coming to town.
RFID is coming to town.
Santa’s got a new trick in his bag…
