Last month I admitted to being a bit surprised that I apparently never found an opportunity to link to George Harrison's Within You Without You. It was, after all, the sort of item that relates to a number of issues that find their way into Boidem columns, so to a certain extent it was conspicuous in its absence ... until last month. And then this month, suddenly it again makes sense.
It was on this date, in 1998 that Kevin Warwick, apparently at that time Professor of Cybernetics at the University of Reading, had an RFID chip implanted under his skin. Warwick, who seems never to forego an opportunity to make headlines, intended to use the chip to interact with "intelligent buildings". A review of the history of RFID chips on the InfoSEC web site (that serendipitously revealed to me a fascinating connection between RFID and music) tells us that:
by using the transponder, he was able to open doors that previously required smart card access. He was also able to turn on lights simply by entering into the room.We've all read reports of radiant actresses who "light up the room" the moment they enter, but Warwick's ability to do this was based on technology, not on personality. This was Warwick's first cyborgian experiment, but not his last. In November of 2002 I noted his March 2002 experiment in which a "microelectrode array" was implanted under his skin. His wife apparently underwent the same "surgery" and they were thus able to share each other's feelings - their "real" feelings, not the ones they may have expressed out loud without necessarily meaning them. I don't recall ever reading how successful either of these experiments were. Still, Warwick has certainly earned a place of honor in these annals of communication technologies date tie-ins.