An (expected) evolution of computing from 1960–2010
In computing, ambient intelligence (AmI) refers to electronic environments that are sensitive and responsive to the presence of people. Ambient intelligence is a vision on the future of consumer electronics, telecommunications and computing that was originally developed in the late 1990s by Eli Zelkha and his team at Palo Alto Ventures for the time frame 2010–2020.
In an ambient intelligence world, devices work in concert to support
people in carrying out their everyday life activities, tasks and rituals
in an easy, natural way using information and intelligence that is
hidden in the network connecting these devices (for example: The Internet of Things).
As these devices grow smaller, more connected and more integrated into
our environment, the technology disappears into our surroundings until
only the user interface remains perceivable by users.
anticipatory: they can anticipate your desires without conscious mediation.
A typical context of ambient intelligence environment is home, but may also be extended to work spaces (offices, coworking), public spaces (based on technologies such as smart street lights), and hospital environments.
Overview
More and more people make decisions based on the effect their actions will have on their own inner, mental world.
This experience-driven way of acting is a change from the past when
people were primarily concerned about the use value of products and
services, and is the basis for the experience economy. Ambient intelligence addresses this shift in existential view by emphasizing people and user experience.
The interest in user experience also grew in importance in the
late 1990s because of the overload of products and services in the
information society that were difficult to understand and hard to use.
An urge emerged to design things from a user's point of view. Ambient
intelligence is influenced by user-centered design where the user is placed in the center of the design activity and asked to give feedback through specific user evaluations and tests to improve the design or even co-create the design with the designer (participatory design) or with other users (end-user development).
In order for AmI to become a reality a number of key technologies are required:
Dynamic and massively distributed device networks, which are easy to control and program (e.g. service discovery, auto-configuration, end-user programmable devices and systems etc.)
Dependable and secure systems and devices (self-testing and self repairing software, privacy ensuring technology etc.)
History and invention
In 1998, the board of management of Philips commissioned a series of presentations and internal workshops, organized by Eli Zelkha and Brian Epstein of Palo Alto Ventures (who, with Simon Birrell,
coined the term 'ambient intelligence') to investigate different
scenarios that would transform the high-volume consumer electronic
industry from the current "fragmented with features" world into a world
in 2020 where user-friendly devices support ubiquitous information,
communication and entertainment.
While developing the ambient intelligence concept, Palo Alto Ventures
created the keynote address for Roel Pieper of Philips for the Digital
Living Room Conference, 1998.
The group included Eli Zelkha, Brian Epstein, Simon Birrell, Doug
Randall, and Clark Dodsworth. In the years after, these developments
grew more mature. In 2005, Philips joined the Oxygen alliance, an
international consortium of industrial partners within the context of
the MIT Oxygen project,
aimed at developing technology for the computer of the 21st century. In
2000, plans were made to construct a feasibility and usability facility
dedicated to ambient intelligence. This HomeLab officially opened on 24
April 2002.
Along with the development of the vision at Philips, a number of
parallel initiatives started to explore ambient intelligence in more
detail. Following the advice of the Information Society and Technology
Advisory Group (ISTAG), the European Commission
used the vision for the launch of their sixth framework (FP6) in
Information, Society and Technology (IST), with a subsidiary budget of
3.7 billion euros. The European Commission played a crucial role in the
further development of the AmI vision. As a result of many initiatives
the AmI vision gained traction. During the past few years several major
initiatives have been started. Fraunhofer Society started several activities in a variety of domains including multimedia, microsystems design and augmented spaces. MIT started an ambient intelligence research group at their Media Lab.
Several more research projects started in a variety of countries such
as the US, Canada, Spain, France and the Netherlands. Since 2004, the
European Symposium on Ambient Intelligence (EUSAI) and many other
conferences have been held that address special topics in AmI.
Criticism
As
far as dissemination of information on personal presence is out of
control, ambient intelligence vision is subject of criticism (e.g. David
Wright, Serge Gutwirth, Michael Friedewald et al., Safeguards in a
World of Ambient Intelligence, Springer, Dordrecht, 2008).
Any immersive, personalized, context-aware and anticipatory
characteristics brings up societal, political and cultural concerns
about the loss of privacy.
The example scenario above shows both the positive and negative
possibilities offered by ambient intelligence. Applications of ambient
intelligence do not necessarily have to reduce privacy in order to work.
Power concentration in large organizations, a fragmented, decreasingly private society and hyperreal environments where the virtual is indistinguishable from the real are the main topics of critics.
Several research groups and communities are investigating the
socioeconomic, political and cultural aspects of ambient intelligence.
New thinking on AmI distances itself therefore from some of the original
characteristics such as adaptive and anticipatory behaviour and
emphasizes empowerment and participation to place control in the hands
of people instead of organizations.
Social and political aspects
The ISTAG advisory group suggests that the following characteristics will permit the societal acceptance of ambient intelligence.
AmI should...
facilitate human contact.
be oriented towards community and cultural enhancement.
help to build knowledge and skills for work, better quality of work, citizenship and consumer choice.
inspire trust and confidence.
be consistent with long term sustainability—personal, societal and environmental—and with lifelong learning.
be made easy to live with and controllable by ordinary people.
Business models
The ISTAG group acknowledges the following entry points to AmI business landscape:
Initial premium value niche markets in industrial, commercial or
public applications where enhanced interfaces are needed to support
human performance in fast moving or delicate situations.
Start-up and spin-off opportunities from identifying potential
service requirements and putting the services together that meet these
new needs.
High access-low entry cost based on a loss leadership model in order to create economies of scale (mass customization).
Audience or customer's attention economy as a basis for 'free'
end-user services paid for by advertising or complementary services or
goods.
Self-provision—based upon the network economies of very large user
communities providing information as a gift or at near zero cost (e.g.
social networking applications).
The combination of multiple and diverse datasets in a platform for sense-making and understanding consumer behaviour (e.g. Near).
Technologies
A variety of technologies can be used to enable Ambient intelligence environments such as (Gasson & Warwick 2007):
Her (2013 film).
The opening scene depicts the protagonist commuting home, upon arriving
the various lights throughout the apartment are turned on as the
character moves through the rooms (automated lighting control).
A later scene shows that an artificial entity can also control these
systems, changing a song being played in the background to lighten a
situation, and for humorous effect.
A microchip implant is an identifyingintegrated circuit placed under the skin of an animal. The chip, about the size of a large grain of rice, uses passive radio-frequency identification
(RFID) technology, and is also known as a PIT (passive integrated
transponder) tag. Standard pet microchips are typically 11-13 mm long
(approximately 1⁄2 inch) and 2 mm in diameter.
Externally attached microchips such as RFID ear tags
are commonly used to identify farm and ranch animals, with the
exception of horses. Some external microchips can be read with the same
scanner used with implanted chips.
Uses and benefits
Animal shelters,
animal control officers and veterinarians routinely look for microchips
to return lost pets quickly to their owners, avoiding expenses for
housing, food, medical care, outplacing and euthanasia. Many shelters
place chips in all outplaced animals.
Some pet doors can be programmed to be activated by the microchips of specific animals, allowing only certain animals to use the door.
Some countries require microchips in imported animals to match vaccination records. Microchip tagging may also be required for CITES-regulated international trade in certain endangered animals: for example, Asian Arowana are tagged to limit import to captive-bred fish. Also, birds not banded who cross international borders as pets or for trade must be microchipped so that each bird is uniquely identifiable.
Usage
Information about the implant is often imprinted on a collar tag worn by a pet
Microchips can be implanted by a veterinarian or at a shelter. After
checking that the animal does not already have a chip, the vet or
technician injects the chip with a syringe and records the chip's unique
ID. No anesthetic is required it is a simple procedure and causes
little discomfort: the pain is minimal and short-lived. Studies on horses show swelling and increased sensitivity take approximately three days to resolve.
Humans report swelling and bruising at the time of implant, two to four
weeks for scar tissue to form and itching and pinching sensations for
up to two years. A test scan ensures correct operation.
Some shelters and vets designate themselves as the primary
contact to remain informed about possible problems with the animals they
place. The form is sent to a registry, who may be the chip
manufacturer, distributor or an independent entity such as a pet recovery service.
Some countries have a single official national database. For a fee, the
registry typically provides 24-hour, toll-free telephone service for
the life of the pet. Some veterinarians leave registration to the owner,
usually done online, but a chip without current contact information is
essentially useless.
The owner receives a registration certificate with the chip ID
and recovery service contact information. The information can also be
imprinted on a collar tag worn by the animal. Like an automobile title,
the certificate serves as proof of ownership and is transferred with
the animal when it is sold or traded; an animal without a certificate
could be stolen. Nevertheless, there are some privacy concerns regarding the use of microchips.
Authorities and shelters examine strays for chips, providing the
recovery service with the ID number, description and location so they
may notify the owner or contact. If the pet is wearing the collar tag,
the finder does not need a chip reader to contact the registry. An owner
can also report a missing pet to the recovery service, as vets look for
chips in new animals and check with the recovery service to see if it
has been reported lost or stolen.
Many veterinarians scan an animal's chip on every visit to verify
correct operation. Some use the chip ID as their database index and
print it on receipts, test results, vaccination certifications and other
records.
Some veterinary tests and procedures require positive
identification of the animal, and a microchip may be acceptable for this
purpose as an alternative to a tattoo.
Components of a microchip
A microchip implant is a passive RFID
device. Lacking an internal power source, it remains inert until it is
powered by the scanner or another power source. While the chip itself
only interacts with limited frequencies, the device also has an antenna
that is optimized for a specific frequency, but is not selective. It may
receive, generate current with, and reradiate stray electromagnetic
waves.
Most implants contain three elements: a 'chip' or integrated circuit; a coil inductor, possibly with a ferrite core; and a capacitor.
The chip contains unique identification data and electronic circuits to
encode that information. The coil acts as the secondary winding of a transformer, receiving power inductively coupled to it from the scanner. The coil and capacitor together form a resonant LC circuit
tuned to the frequency of the scanner's oscillating magnetic field to
produce power for the chip. The chip then transmits its data back
through the coil to the scanner. The way the chip communicates with the
scanner is a method called backscatter. It becomes part of the
electromagnetic field and modulates it in a manner that communicates the
ID number to the scanner.
Example of an RFID scanner used with animal microchip implants.
These components are encased in biocompatible
soda lime or borosilicate glass and hermetically sealed. Leaded glass
should not be used for pet microchips and consumers should only accept
microchips from reliable sources. The glass is also sometimes coated
with polymers. Parylene C
(chlorinated poly-dimethylbenzene) has become a common coating. Plastic
pet microchips have been registered in the international registry since
2012 under Datamars manufacturer code 981 and are being implanted in pets. The patent suggests it is a silicon filled polyester sheath, but the manufacturer does not disclose the exact composition.
Implant location
In dogs and cats,
chips are usually inserted below the skin at the back of the neck
between the shoulder blades on the dorsal midline. According to one
reference, continental European pets get the implant in the left side of
the neck. The chip can often be felt under the skin. Thin layers of connective tissue form around the implant and hold it in place.
Horses
are microchipped on the left side of the neck, halfway between the poll
and withers and approximately one inch below the midline of the mane,
into the nuchal ligament.
Birds are implanted in their breast muscles. Proper restraint is necessary so the operation requires either two people (an avian veterinarian and a veterinary technician) or general anesthesia.
Microchips are not yet universal, but they are legally required in some jurisdictions such as the state of New South Wales, Australia
and the United Kingdom (for dogs, since 6 April 2016).
Some countries, such as Japan, require ISO-compliant microchips or a compatible reader on imported dogs and cats.
In New Zealand, all dogs first registered after 1 July 2006 must be microchipped. Farmers protested that farm dogs should be exempt, drawing a parallel to the Dog Tax War of 1898. Farm dogs were exempted from microchipping in an amendment to the legislation passed in June 2006. A National Animal Identification and Tracing scheme in New Zealand is currently being developed for tracking livestock.
In April 2012 Northern Ireland became the first part of the United Kingdom to require microchipping of individually licensed dogs. Dog microchipping became mandatory in England on 6 April 2016.
The United States uses the National Animal Identification System
for farm and ranch animals other than dogs and cats. In most species
except horses, an external eartag is typically used in lieu of an
implant microchip. Eartags with microchips or simply stamped with a
visible number can be used. Both use ISO fifteen-digit microchip numbers
with the U.S. country code of 840.
Cross-compatibility and standards issues
In
most countries, pet ID chips adhere to an international standard to
promote compatibility between chips and scanners. In the United States,
however, three proprietary types of chips compete along with the
international standard. Scanners distributed to United States shelters
and veterinarians well into 2006 could each read at most three of the
four types. Scanners with quad-read capability are now available and are
increasingly considered required equipment. Older scanner models will
be in use for some time, so United States pet owners must still choose
between a chip with good coverage by existing scanners and one
compatible with the international standard. The four types include:
The ISO conformant full-duplex
type has the greatest international acceptance. It is common in many
countries including Canada and large parts of Europe (since the late
1990s). It is one of two chip protocol types (along with the
"half-duplex" type sometimes used in farm and ranch animals) that
conform to International Organization for Standardization standards ISO 11784 and ISO 11785. To support international/multivendor application, the three-digit country code can contain an assigned ISO country code or a manufacturer code from 900 to 998 plus its identifying serial number.
In the United States, distribution of this type has been
controversial. When 24PetWatch.com began distributing them in 2003 (and
more famously Banfield Pet Hospitals in 2004) many shelter scanners couldn't read them. At least one Banfield-chipped pet was inadvertently euthanized.
The Trovan Unique type is another pet chip protocol type in use since 1990 in pets in the United States.
Patent problems forced the withdrawal of Trovan's implanter device from
United States distribution and they became uncommon in pets in the
United States, although Trovan's original registry database
"infopet.biz" remained in operation. In early 2007, the American Kennel Club's
chip registration service, AKC Companion Animal Recovery Corp, which
had been the authorized registry for HomeAgain brand chips made by
Destron/Digital Angel, began distributing Trovan chips with a different
implanter. These chips are read by the Trovan, HomeAgain (Destron
Fearing), and Bayer (Black Label) readers. Despite multiple offers from
Trovan to AVID
to license the technology to read the Trovan chips, AVID continues to
distribute readers that do not read Trovan or the ISO compliant chips.
A third type, sometimes known as FECAVA or Destron,
is available under various brand names. These include, in the United
States, "Avid Eurochip", the common current 24PetWatch chips, and the
original (and still popular) style of HomeAgain chips. (HomeAgain and
24Petwatch can now supply the true ISO chip instead on request.) Chips
of this type have ten-digit hexadecimal
chip numbers. This "FECAVA" type is readable on a wide variety of
scanners in the United States and has been less controversial, although
its level of adherence to the ISO standards is sometimes exaggerated in
some descriptions.
The ISO standard has an annex (appendix) recommending that three older
chip types be supported by scanners, including a 35-bit
"FECAVA"/"Destron" type.
The common Eurochip/HomeAgain chips don't agree perfectly with the
annex description, although the differences are sometimes considered
minor. But the ISO standard also makes it clear
that only its 64-bit "full-duplex" and "half-duplex" types are
"conformant"; even chips (e.g., the Trovan Unique) that match one of the
Annex descriptions are not. More visibly, FECAVA cannot support the ISO
standard's required country/manufacturer codes. They may be accepted by
authorities in many countries where ISO-standard chips are the norm,
but not by those requiring literal ISO conformance.
Finally, there's the AVID brand Friendchip type, which is
peculiar due to its encryption characteristics. Cryptographic features
are not necessarily unwelcome; few pet rescuers or humane societies
would object to a design that outputs an ID number "in the clear" for
anyone to read, along with authentication features for detection of
counterfeit chips, but the authentication in "Friendchips" has been
found lacking and rather easy to spoof to the AVID scanner.
Although no authentication encryption is involved, obfuscation requires
proprietary information to convert transmitted chip data to its
original label ID code. Well into 2006, scanners containing the
proprietary decryption were provided to the United States market only by
AVID and Destron/Digital Angel; Destron/Digital Angel put the
decryption feature in some, but not all, of its scanners, possibly as
early as 1996. (For years, its scanners distributed to shelters through
HomeAgain usually had full decryption, while many sold to veterinarians
would only state that an AVID chip had been found.) Well into 2006,
both were resisting calls from consumers and welfare group officials to
bring scanners to the United States shelter community combining AVID
decryption capability with the ability to read ISO-compliant chips. Some
complained
that AVID itself had long marketed combination pet scanners compatible
with all common pet chips except possibly Trovan outside the United
States. By keeping them out of the United States, it could be considered
partly culpable in the missed-ISO chips problem others blamed on
Banfield.
In 2006, the European manufacturer Datamars, a supplier of ISO chips
used by Banfield and others, gained access to the decryption secrets and
began supplying scanners with them to United States customers. This
"Black Label" scanner was the first four-standard full-multi pet scanner
in the United States market. Later in 2006, Digital Angel announced that it would supply a full-multi scanner in the United States. In 2008 AVID announced a "breakthrough" scanner, although as of October 2010
AVID's is still so uncommon that it's unclear whether it supports the
Trovan chip. Trovan also acquired the decryption technology in 2006 or
earlier, and now provides it in scanners distributed in the United
States by AKC-CAR. (Some are quad-read, but others lack full ISO
support.)
Numerous references in print state that the incompatibilities between
different chip types are a matter of "frequency". One may find claims
that early ISO adopters in the United States endangered their customers'
pets by giving them ISO chips that work at a "different frequency" from
the local shelter's scanner, or that the United States government
considered forcing an incompatible frequency change. These claims were
little challenged by manufacturers and distributors of ISO chips,
although later evidence suggests the claims were disinformation. In
fact, all chips operate at the scanner's frequency. Although ISO chips
are optimized for 134.2 kHz,
in practice they are readable at 125 kHz and the "125 kHz" chips are
readable at 134.2 kHz. Confirmation comes from government filings that
indicate the supposed "multi-frequency" scanners now commonly available
are really single-frequency scanners operating at 125, 134.2 or 128 kHz.
In particular, the United States HomeAgain scanner didn't change
excitation frequency when ISO-read capability was added; it's still a
single frequency, 125 kHz scanner.
Microchip implant (human)
A surgeon implants British scientist Dr Mark Gasson in his left hand with an RFID microchip (March 16, 2009)
A human microchip implant is typically an identifying integrated circuit device or RFID transponder encased in silicate glass and implanted in the body of a human being. This type of subdermal implant usually contains a unique ID number that can be linked to information contained in an external database, such as personal identification, law enforcement, medical history, medications, allergies, and contact information.
History
The first experiments with a radio-frequency identification (RFID) implant were carried out in 1998 by the British scientist Kevin Warwick.
His implant was used to open doors, switch on lights, and cause verbal
output within a building. After nine days the implant was removed and
has since been held in the Science Museum in London.
In early March 2005 hobbyist Amal Graafstra implanted a 125khz EM4102 bioglass-encased RFID transponder into his left hand. It was used with an access control system to gain entry to his office. Soon after in June 2005 he implanted a more advanced HITAG S 2048 low frequency transponder. In 2007 he authored the book RFID Toys,
Graafstra uses his implants to access his home, open car doors, and to
log on to his computer. With public interest growing, in 2013 he
launched biohacking company Dangerous Things and crowdfunded the world's first implantable NFC transponder in 2014. He has also spoken at various events and promotional gigs including TEDx, and built a smartgun that only fires after reading his implant.
On 16 March 2009 British scientist Mark Gasson
had a glass capsule RFID device surgically implanted into his left
hand. In April 2010 Gasson's team demonstrated how a computer virus
could wirelessly infect his implant and then be transmitted on to other
systems.
Gasson reasoned that with implanted technology the separation between
man and machine can become theoretical because the technology can be
perceived by the human as being a part of their body. Because of this
development in our understanding of what constitutes our body and its
boundaries he became credited as being the first human infected by a computer virus. He has no plans to remove his implant.
Hobbyists
An RFID tag visible under the skin soon after being implanted.
Several hobbyists have placed RFID microchip implants into their hands or had them inserted by others.
Alejandro Hernandez CEO of Futura is known to be the first in
Central America to have a Dangerous Things transponder installed in his
left hand by Federico Cortes in November 2017.
Mikey Sklar had a chip implanted into his left hand and filmed the procedure.
Jonathan Oxer self-implanted an RFID chip in his arm using a veterinary implantation tool.
Martijn Wismeijer, Dutch marketing manager for Bitcoin ATM manufacturer General Bytes, placed RFID chips in both of his hands to store his Bitcoin private keys and business card.
Patric Lanhed sent a “bio-payment” of one euro worth of Bitcoin using a chip embedded in his hand.
Marcel Varallo had an NXP chip coated in Bioglass
8625 inserted into his hand between his forefinger and thumb allowing
him to open secure elevators and doors at work, print from secure
printers, unlock his mobile phone and home, and store his digital
business card for transfer to mobile phones enabled for NFC.
Biohacker Hannes Sjöblad has been experimenting with near field communication
(NFC) chip implants since 2015. During his talk at Echappée Voléé 2016
in Paris, Sjöblad disclosed that he has also implanted himself between
his forefinger and thumb and uses it to unlock doors, make payments, and
unlock his phone (essentially replacing anything you can put in your
pockets). Additionally, Sjöblad has hosted several "implant parties," where interested individuals can also be implanted with the chip.
Commercial implants
Digital identity
VivoKey Technologies developed the first cryptographically-secure human implantable NFC transponders in 2018. The Spark is an AES128 bit capable ISO/IEC 15693
2mm by 12mm bioglass encased injectable device. The Flex One is an
implantable contactless secure element, capable of running Java Card
applets (software programs) including Bitcoin wallets, PGP, OATH OTP,
U2F, WebAuthn, etc. It is encapsulated in a flat, flexible 7mm x 34mm x
0.4mm flat biopolymer shell. Applets can be deployed to the Flex One
before or after implantation.
Medical records
Researchers
have examined microchip implants in humans in the medical field and
they indicate that there are potential benefits and risks to
incorporating the device in the medical field. For example, it could be
beneficial for noncompliant patients but still poses great risks for
potential misuse of the device.
Destron Fearing, a subsidiary of Digital Angel, initially developed the technology for the VeriChip.
In 2004, the VeriChip implanted device and reader were classified as Class II: General controls with special controls by the FDA; that year the FDA also published a draft guidance describing the special controls required to market such devices.
About the size of a grain of rice, the device was typically
implanted between the shoulder and elbow area of an individual’s right
arm. Once scanned at the proper frequency, the chip responded with a
unique 16-digit number which could be then linked with information about
the user held on a database for identity verification, medical records
access and other uses. The insertion procedure was performed under local
anesthetic in a physician's office.
Privacy advocates raised concerns regarding potential abuse of
the chip, with some warning that adoption by governments as a compulsory
identification program could lead to erosion of civil liberties, as
well as identity theft if the device should be hacked.
Another ethical dilemma posed by the technology, is that people with
dementia could possibly benefit the most from an implanted device that
contained their medical records, but issues of informed consent are the most difficult in precisely such people.
In June 2007, the American Medical Association
declared that "implantable radio frequency identification (RFID)
devices may help to identify patients, thereby improving the safety and
efficiency of patient care, and may be used to enable secure access to
patient clinical information",
but in the same year, news reports linking similar devices to cancer
caused in laboratory animals had a devastating impact on the company's
stock price and sales.
In 2010, the company, by then called PositiveID, withdrew the product from the market due to poor sales.
In January 2012, PositiveID sold the chip assets to a company
called VeriTeQ that was owned by Scott Silverman, the former CEO of
Positive ID.
In 2016, JAMM Technologies acquired the chip assets from VeriTeQ; JAMM's business plan was to partner with companies selling implanted medical devices and use the RfID tags to monitor and identify the devices. JAMM Technologies is co-located in the same Plymouth, Minnesota building as Geissler Corporation with Randolph K. Geissler and Donald R. Brattain
listed as its principals.
The website also claims that Geissler was CEO of PositiveID Corporation,
Destron Fearing Corporation, and Digital Angel Corporation.
In 2018, A Danish firm called BiChip released a new generation of
microchip implant that is intended to be readable from distance and
connected to Internet. The company released an update for its microchip
implant to associate it with the Ripple cryptocurrency to allow payments to be made using the implanted microchip.
Building access and security
In
February 2006, CityWatcher, Inc. of Cincinnati, OH became the first
company in the world to implant microchips into their employees as part
of their building access control and security system. The workers needed
the implants to access the company's secure video tape room, as
documented in USA Today.
The project was initiated and implemented by Six Sigma Security, Inc.
The VeriChip Corporation had originally marketed the implant as a way
to restrict access to secure facilities such as power plants.
A major drawback for such systems is the relative ease with which
the 16-digit ID number contained in a chip implant can be obtained and
cloned using a hand-held device, a problem that has been demonstrated
publicly by security researcher Jonathan Westhues and documented in the May 2006 issue of Wired magazine, among other places.
The Baja Beach Club, a nightclub in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, once used VeriChip implants for identifying VIP guests.
The Epicenter in Stockholm, Sweden is using RFID implants for employees to operate security doors, copiers, and pay for lunch.
Possible future applications
In 2017 Mike Miller, chief executive of the World Olympians Association,
was widely reported as suggesting the use of such implants in athletes
in an attempt to reduce problems in sport due to drug taking.
Theoretically, a GPS-enabled chip could one day make it possible
for individuals to be physically located by latitude, longitude,
altitude, and velocity. Such implantable GPS devices are not technically
feasible at this time. However, if widely deployed at some future
point, implantable GPS devices could conceivably allow authorities to
locate missing persons and/or fugitives and those who fled from a crime scene. Critics contend, however, that the technology could lead to political repression
as governments could use implants to track and persecute human rights
activists, labor activists, civil dissidents, and political opponents;
criminals and domestic abusers could use them to stalk and harass their
victims; and child abusers could use them to locate and abduct children.
Another suggested application for a tracking implant, discussed in 2008 by the legislature of Indonesia's Irian Jaya would be to monitor the activities of persons infected with HIV, aimed at reducing their chances of infecting other people. The microchipping section was not, however, included into the final version of the provincial HIV/AIDS Handling bylaw passed by the legislature in December 2008. With current technology, this would not be workable anyway, since there is no implantable device on the market with GPS tracking capability.
Since modern payment methods rely upon RFID/NFC, it is thought
that implantable microchips, if they were to ever become popular in use,
would form a part of the cashless society.
Verichip implants have already been used in nightclubs such as the Baja
club for such a purpose, allowing patrons to purchase drinks with their
implantable microchip.
Anti-Rhetoric Claims
Cancer
In a self-published report anti-RFID advocate Katherine Albrecht, who refers to RFID devices as "spy chips", cites veterinary and toxicological
studies carried out from 1996 to 2006 which found lab rodents injected
with microchips as an incidental part of unrelated experiments and dogs
implanted with identification microchips sometimes developed cancerous
tumors at the injection site (subcutaneoussarcomas) as evidence of a human implantation risk.
However, the link between foreign-body tumorigenesis in lab animals and
implantation in humans has been publicly refuted as erroneous and
misleading and the report's author has been criticized over the use of "provocative" language "not based in scientific fact".
Notably, none of the studies cited specifically set out to investigate
the cancer risk of implanted microchips and so none of the studies had a
control group of animals that did not get implanted. While the issue is
considered worthy of further investigation, one of the studies cited
cautioned "Blind leaps from the detection of tumors to the prediction of
human health risk should be avoided".
Security risks
The Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs (CEJA) of the American Medical Association published a report in 2007 alleging that RFID implanted chips may compromise privacy because there is no assurance that the information contained in the chip can be properly protected.
Legislation
United States
Following Wisconsin and North Dakota, California issued Senate Bill 362
in 2007, which makes it illegal to force a person to have a microchip
implanted, and provide for an assessment of civil penalties against
violators of the bill.
In 2008, Oklahoma passed 63 OK Stat § 63-1-1430 (2008 S.B. 47), that bans involuntary microchip implants in humans.
On April 5, 2010, the GeorgiaSenate
passed Senate Bill 235 that prohibits forced microchip implants in
humans and that would make it a misdemeanor for anyone to require them,
including employers.
The bill would allow voluntary microchip implants, as long as they are
performed by a physician and regulated by the Georgia Composite Medical
Board. The state's House of Representatives did not take up the measure.
On February 10, 2010, Virginia's House of Delegates also passed a bill that forbids companies from forcing their employees to be implanted with tracking devices.
Washington State
House Bill 1142-2009-10 orders a study using implanted radio frequency
identification or other similar technology to electronically monitor sex
offenders and other felons.
In popular culture
The
general public are most familiar with microchips in the context of
tracking their pets. In the U.S., some Christian activists, including
conspiracy theorist Mark Dice, the author of a book titled The Resistance Manifesto, make a link between the PositiveID and the Biblical Mark of the Beast, prophesied to be a future requirement for buying and selling, and a key element of the Book of Revelation.
Gary Wohlscheid, president of These Last Days Ministries, has argued
that "Out of all the technologies with potential to be the mark of the
beast, VeriChip has got the best possibility right now". "Arkangel", an episode of the fictional drama series Black Mirror, considered the potential for helicopter parenting of an imagined more advanced microchip.
The transistor count is the number of transistors on an integrated circuit (IC). It typically refers to the number of MOSFETs
(metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors, or MOS
transistors) on an IC chip, as all modern ICs use MOSFETs. It is the
most common measure of IC complexity (although the majority of
transistors in modern microprocessors are contained in the cache memories, which consist mostly of the same memory cell circuits replicated many times). The rate at which MOS transistor counts have increased generally follows Moore's law, which observed that the transistor count doubles approximately every two years.
As of 2019, the largest transistor count in a commercially available microprocessor is 39.54billion MOSFETs, in AMD's Zen 2 based Epyc Rome, which is a 3D integrated circuit (with eight dies in a single package) fabricated using TSMC's 7 nmFinFETsemiconductor manufacturing process. As of 2018, the highest transistor count in a graphics processing unit (GPU) is Nvidia's GV100Volta with 21.1billion MOSFETs, manufactured using TSMC's 12 nm FinFET process. As of 2019, the highest transistor count in any IC chip is Samsung's 1TBeUFS (3D-stacked) V-NAND flash memory chip, with 2trillion floating-gate MOSFETs (4bits per transistor). As of 2019, the highest transistor count in a non-memory chip is a deep learning
engine called the Wafer Scale Engine by Cerebras, using a special
design to route around any non-functional core on the device; it has 1.2trillion MOSFETs, manufactured using TSMC's 16 nm FinFET process.
In terms of computer systems that consist of numerous integrated circuits, the supercomputer with the highest transistor count as of 2016 is the Chinese-designed Sunway TaihuLight, which has for all CPUs/nodes (1012 for the 10 million cores and for RAM 1015 for the 1.3 million GB) combined "about 400 trillion transistors in the processing part of the hardware" and "the DRAM includes about 12 quadrillion transistors, and that’s about 97 percent of all the transistors." To compare, the smallest computer, as of 2018
dwarfed by a grain of sand, has on the order of 100,000 transistors,
and the one, fully programmable, with the fewest transistors ever has
130 transistors or fewer.
In terms of the total number of transistors in existence, it has been estimated that a total of 13sextillion (1.3 × 1022)
MOSFETs have been manufactured worldwide between 1960 and 2018,
accounting for at least 99.9% of all transistors. This makes the MOSFET
the most widely manufactured device in history.
Among the earliest products to use transistors were portable transistor radios, introduced in 1954, which typically used 4 to 8 transistors, often advertising the number on the radio's case. However, early junction transistors were relatively bulky devices that were difficult to manufacture on a mass-production basis, limiting the transistor counts and restricting their usage to a number of specialised applications.
A microprocessor incorporates the functions of a computer's central processing unit on a single integrated circuit.
It is a multi-purpose, programmable device that accepts digital data as
input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and
provides results as output.
The development of MOS integrated circuit technology in the 1960s led to the development of the first microprocessors. The 20-bit MP944, developed by Garrett AiResearch for the U.S. Navy's F-14 Tomcat fighter in 1970, is considered by its designer Ray Holt to be the first microprocessor. It was a multi-chip microprocessor, fabricated on six MOS chips. However, it was classified by the Navy until 1998. The 4-bitIntel 4004, released in 1971, was the first single-chip microprocessor. It was made possible with an improvement in MOSFET design, MOS silicon-gate technology (SGT), developed in 1968 at Fairchild Semiconductor by Federico Faggin, who went on to use MOS SGT technology to develop the 4004 with Marcian Hoff, Stanley Mazor and Masatoshi Shima at Intel.
All chips over e.g. a million transistors have lots of memory,
usually cache memories in level 1 and 2 or more levels, accounting for
most transistors on microprocessors in modern times, where large caches
have become the norm. The level 1 caches of the Pentium Pro
die accounted for over 14% of its transistors, while the much larger L2
cache was on a separate die, but on-package, so it's not included in
the transistor count. Later chips included more levels, L2 or even L3
on-chip. The last DEC Alpha chip made has 90% of it for cache.
While Intel's i960CA
small cache of 1 KB, at about 50,000 transistors, isn't a big part of
the chip, it alone would have been very large in early microprocessors.
In the ARM 3 chip, with 4 KB, the cache was over 63% of the chip, and in the Intel 80486 its larger cache is only over a third of it because the rest of the
chip is more complex. So cache memories are the largest factor, except
for in early chips with smaller caches or even earlier chips with no
cache at all. Then the inherent complexity, e.g. number of instructions,
is the dominant factor, more than e.g. the memory the registers of the
chip represent.
GPUs
A graphics processing unit
(GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to rapidly
manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the building of images in a
frame buffer intended for output to a display.
The random-access memory (RAM) that comes with GPUs (such as VRAM, SGRAM or HBM) greatly increase the total transistor count, with the memory typically accounting for the majority of transistors in a graphics card. For example, Nvidia's Tesla P100 has 15billion FinFETs (16 nm) in the GPU in addition to 16GB of HBM2 memory, totaling about 150billion MOSFETs on the graphics card.
Typical CMOS
SRAM consists of six transistors per cell. For DRAM, 1T1C, which means
one transistor and one capacitor structure, is common. Capacitor charged
or not is used to store 1 or 0. For flash memory, the data is stored in
floating gate, and the resistance of the transistor is sensed to
interpret the data stored. Depending on how fine scale the resistance
could be separated, one transistor could store up to 3-bits,
meaning eight distinctive level of resistance possible per transistor.
However, the fine the scale comes with cost of repeatability therefore
reliability. Typically, low grade 2-bits MLC flash is used for flash drives, so a 16 GB flash drive contains roughly 64 billion transistors.
For SRAM chips, six-transistor cells (six transistors per bit) was the standard.
DRAM chips during the early 1970s had three-transistor cells (three
transistors per bit), before single-transistor cells (one transistor per
bit) became standard since the era of 4Kb DRAM in the mid-1970s. In single-level flash memory, each cell contains one floating-gate MOSFET (one transistor per bit), whereas multi-level flash contains 2, 3 or 4 bits per transistor.
Flash memory chips are commonly stacked up in layers, up to 128-layer in production, and 136-layer managed, and available in end-user devices up to 69-layer from manufacturers.
Transistor computers
Before transistors were invented, relays were used in early computers. The world's first working programmable, fully automatic digital computer, the 1941 Z3 22-bitword length computer, had 2,600 relays, and operated at a clock frequency of about 4–5 Hz. The 1940 Complex Number Computer had fewer than 500 relays, but it was not fully programmable.
The second generation of computers were transistor computers that featured boards filled with discrete transistors and magnetic memory cores. The experimental 1953 48-bitTransistor Computer, developed at the University of Manchester,
is widely believed to be the first transistor computer to come into
operation anywhere in the world (the prototype had 92 point-contact
transistors and 550 diodes).
A later version the 1955 machine had a total of 250 junction
transistors and 1300 point diodes. The Computer also used a small number
of tubes in its clock generator, so it was not the first fully transistorized. The ETL Mark III, developed at the Electrotechnical Laboratory in 1956, may have been the first transistor-based electronic computer using the stored program
method. It had about "130 point-contact transistors and about 1,800
germanium diodes were used for logic elements, and these were housed on
300 plug-in packages which could be slipped in and out. The 1958 decimal architectureIBM 7070
was the first transistor computer to be fully programmable. It had
about 30,000 alloy-junction germanium transistors and 22,000 germanium
diodes, on approximately 14,000 Standard Modular System (SMS) cards. The 1959 MOBIDIC, short for "MOBIle DIgital Computer", at 12,000 pounds (6.0 short tons) mounted in the trailer of a semi-trailer truck, was a transistorized computer for battlefield data.
The third generation of computers used integrated circuits (ICs).[245] The 1962 15-bitApollo Guidance Computer used "about 4,000 "Type-G" (3-input NOR gate) circuits" for about 12,000 transistors plus 32,000 resistors.
The first commercial IC-based computer was the IBM System/360 in 1964. The 1965 12-bitPDP-8
CPU had 1409 transistors and over 10,000 diodes. It was not a
microprocessor, as it used discrete transistors on many cards; but later
microprocessors, such as the Intersil 6100 reimplemented it.
The next generation of computers were the microcomputers, also known as home computers or personal computers (PC), which used MOSmicroprocessors,
in the 1970s. This list includes early transistorized computers (second
generation) and IC-based computers (third generation) from the 1950s
and 1960s.
Parallel systems
Historically, each processing element in earlier parallel systems—like all CPUs of that time—was a serial computer
built out of multiple chips. As transistor counts per chip increases,
each processing element could be built out of fewer chips, and then
later each multi-core processor chip could contain more processing elements.
Goodyear MPP: (1983?) 8 pixel processors per chip, 3,000 to 8,000 transistors per chip.
Brunel University Scape (single-chip array-processing element):
(1983) 256 pixel processors per chip, 120,000 to 140,000 transistors per
chip.
Cell Broadband Engine: (2006) with 9 cores per chip, had 234 million transistors per chip.
Transistor density
The transistor density is the number of transistors that are fabricated per unit area, typically measured in terms of the number of transistors per square millimeter (mm²). The transistor density usually correlates with the gate length of a semiconductor node (also known as a semiconductor manufacturing process), typically measured in nanometers (nm). As of 2019, the semiconductor node with the highest transistor density is TSMC's 5 nanometer node, with 171.3million transistors per square millimeter.
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