[Tracefl0w]

I personally wouldn't.
On that note, does anybody know what the long term consequences of having a foreign object in the body are?
Are your hand movements impaired in any way?

[Jiggly]

I personally wouldn't.
On that note, does anybody know what the long term consequences of having a foreign object in the body are?
Are your hand movements impaired in any way?

My feelings on this are: Not at this moment in time. One of the many reasons for this include Tracefl0w's questions. It's not something that's been done on a large scale, so we don't yet know the impact both in day to day life and from a medical standpoint.

Neat to see people actually doing this, regardless of the possible consequences. What happens if the chip goes bad or needs replacing? Also wondering what happens if they scan you at the airport.

Undoubtedly that will show up. It would be difficult to explain too...

I could easily see chips being something of a norm, but I could also see why they may never catch on. Security and safety are two very good arguments against it.

[innocent21]

That is soooo crazy!!!!! What's the point really, and do we really need to inject microchips in ourselves?

[zorrophreak]

This basically allows me to use my phone as a keycard, unlock my computer, unlock my car, start my car

And If your phone Is compromised, say goodbye to your aforementioned possessions.

and that's why I've switched to the NFC chip. I've never used my phone for it, but its the same NFC technology.

Neat to see people actually doing this, regardless of the possible consequences. What happens if the chip goes bad or needs replacing? Also wondering what happens if they scan you at the airport.

1. If the chip goes bad (which its rated for hundreds of writes and hundreds of thousands of reads) then I would either let it stay in, or make a small incision near where the chip is located and push it out. Then I would either way for it to heal, or implant in another location. The NFC spec allows for you to password lock the chip and prevent it from being locked as readable-only. That way if you need to completely reset the data transmitted in order to change the "password" so to speak, it would be just a matter of writing new data to the chip.

2. If they were to scan me at the airport, Several people have gone through the procedure and not triggered TSA sensors, however if it were to happen, because my implantation is documented through video, and I can explain the purpose.

I personally wouldn't.
On that note, does anybody know what the long term consequences of having a foreign object in the body are?
Are your hand movements impaired in any way?

Long term consequences, think of it like a pacemaker. The chip is almost identical to the kind implanted in pets for identification, except these have been tested explicitly on humans. It is possible that my body will reject it. Not only that, over time, my body could reject it later if something were to happen to the chip itself, such as my hand getting hit or cut directly in that spot.

Currently, I try to be exceptionally careful about my movements until the point of injection heals up completely so that it has no risk of exiting back out the entry point.

Aside from that though, I placed it in between the first and second metacarpal bones, taking exceptional care to avoid the chip passing to interfere in any way with the trapezoid or trapezium. For those less medically inclined, I pulled up the skin in between the thumb and index finger on my right hand making sure all major nerves, tendons, and vessels/veins are rolled away from the surface of the skin. I also made sure I injected exactly midway between the lower bone of the thumb and the lower bone of the index finger avoiding all bones.

However, if I were less careful, and were more willing to move around, I would have full range of movement with no obstruction or loss of function. I keep a bandaid on it and replace it every six hours or so and will continue to do so until the entry point has completely healed which makes it difficult to move my fingers, but that's just because of the tightly placed bandaid. Once the entry point heals, I will have full range of movement, and will pretty much be able to forget about its existence unless I use it.

It's not something that's been done on a large scale, so we don't yet know the impact both in day to day life and from a medical standpoint.

Correct, there are more people with the procedure done than you would imagine, but we don't have truly widespread adoption and research. Day to day, it does not affect me in any way, and the only change in lifestyle is the new RFID/NFC keycard in my hand, and the same goes for most others who have adopted these chips.

From a medical standpoint, there is a viable cause for concern, but it isn't something that can be widely tested in the medical world right now which is why so many smaller groups like Grindhouse Wetware, Dangerous Things, Cyberise, and Lattice Labs are performing the research and making the devices available to independent researchers. We're practically giving medical firms early stage testing in order to make it easy to kickstart their research. It has a proven track record in domestic animals such as dogs and cats, and the biocompatible glass coating (Schott 8625 "bioglass") is made for use in both humans and domestic animals, and has been proven for that purpose, which means that as long as the bioglass capsule is sealed correctly and not compromised in any way, it should not reject aside from poor implantation procedures.

I could easily see chips being something of a norm, but I could also see why they may never catch on. Security and safety are two very good arguments against it.

More advanced chips are being developed by the big names in bioimplants (Cyberise and Dangerous Things) with some of the smaller groups coming close behind. The VivoKey chip developed by Dangerous Things is capable of performing advanced cryptographic functions much like that in the EMV card systems. It allows you to perform contactless payments, while avoiding exposing the secret keys directly, as this chip would. Because of this, the mData style chip like I have is not capable of performing contactless payments, but it has the underlying technology to do so.

That is soooo crazy!!!!! What's the point really, and do we really need to inject microchips in ourselves?

The point for myself is to work towards advancing human biology and to improve the augmentations possible to humans. I like the concept of carrying a keycard in my hand. I am my keys in a sense.

Is it necessary, not in the slightest. There is absolutely zero need to inject microchips right now. Lattice Labs is working on an NFC chip that reads temperature data in the body and transmits it over NFC so that you can check your internal body temperature with your phone and less than 15 seconds. It is based on the technology of the Destron-Fearing biothermo chips which transmit body temperature via RFID, but are far more ideal for large animals such as cattle or horses, but not entirely disfunctional in humans.

It isn't necessary, but it is a cool thing to have, and it will become a more functional thing in the future, both with advances in the technology, and how it stands in its current form.

EDIT: Holy hell that's a long ass response.

[Nutany]

Jesus, you have balls of steel for doing it yourself.

[mothered]

This basically allows me to use my phone as a keycard, unlock my computer, unlock my car, start my car

And If your phone Is compromised, say goodbye to your aforementioned possessions.

and that's why I've switched to the NFC chip. I've never used my phone for it, but its the same NFC technology.

Certainly a smart move.

[CSS]

Kudos to you for having the balls to even consider implanting magnets in your fingertips.
Just reading that and having the taught that my nerves would go crazy makes my stomach turn around lmao.
Do you have any other plans for your NFC chip?

[zorrophreak]

Kudos to you for having the balls to even consider implanting magnets in your fingertips.
Just reading that and having the taught that my nerves would go crazy makes my stomach turn around lmao.
Do you have any other plans for your NFC chip?

I've considered reaching out to some of the manufacturers and setting up a system to allow for digital access control (a password manager type system) based on these NFC implants. Not sure about it yet.

[Jiggly]

It's not something that's been done on a large scale, so we don't yet know the impact both in day to day life and from a medical standpoint.

Correct, there are more people with the procedure done than you would imagine, but we don't have truly widespread adoption and research. Day to day, it does not affect me in any way, and the only change in lifestyle is the new RFID/NFC keycard in my hand, and the same goes for most others who have adopted these chips.

From a medical standpoint, there is a viable cause for concern, but it isn't something that can be widely tested in the medical world right now which is why so many smaller groups like Grindhouse Wetware, Dangerous Things, Cyberise, and Lattice Labs are performing the research and making the devices available to independent researchers. We're practically giving medical firms early stage testing in order to make it easy to kickstart their research. It has a proven track record in domestic animals such as dogs and cats, and the biocompatible glass coating (Schott 8625 "bioglass") is made for use in both humans and domestic animals, and has been proven for that purpose, which means that as long as the bioglass capsule is sealed correctly and not compromised in any way, it should not reject aside from poor implantation procedures.

I could easily see chips being something of a norm, but I could also see why they may never catch on. Security and safety are two very good arguments against it.

More advanced chips are being developed by the big names in bioimplants (Cyberise and Dangerous Things) with some of the smaller groups coming close behind. The VivoKey chip developed by Dangerous Things is capable of performing advanced cryptographic functions much like that in the EMV card systems. It allows you to perform contactless payments, while avoiding exposing the secret keys directly, as this chip would. Because of this, the mData style chip like I have is not capable of performing contactless payments, but it has the underlying technology to do so.

I certainly think it's viable. And advances like this are rarely done with en masse. Plenty of trials and case studies can contribute to a pool of information which can inform developers and researches until we are at a point where they are viable en masse. However, my concerns weren't so much that it's possible, or that it wouldn't one day perfectly safe from a medical standpoint. It's more the way in which people will view them. For example, there are many medical procedures that I could get now which are an implant of some kind or another, but choose not to, simply because I find the idea unsettling. I think it would take some time to get chipping to a point where it's a norm.

I feel like this topic could lead to larger more philosophical conversation - Human augmentation, what's next? xD

[HJDKM]

Very cool! Chips in our hands will become somewhat of a norm, but it probably won't become common practice in our lifetimes. I'd get it done myself if there were more practical uses for it commonly available. However I'm content with my phone being the NFC medium for the time being,. Especially since I always have my phone with me. Thanks for being an early adopter of this procedure, definitely interested in these kind of technological advancements!