Inventors keep coming up with new ways to exploit RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags. The latest brainwave, from Kodak, is to use them to probe a person's digestive system.
RFID tags are tiny radio chips that resonate with a single echo when hit with a radio trigger. Kodak's digestible tags are harmless and intentionally fragile. The tags would be covered with soft gelatin that takes a while to dissolve in the stomach. After swallowing a tag a patient need only sit next to a radio source and receiver.
They stop working when exposed to gastric acid for a specific period of time, providing a subtle way to monitor a patient's digestive tract.
Kodak says that similar radio tags could also be embedded in an artificial knee or hip joint in such a way that they disintegrate as the joint does, warning of the need for more surgery. Attaching tags to ordinary pills could also help nurses confirm that a patient has really taken their medicine as ordered.
Read the full edible radio patent application.
Satellite navigation is becoming a vital tool for the modern motorist. But GPS (Global Positioning System) receivers need to compare signals from at least three orbiting satellites to determine their position. This means satellite navigation does not normally work inside a tunnel, underground or in a heavily built up area.
Two inventors from Cambridge in the UK are now patenting a system that could let satellite equipment acquire positioning information even when satellite signals are blocked.
The roof of the building, or the ground above the tunnel, is fitted with at least four directional antennae focused on different patches of the sky. These antennae receive GPS signals, then amplify and re-broadcast them using transmitters positioned at specific points below ground.
A GPS device is then fooled into behaving as if it were out in the open, providing accurate positional data from inside a tunnel, in an underground car park or in a heavily built up city. The same trick could also let GPS devices work inside buildings.
Read the full underground GPS patent application.
Disney is normally very secretive about the technology used in its theme parks. Sometimes, though, a patent spills the beans. The latest application from Disney reveals a giant walking robot, called Lucky, which should be better at walking about without falling over.
Lucky is a two legged Dinosaur made from glass fibre and latex foam, and yoked to a two wheeled wooden cart like a rickshaw, capable of carrying several passengers.
The dinosaur's body contains up to forty electric and hydraulic motors which move his legs, head and tail, with power for the motors coming from the cart via wires and tubes hidden in the yoke. A driver sits in the cart and uses a games joystick to control the motors. Lucky appears to pull the driver along, while actually the cart's powered wheels push the walking dinosaur forwards.
The smart part is that whatever Lucky does - even pretending to sneeze - he cannot topple over since the yoke securely locks him to the cart. You might say Disney has created what Nature never intended: a two-legged monster on wheels.
Read the full walking dinosaur patent application.
For more than 30 years, Barry Fox has trawled through the world's weird and wonderful patent applications, uncovering the most exciting, bizarre or even terrifying new ideas. Read previous Invention columns, including:
Covert iris scanner, personal TV censor, diamond-coated gadgets, computo-cooked perfection, Cellphone sunscreen, skateboard meets Segway, Taser gets tougher, razor light, wing-mirror cameras, body-wired headphones, rocket-repelling parachutes, tooth decay probe, laser healing, throwable game controllers, Microwave oven gun, Smart-card DVDs, Smart night scope, laser microphone, triple-standard DVD, ultimate body armour, Long-range stunner, tongue-o-vision, jellyfish injections, Flesh-burn sensor, fire-escape tubes, VoIP mangling, in-flight rearming, sense that fat, Designer speakers, throw-away parachutes, password-protected bullets, spinning touchdown, palmtop Feng Shui, Origami gadgets, mile-high showers, Hydrogen fuel balls, human cannonballs, the riot slimer, the bomb jammer, Apple's all-seeing screen, the TV-advert enforcer, the wing-sprouting drone, the drink-driver arm scanner, laser spark plugs, remote-controlled implants,the "I've been shot" gun, the snore zapper, the guitar phone, explosive-eating fungus, viper vision, exploding ink, the moody media player, the spy-diver killer, preventing in-flight interference, the inkjet-printer pen, sonic watermarks, the McDownload, hot-air plane, landmine arrows, soldiers obeying odours, coffee beer, wall-beating bugging, eyeball electronics, phone jolts, personal crash alarm, talking tooth, shark shocker, midnight call-foiler, burning bullets, a music lover's dream, magic wand for gamers, the phantom car, phone-bomb hijacking, shocking airport scans, old tyres to printer ink and eye-tracking displays.
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