Once considered science fiction, microchips can now be implanted in humans. In the last several years, the effort to market these implants to a dubious public has grown, and the backlash over potential privacy concerns has increased as well.
According to Tech Startups, Pfizer has developed an “ingestible pill” with a microchip that sends a wireless signal to authorities once the pill is swallowed.
During this week’s World Economic Forum being held in Davos, Switzerland, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla explained Pfizer’s new invention at the Transforming Health in the Fourth Industrial Revolution event.
“It’s basically a biological chip,” Bourla explained. “It is in the tablet. Once you take the tablet, and it dissolves in your stomach, it sends a signal that you have taken the tablet.” “Imagine the applications of that, the compliance. This allows companies to ensure that the medicines patients are supposed to take, they take them.”
It’s fascinating what happens in this field, he said.
But could such a pill also be used by authorities to track your activities and even measure your carbon footprint?
The same is true, according to Michael Evans, president of Alibaba Group USA, a subsidiary of Chinese internet giant Alibaba.
“We’re developing technology that will allow consumers to measure their entire carbon footprint,” he told the forum.
Evans then asked, “What does that mean?” He replied, “Where they are travelling. How they are travelling. What they are eating. What they are consuming on the platform. So individual carbon footprint tracking,” to the audience’s surprise.
Alibaba Group president J. Michael Evans boasts at the World Economic Forum about the development of an "individual carbon footprint tracker" to monitor what you buy, what you eat, and where/how you travel. pic.twitter.com/sisSrUngDI
— Andrew Lawton (@AndrewLawton) May 24, 2022
