We currently have tiny computers in our pockets and on our wrists, and in the future we might have them in our bloodstreams. At a tech conference last week, Jawbone CEO Hosain Rahman said his company is looking into developing ingestible health sensors that could go deeper — literally — than Jawbone’s Up line of fitness and sleep trackers. You’d swallow the sensor, and it would collect and analyze your data.
Rahman suggested there could be shorter-term sensors that you swallow and later “pass,” and others that would stick around in your blood to keep tabs on things like circulation or blood-alcohol content. Maybe such an ingestible could communicate with your car, rendering it useless if you attempt to drive while over the legal limit.
Fortune reports that there are other smart pills in the works, including one from Google that could detect diseases on a cellular level, and others already approved by the Food and Drug Administration, like a sensor that can tell people how much medicine their body is absorbing via a Bluetooth-enabled app. The future: filled with exciting new ways to feed our hypochondria.
