Una compañía sueca, Cypak, para montar un pequeño microprocesador en una hoja de papel, así como para imprimir sensores, interruptores y antenas de corto alcance:
The company, Cypak, has technology to mount a very small microprocessor, which it created, on paper (or inside a credit card), as well as a technique to print sensors, switches, and very short-range antennae on the same paper, using special conductive inks.
Drug trials need data about how and when subjects consume the drugs being tested. In this application, a pill pack registers when individual pills are popped out of their plastic bubbles; it then can beep and ask the user a question like, «Are you feeling better today? Press Yes or No.» (The answer buttons are on the pack itself.) When the patient visits the doctor, the package is placed on a Cypak reader and the data is downloaded to the physician’s computer.
Certus, a drug-testing company, has just begun testing Cypak’s technology. Compared with logging and «compliance» products that use more traditional computer parts and sensors, the Cypak technology is less expensive. The chips embedded in the paper drug packages cost only a buck or two, and the scanners that read the data from the used packages are inexpensive as well — less than $10, Cypak CEO Jakob Ehrensvärd says. Also, the data is more reliable than the logs that patients might keep.
(vía Smart Mobs)
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