Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Smart Dog Tags
Smart dog tags are coming into greater use in the U.S. Army, according to StrategyPage. Smart dog tags are basically read/write RFID tags that you can wear around your neck.
(Smart dog tags w/RFID reader)
Some sort of "dog tag" or wearable information for soldiers has existed in one form or another for thousands of years; soldiers in ancient Sparta used them. During the Civil War, soldiers pinned paper notes inside their jackets. Manufacturers recognized a market, and started making pins and machine-stamped tags made of brass or lead.
Official U.S. Army dog tags were first authorized in 1906; the information recorded included name, rank, company, regiment or corps. By 1916, two tags were included; one to stay with the body and the other for morgue record-keeping. By WWII, more information, like blood type and medical conditions were added.
Smart dog tags can change all that; tags capable of holding megabytes of data are inexpensive. On such a tag, the entire medical and service history of the soldier could be recorded and worn around the neck.
In 1995, an inventor named Hal Woodward impressed Department of Defense officials with his "digital dog tag"; he called it a Medi-Tag.
The biggest issues with these smart dog tags are 1) toughness and 2) security. The tiny chip in the tag would need to be in a hardened case to survive an explosion that would kill the wearer; metal dog tags can survive explosions, fires because they are simple plates of metal.
The problem of security is greater. The most obvious problem is having the enemy use readers to download information. Another problem is the fact that, if these devices are regular passive RFID tags, any RFID reader could activate them, even if encrypted data could not be read or accessed. I assume that the tags are designed to retransmit energy back to the reader only when an appropriate code has been received. Otherwise, an enemy could position readers in different areas, detecting "smart" tags that were passing through.
This story keeps coming up; see my earlier story Pentagon Asks For Digital Dog Tags. Learn more about smart dog tags here and here.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 11/7/2006)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Warfare ")
'Warrior Suit' Combat Exoskeleton Project Still Alive
'Suited up, you look like a big steel gorilla.'
Sea Drones Attack Russian Fleet
'...autofreighters, and other self-piloting craft.' - Ray Naylor, 2022.
Slaughterbot AI KIller Quadcopter Drones
'The real border was defended by... a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats.' - Neal Stephenson, 1995.
Russia Working On Military Exoskeletons
'...you look like a big steel gorilla...' - Robert Heinlein, 1959.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Robotic Barber Programmed With a Number of Styles
'He found a barber shop which, he thought, would be good for an idle hour.'
Humanoid Boxing Robot KO's Opponent - It's A Knockout!
'Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines.'
Caterpillar Electric Mining Loader Not Yet Ready For Moon
'...the excavations were already in progress, for he saw gray slopes of rubble.'
Centipede Robots Down On The Farm
'...the walking mills of Puffy Products began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.'
Anthropic's Claude AI Creates Legal Citation From Whole Cloth
'Here is a Clerk that would work incessantly, and neither eat, sleep, want payment, or grumble.'
Students Vie For Lunar Regolith Mining Robot Prize
'About time you got here,' the astronaut said.
'They Erased My Memory' Says Ariana Grande
'...using a neutralizing electronic impulse.'
Solitary Black Hole Wanders In Space
'...the Hole is something like a vortex or a whirlpool?'
Spaceplane From Virgin Atlantic
'ZARNAK, YOU'RE TO COMMAND A SCOUTING EXPEDITION --- FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!'
DARPA Wants 'Large Bio-Mechanical Space Structures'
'These are your rudimentary seed packages... Some will combine in place to form more complicated structures.'
Robot Hand Creeps Along, Separate From It's Owner
'The crawling... object was V-Stephen's surgeon-hand...'
Taikonauts Exercise In China's Tiangong Space Station
'Joe got out the gravity-simulator harnesses...'
Korean Exoskeleton Suit F1 Helps You Put It On
'Better late than never.'
Have AI Researchers Given Up On 'Bio-Babies'?
'You couldn't have the capstone without the pyramid to hold it up.'
Bunker Busters and Bore-Pellets
'The first revelation of the new Soviet bore-pellets.'
'Spikeless' Brand Swizzle Stick Detects Spiked Drinks
'the unobtrusive inspections with tiny remote-cast snoopers...'
