Implantable USB Drive

[Ralathon]

The closest thing I'd imagine would be some sort of fuel cell that runs on glucose and sugars in your blood.

Since it'd burn your energy, it would be great for people who need to lose weight!

But I do not think that the hassle of implanting foreign objects in your tissue is worth this application.

That's actually a good point. Would be very nice if nanotechnology allows us to build a device that runs on excess sugar and uses that energy to construct beneficial vitamins etc. It wouldn't be very intrusive and it would allow you to eat whatever you want without ever having trouble getting fat or ill. Cmon science! Get on it!

[magnemoe]

Only reason to implant something electronic in your body is to get an brain to machine interface.

Has been a lot of work on this from everything from prosthesis to computer interfaces.

Yes its exist another reason, the chip who is used to identify pets. You could use something similar for access control and other near field applications who don't use power.

Now you don't want something who breaks the skin anyway without an very good reason. Yes piercings does however they just creates an hole.

You would want to transmit the signal wireless from the body and out.

[Vaebn]

I think using the heart's kinetic energy is a bit crude, and probably tiring and all sorts of bad.

Now, assuming copious amounts of sexy biotechnology, here's how that could/ought to be done:

There already readily available examples in nature of biological systems generating respectable amounts of electricity. Electric Eels/Rays!

They have cells, stacked one after the other, which pretty much generate voltage and act like batteries. With a little bit of tweaking they could -easily- produce the 2.5 Watt or so a USB provides. -

Keep in mind you will find a lot of sources saying that eels can produce 500-800 WATTS(!), although this is technically true, they can only sustain that for a couple of ms, before they have to recharge for 20 minutes or so.

What most sources gloss over, is that they also produce near continuously low-voltage current, which they use for electrolocation, which amount hovers pretty much exactly at a USB's worth! The Christmas Tree is an example of that, (they aren't torturing the eel in order to make it shock continuously or anything).

And the way those cells do these, is through the use of the same energy generating chemical thingies that animal cells use for anything else (ATP etc). So basically, the main effect having such cells would have, is burning "more calories". Which for the rich bastards reading this is probably not a problem.

So theres the "source code". Such electricity generating organs are clearly possible, all is needed is some extra truckloads of, well, perfect bioengineering to add us an organ.

Edited October 12, 2013 by Vaebn

[Javster]

You could kill someone if they had that. Simply draw too much power, then their heart stops.

[Nuke]

as far as that goes you could just stick some electrodes in your bladder. urine batteries are a thing.

[cypher_00]

Totally thinking about Richard Nixon in Futurama right now....

[magnemoe]

Now the main question is why would you want to charge things with an build in usb plug?

Yes I can see some uses for it however its far easier ways to generate small amounts of electricity.

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Manual-generator-MP3-mobile-phone-hand-in-USB-Emergency-Charger-Carbon-free-environment/519406705.html

This is an example, no its not carbon free the plastic contains lots of carbon.

putting an charger in your boots would work better and could produce decent with power by walking.

In short lack of power outside of civilization is an area of interest not at least for the army who have all sort of need from night scopes up to entire bases.

[andrewas]

Now the main question is why would you want to charge things with an build in usb plug?

Yes I can see some uses for it however its far easier ways to generate small amounts of electricity.

A USB socket isn't the ideal way to do this. Inductive power transfer would be better. Phones and MP3 players and such tend to live in your pocket the majority of the day, so implant a fuel cell and inductive charger and never have a flat battery again.

[lajoswinkler]

Induction is a horribly wasteful power transfer system and the body doesn't contain that much energy to even start it.

[Nuke]

its usually used to power internal medical devices from external battery packs, just because its the only option for transferring power through the skin. transdermal implants are prone to causing infections, have to be kept very clean, dry etc. they are not comfortable, and can be painful, its equivalent to constantly having open wounds. they are still used when absolutely neccisary but are not practical for long term use. so inductive implants are preferable despite their inefficiency.

i dont have any data for how much power can be extracted from the human body, even if you could source 10 watts of power (more than enough for usb) it still wouldn't be worth it to get power harvesting implants. especially with electronic components capable of running at much lower power levels and battery technology always improving. eventually devices will just have a few solar panels built in so you could just charge the batteries by sticking it out under the sun or in any lighted room for a few minutes. or you can use thermoelectric devices to harvest power from body heat, so you can just stick it in your pocket and it would recharge. you can also convert motion to power. they actually have chips out there to manage this stuff. batteries may even become obsolete for very low power devices in the not too distant future.

[lajoswinkler]

Power is power, energy is energy. Two very different things. Lightnings have an unimpressive amount of energy, but their power is huge because the time of energy transfer is so incredibly small.

Human body can't deliver much energy in a short amount of time, except if we think of running and stuff like that. I think kilowatts are the units used in those cases.

But if you try with glucose and implants, which means you're using energy stored in blood, you can't get lots of energy in a short time because although the body continues to keep the levels the same (homeostasis), it does that gradually.

[Nuke]

power is equivalent to energy/time (1 watt = 1 joule/s) so they are related.

[Idobox]

As said, electricity in the heart is not strong, and what leaks out is even weaker. That's because the heart doesn't run on electricity, but on glucose, the nerve impulses are just commands.

What the body generates in large amounts is heat, and Peltier elements on your skin can turn that into electricity without cutting you open. The main issue is that a human body doing nothing consumes about 100W (transformed to heat), and a high end smart phones consumes a lot. The galaxy s4, for example, has about 10Wh of battery (2.6Ah * 3.8V). To charge it in one hour, you'd need to consume 10% more energy (assuming you can harvest that with 100% efficiency), that would be tiring. If we get a more reasonable 10% harvest efficiency, we still need 100Wh, so about a doubling of energy expenses for one hour.

Fuel cells and metal-air batteries are more promising ideas.