Has anyone explored this idea before? I’d love to be able to securely keep documents such as digital copies of my IDs and other docs in an implant while having the ability to interface with it externally to update and add to it as necessary. Pegleg inspired this line of thought, but I’m wondering if there has been any further development on any similar projects.
Creating something like a USB interface through the skin is called transdermal technology. The problem with transdermal stuff whether it’s prosthetic anchor mounts or body piercing jewelry is that the skin never actually heals around the thing protruding through the skin. This means that constant maintenance is required and infection is still inevitable given enough time.
The other alternative is a completely wireless solution like pegleg. In theory you can store up to 32k or maybe even 64k if we wanted to explore it in an Apex using the NFC app… it’s not fast by any means and file management is not part of ndef design.
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That type of idea has been a discussion off and on for a while:
~2021:
Last month:
This hasn’t been considered as a piercing as far as I know.
Right now your best bet is to store your documents encrypted in the cloud and use a flexsecure or apex flex to hold the encryption key.
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I think that someone also mentioned the idea of creating a skin pocket of some sort at some point for similar purposes. But this is probably hard to do and it probably comes with a high infection risk. Besides, how can you keep it clean?
Implants should be practical and maintenance free IMHO. You should be able to forget it’s there until you need it. Or use it every day while forgetting it’s there…
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Twas @Rosco , if thats the one you meant
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I’ve build a rudimentary filesystem for NDEF containers a while back, I use it with a 32kb NDEF partition on my Apex to store text files and some small JPGs. Getting a 64kb container would be awesome though @amal
I also build a web app based file explorer and partitioning tool for the filesystem:
You can try it out here if you do not want to host your own instance:
https://fosa.lu/NEFSplorer/
I was planning to integrate native AES file based encryption at some point and maybe add a text editor for text files to the file explorer. But this has been on the back burner for a couple of months now, as I am busy with my masters degree.
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Might be easier (faster to implement) for the flex secure.
I think the 64kb was tried early on with the Apex, but i think amal wasn’t convinced of its performance and user experience.
(I think it worked, but the transfer speed may have been a hard pill to swallow)
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This sounds familiar… 
Re, my Flex Secure comment and 64kb, let me drop a @tac0s here also for thoughts on that.
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Yeah, I’ve done a lot of work on the project since posting about it the first time. I changed the entire way that files are stored. I used to do it in a hacky way by converting the binary data to base64 and storing that as text entries. Now it properly stores the file data as raw binary, saving about 30% storage space. I also overworked a lot of the code and properly released the project on github. I just never posted about it here as I never came around to it 
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Did you ever see this?
not sure if it is of interest, but for images, its pretty impressive, Imaginge what you could get with a 64kb container
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Hmm… Interesting for sure. If it is implemented the same way as all other image formats in HTML5, then I should only need to flag this file format as an image format and the integrated image viewer in NEFSplorer should natively pick it up and display it. Currently, it will just download the file to the phone to be viewed with a different app, not as elegant but this way all files and formats work on NEFSplorer. For example, I once stored a “Balloon Fight” Nintendo Entertainment System ROM on my FlexSecure, which I could the run in an Emulator under Android.
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So, what if we would throw away the current convenience / widely used standard, start over & instead see what technology / frequency works best to transmit power & data through skin. (Disregard if that’s already NFC)
Next, take the connection to the body like “north sense” (4-8 surface piercings that will house your external platform, with an antenna optimized for “through tissue” & some tech, that would sit right outside of the implant.
Could it provide a more stable body to data link & power source?
I’m thinking installing Wi-charge style technology in your room /house, and if you’re wearing a tanktop, your platform / ‘human charging port’ could get continuous wireless power
Why not just use Qi wireless charging for power and Wi-Fi for data transfer?
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I’m thinking installing Wi-charge style technology in your room /house, and if you’re wearing a tanktop, your platform / ‘human charging port’ could get continuous wireless power
All of the wireless power schemes have pretty serious limitations. Wi-charge is probably one of the less scam-y ones, but it’s still pretty constrained.
Wi-charge uses high powered lasers pointed at a solar panel on the receiver. Technical details are thin but 10% efficiency seems optimistic (through air, not skin) and they quote 100mW output, so that’s at least a 1W laser on the transmitter. In order to not blind people it uses camera tracking to follow the receiver and shut off the laser if it goes out of view.
So the issues you will have with implanting it are:
- You can’t put the receiver behind anything because the camera won’t be able to track it
- Your skin is less transparent to IR than air, so even if you could get it to target the receiver your efficiency and power output will be dramatically lower than normal
- If you can get it to target you, and you can do something useful with a few milliwatts (maybe tens of mW, at best), you have a beam with a similar power output to a small laser engraver constantly pointed at your skin. It will be less focused than an actual engraver, but I’m not sure it’s an entirely inconsequential amount of power.
The wireless power over RF schemes are much more complex, still only deliver a tiny amount of power, and there are plenty of scams in amongst the few legitimate one but I suspect they are probably more practical for implanted use than light based systems.
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Yeah, Qi wireless charging is a wireless power over RF scheme and it works great. You can get up to 15W
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Yep, and realistically Qi-style stuff that works over 5-10mm is about the limit of practical designs.
The long range RF stuff that compares to wi-charge would require covering your ceiling with an antenna array, but despite that I still think it will work better than lasers.
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Ah I see. The far field RF power delivery options would also be significantly attenuated by your salt water filled tissue, not unlike the laser
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There are plenty of wireless power transmission scams out there… Dave Jones from the EEVBlog has debunked a lot of them.
He even covered the Wi Charge a while back:
TLDR: listen to Satur9. He also understands why those are not a useful alternative. Which is something that every EE should understand.
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love that guy
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I am super curious now to see if I could use this through raw chicken skin as a test. I think it would be interesting to see if subdermal devices could be charged up using this kind of tech. My forearms are exposed while at my desk for long periods of time… would be interesting to see if it could work.
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Well that explains why we haven’t heard much about it since 2019 when I remembered it from CES. yea, not a fan of camera tracking or high powered lasers *(pointing at me)
So would there be a benefit to using long range RF combined with an “outside the body” style port from my earlier example. (Power to the port & stable QI power to the implant)