That Fly on the Wall, That Bee in Your Garden
The top brass at the Pentagon has added yet another item to their technological wish list, and this time it’s a request for an atomic clock which is small enough to build into a microchip. You might wonder what possible purpose such a small clock would serve; until you realize that insects like the cyborg beetle are easily lost as they fly about, and require an extremely accurate GPS system for their precise positioning and location needs. For some years DARPA’s HI-MEMS program (Hybrid Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems) has been placing micro-mechanical devices into various insects while in their larvae and pupae stages in order to facilitate a stable tissue-to-machine interface as the insects develop into adults. The main purpose for these mini cyborgs, as we can well guess, is for spying and reconnaissance, but they also have merit for any application requiring the retrieval of information from small or hard to access places. Location tracking via GPS requires extremely accurate clocks in order to obtain the precise positioning needed for what I can only deem as a science fiction scenario coming to life.
Similarly tagged OmniNerd content:
- Contract Awarded for Chemical Robotics Development, by gnifyus almost 5 years ago
- Disabling Aircraft with One Click, by gnifyus almost 5 years ago
- Danger of Outsourcing Electronics, by VnutZ about 5 years ago
- Gains in Organic Microelectronics, by gnifyus about 5 years ago


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Just wait... by NomadSoul
The whole thing is chilling. There’s a special place in the afterlife (or the next life, or whatever) reserved for people who turn living things into tools and weapons.
It won’t be long before they’re asking for human "volunteers" for that top secret weapons program—and if they need young ones to facilitate a stable tissue-to-machine interface, well… Has anybody seen "Gunslinger Girl?"