Tag: PACEMAKER

Dr. Mark Gasson, a senior researcher at the University of Reading, has become the first human to be 'infected' with a computer virus. Gasson embedded himself with an RFID tag, similar to those that are used to track pets, and willingly loaded it with malware. The experiment was meant to prove that computerized implants carry dangers as well as benefits. Medical implants, such as pacemakers, ...

Share Everyone's worried about energy, right? Whether it's the thought of a peak-oil catastrophe (while a zillion gallons fester in the Gulf), or just an ecological desire to go green, we've become a country that frets about our future power sources. And what about pacemakers, or artificial kidneys? We can't very well expect those to go solar, but it turns out that a sugary diet might be able to ...

Share As pacemakers become increasingly connected via the Web, doctors and patients must figure out how to protect these devices from security breaches. Some attempts include using ultrasound waves and developing 'cloaking' devices, among other techniques. But, according to Popular Science, Microsoft Research (.PDF) believes that tattooing the device's password onto the patient's skin in ...

You never want your wireless device open to attacks, but if that device is implanted inside your body, security becomes even more important. With pacemakers and other medical devices being controlled and monitored from afar, scientists say it's time to step up protection. Those concerns in mind, a group of researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and the French National ...

Carol Kasyjanski has lived with a severe heart condition for 20 years. Until recently, she's lived her life, often in fear, in strict obedience to the condition's limitations. Now, though, a medical breakthrough has given the woman a chance to live her life on her own terms. Kasyjanski is the first American to receive a wireless-equipped pacemaker, according to Reuters. The device gives her much ...

What it is: The Pacemaker is a palm-sized DJ mixing station for digital music that provides an easy way to combine two stereo tracks, add effects, and generally get partygoers to work up a sweat. Why it's different: Like the love child of an iPod and a traditional DJ setup, the Pacemaker is a first of its kind, to be sure. You load it with tracks from your computer in pretty much any format, ...

Headphone makers love to brag about the fancy magnets they use to drive their buds, but it turns out that hanging tiny focused magnetic fields around your neck can have unintended consequences -- a new study by Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center says that headphones can interfere with heart devices like pacemakers and defibrillators when held within an inch of the device. The ...

We're not sure if this is a sign of how low people will go or how paranoid our society has become, but scientists have developed a "cloaking" device for wireless pacemakers. Wireless pacemakers are becoming increasingly prevalent, because they're less intrusive to monitor and can be adjusted remotely by doctors from a computer. What makes them useful, however, also makes them vulnerable to ...

Defcon already delivered by exposing California's FasTrak toll system for the security hole that it is, but that's not nearly all that's emerging from the Las Vegas exploitation conference. For starters, a plethora of medical device security researchers have purportedly figured out a way to wirelessly control pacemakers, theoretically allowing those with the proper equipment to "induce the test ...