ichael Bareev-Rudy never expected to have his finger implanted with a magnet. But in November 2015, the 18-year-old decided to embed a 3 mm x 1 mm magnet in his index finger at an event held in Dusseldorf, Germany. A crowd gathered to watch as a man in a smart grey suit and green surgical mask carefully sliced open the sandy-haired 18-year-old\u2019s finger.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter this he cuts with a scalpel on the side of my finger \u2013 yes, he cuts my finger open,\u201d Michael recalled moments later, looking decidedly pale as he smiled nervously before the flashing cameras. After sterilising the table and numbing Michael\u2019s finger with a local anaesthetic, \u201che uses \u2013 I don\u2019t really know how to describe this tool \u2013 it was like a pen, sharp on the end with a little spoon on the top. He carved a tunnel through my finger to get the magnet inside and then he tried to put it there.\u201d Because the magnet refused to slip easily into the young man\u2019s finger, they had to try six times before succeeding.<\/p>\n
Afterwards Michael\u2019s finger was still numb, meaning that the real pain would come later. A dissolvable string remained inside, which he would need to pull out within ten days. Michael had paid \u20ac100 for the magnet and implantation. \u201cWhat can I say?\u201d he laughed, gazing at his newly transformed digit. \u201cI was sitting there thinking for a moment, \u2018Why am I doing this?\u2019 But on the other hand, I thought it\u2019s a great opportunity, and I think it\u2019s kind of cool to modify your own body \u2013 and yes, of course it hurts, but this is a small price for what I get.\u201d<\/p>\n
Michael, who studies electrotechnics in Cologne, looks like a pretty normal guy, sporting a black T-shirt with a red alien on the front. And that\u2019s the point: once the realm of piercers and body modifiers, tech implantation is fast becoming the territory of software developers, students and web entrepreneurs. Magnets allow users to sense magnetic or electromagnetic fields; RFID (radio-frequency identification) or NFC (near field communication, a related technology) chips, encased in biocompatible glass, can be programmed to communicate with Android phones and other compatible devices, allowing users to unlock their phones, open doors, turn lights on and off or even\u00a0buy a beer<\/a>\u00a0with a literal wave of the hand. The connected devices of the internet of things are a gold mine for experimentation.\u00a0Analysts predict<\/a>\u00a0that there will be 25 billion connected objects by 2020, and this swift rise gives implant technologies a wealth of new applicability and appeal. People with such implants we call cyborgs. And this event in Dusseldorf was dubbed \u2018Science + Fiction: The world\u2019s first Cyborg-fair\u2019.<\/p>\nReference:<\/h4>\n
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