Yup, this is really happening. It seems Mexico has something of a kidnapping problem lately, and a company called Xega is looking to change that by offering implantable Assisted-GPS tracking chips to wealthy fools those willing to pay the $4,000 surgical fee, plus the $2,200 annual service charge.
The crystal-encased chip is about the size and shape of a grain of rice, and is injected under the skin using a syringe.
Continue reading "Implantable GPS Tracking Arrives...Sort of." »
My reply to this article is that this will be great for pets in US like dogs and cats. Hey, the average American pet owners are willing to pay a few thousand dollars to treat illness for their pet, why not make sure when they don't get lost, they can be recover easily with one of these trackers. I would think a dog tracking devices like the Garmin Astro dog trackers will be more affective. http://www.autonav2000.com/mall/anProdDetail.asp?ProdID=548
Problem that I see is this will only work if they have some sort of wide scale signal amplifier for the tracking device using Transceiver towers that can pick up the small tracker signals and rebroadcast them much like two way radios. I don't see that happening in Mexico any time soon. When they say in range of a wireless device are they talking about a wireless device using Bluetooth or WiFi, I would guess with the size of the tracking device that is implanted in the body, it is probably something that you have to have next to the unit which defeats the effectiveness of this tracking device. Better to ware a tracking device watch that was offered by Wherify at 10% of the cost. For some reason the watch did not go over well and they now only offer the Wherify phones. http://www.wherifywireless.com/html/news.asp?pageId=28
If I were these rich Mexicans, I would save the money and put a bounty (dead or alive) for the heads of the kidnappers if they kidnap or hurt one of their relatives, this way, the kidnappers will have something to think about when they decide to take one of these family members since they have to watch out for their own kind or bounty hunters to claim the recovery reward.
Dog eat dog world, and it takes this kind of desperate motivation to reduce these type of kidnapping. I know of a family in the U.S that had a family member kidnapped in Mexico, not an easy ordeal to go through.
If you don't die from the, as you say, possible cancer, maybe the infection caused by some goon probing with a butcher's knife to dig it out (as in the James Bond movie) will get you.