Technology
Smart pill confirms when medication is swallowed
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Remembering to take medication sounds simple. However, missed doses put people at serious health risk every day. Because of that, engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have designed a pill that confirms when someone swallows it. As a result, doctors could track treatment more accurately, and patients could stay on schedule more easily. At the same time, the pill safely breaks down inside the body, which helps reduce long-term risk.
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MIT engineers have designed a pill that can report when it has been swallowed. (Mehmet Say)
How the MIT smart pill works
The new system fits inside existing pill capsules. It uses a tiny, biodegradable radio-frequency antenna made from zinc and cellulose. These materials already have strong safety records in medicine. Here is what happens step by step:
- You swallow the capsule as usual
- The outer coating dissolves in the stomach
- The pill releases both the medication and the antenna
- The antenna sends a radio signal confirming ingestion
This entire process happens within about 10 minutes. An external receiver, potentially built into a wearable device, detects the signal from up to two feet away.
Designed to break down safely
Previous smart pill designs relied on components that stayed intact as they passed through the digestive system. That raised concerns about long-term safety. The MIT team took a different approach. Nearly all parts of the antenna break down in the stomach within days. Only a tiny off-the-shelf RF chip remains, and it passes naturally through the body. According to lead researcher Mehmet Girayhan Say, the goal is clear. The system avoids long-term buildup while still reliably confirming that a pill was taken.
Who could benefit most from this technology?
This smart pill is not meant for every prescription. Instead, it targets situations where missing medication can be dangerous. Potential beneficiaries include:
- Organ transplant patients taking immunosuppressants
- People with chronic infections like TB or HIV
- Patients with recent stent procedures
- Individuals with neuropsychiatric conditions
For these patients, adherence can mean the difference between recovery and serious complications.
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The MIT capsule uses layered materials, including gelatin, cellulose, and metals like molybdenum or tungsten, to prevent any RF signal from transmitting outside the body. (iStock)
What researchers say about the breakthrough pill
Senior author Giovanni Traverso emphasizes that the focus is on patient health. The aim is to support people, not police them. The research team published its findings in Nature Communications and plans further preclinical testing. Human trials are expected next as the technology moves closer to real-world use. This research received funding from Novo Nordisk, MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Gastroenterology and the U.S. Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health.
Why medication adherence remains a major problem
Patients failing to take medicine as prescribed contribute to hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths each year. It also adds billions of dollars to health care costs. This problem hits hardest when patients must take treatment consistently over long periods. That includes people who have received organ transplants, patients with tuberculosis and those managing complex neurological conditions. For these groups, missing doses can have life-altering consequences.
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Once safely inside the stomach, the pill can activate and communicate internally, reducing privacy risks while enabling more accurate medical tracking. (iStock)
What this means for you
If you or a loved one relies on critical medication, this kind of technology could add an extra layer of safety. It may reduce guesswork for doctors and ease pressure on patients who manage complex treatment plans. At the same time, it raises important questions about privacy, consent and how medical data is shared. Any future rollout will need strong safeguards to protect patients.
For now, until this technology becomes available, you can still stay on track by using the built-in tools on your phone. We break down the best ways to track your meds on iPhone and Android in our step-by-step guide.
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Kurt’s key takeaways
A pill that confirms it was swallowed may sound futuristic, but it addresses a very real problem. By combining simple materials with smart engineering, MIT researchers created a tool that could save lives without lingering in the body. As testing continues, this approach could reshape how medicine is monitored and delivered.
Would you be comfortable taking a pill that reports when you swallow it if it meant better health outcomes? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com
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Technology
Midjourney goes from generating cat images to full-body ultrasound scans
Midjourney CEO David Holz just showed off the company’s first hardware product and plans to build a San Francisco spa, which he admitted is a bit different from the “cat pictures” produced by its AI image generator. Dubbed The Midjourney Scanner, it’s an ultrasound-based full-body scanner that uses a ring of sensors to capture vertical slices of the inside of your body, looking at the composition of your muscle, fat, bone, and organs to start. Holz said ideally, you could do this once a year or every single day, as it “aims for image quality comparable to MRI in many ways.”
He mentioned that one way he’d like to use it would be to see how his body changes in response to diet and workout changes, saying, “I’m not the most measured man on Earth yet, you know, but maybe I want to have that daily [measurable information].” A set of job listings advertises the company’s goal as trying to “build and launch the world’s first full-body ultrasound CT scanner, ultimately bringing safe, fast, and high fidelity preventative scanning to billions via a magical spa experience.”
The Midjourney Scanner was developed in a partnership with ultrasound tech company Butterfly Network, which said it uses “40 Butterfly Ultrasound-on-Chip imaging modules per system.”
The scanning process starts with stepping onto a platform that drops down into the water on rails through a ring of thousands of transducers that create ultrasonic waves. It then records the ripples passing through your body to analyze them and create detailed 3D images. The scan takes about 60 seconds. Holz said about a dozen people have been scanned so far.
It starts by stepping into a shallow pool of golden light. You then begin to descend into the water. Your body passes through a ring of underwater sensors, each acting like a dolphin, using its echolocation. The sensors send ultrasonic sound waves through your body from every angle. With enough waves, and enough angles, we form an image of what’s happening inside your body.
It combines those sensors with two petaflops of processing power. But after watching the livestreamed reveal, I’m still unclear on what Midjourney’s AI image generation tech exactly has to do with the Midjourney Medical effort, beyond an alternative business for otherwise-unused AI compute.
Holz hopes to put 10 of the scanners into a Midjourney Spa location in San Francisco’s Union Square that will open before the end of 2027 and offered to scan the hands of attendees at its launch event. The Midjourney Spa will have a gym, saunas, and cold plunges to go along with the hot tub–equipped scanning rooms where visitors will get into the water to be scanned.
He did mention that various medical applications would require FDA clearances, but for now, Midjourney Medical says it’s working on “body composition maps” that don’t require the same level of clearance as diagnostic imaging. It also says the “library of scans” users create can be shared with doctors, AI health tools, or others, and that, “We take data privacy seriously — more details on our data policies will come as we get closer to launch.”
Holz suggested that eventually these scans could become better than an MRI, without radiation, powerful magnets, or other complicating factors, to get a look at what’s going on inside people’s bodies “real fast.” In response to a question, he imagined a future where the FDA had a class of devices to look at “weird” things and allowed people to “just try to get as much data as we can.”
Technology
UK to ban TikTok, YouTube, other social media apps for children under 16, Starmer says
UK expected to ban social media for kids under 16
The UK considers banning social media for children under 16 after a three-month consultation, following an Australian-style ban. Licensed clinical social worker Darby Fox discusses the impact on children’s well-being, parental regulation challenges, and the prevalence of AI use among kids aged 9 to 17 in the US.
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U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is taking on some of the world’s largest technology companies, announcing Monday that Britain will ban children under 16 from using major social media platforms — including TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube — and impose hefty penalties on companies that fail to keep minors off their services.
The restrictions, expected to take effect early next year, would also apply to Instagram, Facebook and X. Messaging services such as WhatsApp and Signal, as well as YouTube Kids, would be exempt.
Starmer said he is prepared to confront resistance from technology companies and acknowledged some teenagers will try to circumvent the rules, but argued the government has a responsibility to act.
“Every parent can see it with their own eyes. Social media is making children unhappy,” Starmer, who has two teenage children, told reporters. “I’ve heard first hand from families crying out for change and we will do right by them.”
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A 14-year-old boy looks at a iPhone screen on November 30, 2024 in Bath, England. (Anna Barclay/Getty Images)
The move places Britain at the forefront of a growing international push to limit children’s access to social media. Australia last year became the first country to prohibit children under 16 from holding social media accounts, while Canada, Brazil and Indonesia have introduced or proposed similar age-based restrictions. France, Spain, Denmark, Thailand and South Korea are among others studying or developing similar approaches.
Under the British plan, platforms that fail to take reasonable steps to prevent kids under-16 from accessing their services could face multimillion-dollar fines. Starmer said enforcement efforts would be directed at technology companies rather than the children themselves.
Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer attends a press conference at Downing Street in London to announce government action to protect children online on June 15, 2026. (Carlos Jasso/Pool Photo via AP)
The decision follows a public consultation that drew 116,000 responses from parents, children and the tech industry — the second-highest response total for a government consultation since one on same-sex marriage in 2012.
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More than 90% of respondents supported an under-16 ban, according to the government.
A YouTube spokesperson warned Monday that a blanket social media restriction could “push kids out of such curated, supervised, beneficial experiences and towards anonymous, less-safe services.”
A teen holds a phone displaying nine social media app icons, illustrating common platforms that collect user data. (Anna Barclay/Getty Images)
The U.S. Embassy in London warned that any regulations should be narrowly tailored and not infringe on free speech protections, while also expressing concern about additional burdens on American technology companies.
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Starmer said he expected to discuss the issue with President Donald Trump and other world leaders at the G7 summit in France that starts Monday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Technology
Tim Cook says RAM expenses are ‘unsustainable’ and Apple is going to raise prices
We’re doing our best to mitigate the huge increases that are being passed to us, and we’ve been trying to shield our customers from the increases, but the situation has become unsustainable.
Cook doesn’t say when Apple plans on raising prices or which products will be affected. The company has already stopped selling the Mac Studio with 512GB of RAM in March and later raised the starting price of the Mac Mini to $799 after dropping the cheaper $599 option from its lineup. Analyst Tim Culpan also suggested that Apple could discontinue the base configuration of the MacBook Neo, while keeping the $699 model with 512GB of storage.
As AI companies continue to demand more memory in their sprawling data centers, suppliers are struggling to keep up. The shortage has led to surging RAM and storage costs, as well as price increases across game consoles, laptops, and other devices.
“There’s less supply at a time when consumers want devices and the memory guys are passing along huge price increases,” Cook tells the WSJ. “We definitely need memory pricing and supply to return to reasonable levels for consumer products.”
Apple is getting ready to take the wraps off its latest lineup of iPhones later this year, though it’s unclear how big an impact the memory shortage will have on pricing. The WSJ estimates that the upcoming iPhone 18 Pro could cost $1,299, a jump from the $1,099 iPhone 17 Pro.
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