You may recall the movie ‘Inner Space’ where a submarine is shrunk down the size of a pill and then inserted in a living body.

While it’s not quite the same thing, similar results will soon be availbe via the SmartPill > – a pill sized monitoring device which – once swallowed – passes through the body gathering information as it goes.

From the website :

The SmartPill pH.p Capsule is a miniaturized disposable telemetry device, about the size of a large vitamin pill and weighing little more than 3 grams, that is encased in inert, bio-compatible, medical-grade polycarbonate that makes it safe for human ingestion. Internal to the device are the data transmitter, three sensing elements (pH, pressure and temperature), and a battery chamber housing the power source.

The SmartPill pH.p Capsule transits the intestines by peristalsis or the normal rhythmic contraction of the intestinal muscles and is capable of transmitting data continuously for greater than 72 hours. The single-use capsule is excreted naturally from the body, usually within a day or two, without pain or discomfort.

There is also a receiver which records the information in real time as it is transmitted from the pill. This data then transferred to a PC for analysis.

Why is this interesting?

Science fiction authors have always been at the bleeding edge of technology product design. Unconstrained by current limitations they are free to imagine without limits. The early Motorola flip phones were inspired by the communicators featured on the Star Trek TV series.

So where are people looking today for inspiration? According to a BBC interview one of the current favourites is Harry Potter.

Yrjo Neuvo, Chief Technical Officer of Nokia mobile phones, reads JK Rowling’s Harry Potter to get him thinking.

“I have read all the Harry Potter books, including the last one,” he told BBC News Online.

“And when you read them with my kind of mindset, technology orientated, I always ask myself how we can implement that.”

JK “is very good when it comes to predicting the future”, according to Dr Neuvo, and “many of the things she is painting in her books can be implemented in phones in five to 10 years. It’s really exciting,” he says.

The ghostly moving people in framed pictures which deck Hogwarts’ staircases, and the mysterious pensieve which shows 3D images of memories are just some of the ideas he sees as a reality.