Christmas has been a great opportunity to catch up on Ted Talks and Technology news and one thing that struck me during this exploration of new frontiers is the massive potential for nanotechnology to be used to protect our banks and businesses in the future.
Currently banks and jewellers have amongst their arsenal of weapons to prevent robberies a special “fog” that disorients would-be robbers — and even a hard-to-remove “DNA” spray that can subsequently prove a suspect was at the scene of a bank robbery.
Recent developments in nanotechnology include Injectable nanoparticles developed at MIT [that] may someday eliminate the need for patients with Type 1 diabetes to constantly monitor their blood-sugar levels and inject themselves with insulin, nano robots and smart dust that can communicate wirelessly and ultimately broadcast to wifi receivers.
There are numerous stories of armed robbers being foiled by smart gas and DNA spray, but will the advent of Nanotech provide us with ever more ingenious ways of protecting ourselves and our possessions?
Star Trek’s 7 of 9 and the Borg introduce the use of nanotechnology to protect, control, repair and communicate. With recent developments, how far are we from creating our own Borg or similar?
Imagine:
For protecting our Businesses
- A smart fog that continually broadcasts the location of the person contaminated with it – imagine a spray that you can’t get off your body and that connects to any available wifi and continually broadcasts “I am the suspect and here I am”
- A smart fog that once inhaled induces hypoxia – would be robbers suddenly find themselves unable to breath or metabolise oxygen
- A smart fog that overloads the pain receptors or disables the senses – induced myalgia
For protecting ourselves
- Nano spray that provides the same smart fog as mentioned above
- Our own, personal nano bots that are implanted and can monitor adrenaline and other body levels and wirelessly broadcast distress signals whilst at the same time positioning themselves to be exhaled or transmitted through blood, or sweat and attack or contaminate any predators
It’s a brave new world out there – imagine Steven Spielberg meets George Orwell
Skills421 
Rather than inducing hypoxia and risk killing someone needlessly, I was thinking more along the lines of invasive nanites that rapidly disrupt/disable the voluntary nervous system. Nothing painful, punishing or risky, just temporary paralysis.