New sensor can read your heart from afar, but knows not your feelings

Are you uninterested along with your current ECG sensor? Uninterested in all of the mess of electroconductive gels, sticky electrodes and tangled wires? How about this: Britain’s Plessey Semiconductors offers an ECG sensor that promises heart-monitoring without the effort. We have seen similar technology before, but in accordance with the corporate, the electrical Potential Integrated Circuit — or EPIC, as it’s humbly called — can read heartbeats even through a sweater; future versions could be embedded in hospital gurneys for constant, unobtrusive monitoring. Like an incredibly sensitive voltmeter, it detects tiny changes in electric fields, this means that it will probably even be used for Kinect -style motion interfaces. The corporate even imagines a future system where firefighters can use the EPIC to search out humans in a smoke-filled room. When you are thinking, “My, that sounds similar to my Deus Ex dreams” — hey, we’re right there with you.