Predictions have a habit of not coming true. We don't holiday on Saturn. Jacques Cousteau claimed in the Sixties that we would soon live underwater, using surgically created gills. We still don't glide to work in personal, airborne pods. …

But one technology is crawling towards realisation — the idea of human beings being "chipped", or implanted with a microchip containing personal information.

One of America's largest medical insurance companies is sponsoring a two-year trial in which chronically ill patients will be implanted with a chip containing their medical information.

In the face of raging immigration debates across the nation, Applied Digital Corp.'s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Scott Silverman suggests "chipping" immigrants to help gain control of the situation.

Appearing last Tuesday on FOX News' FOX & Friends, Silverman suggested that guest workers coming into the United States could be chipped at the border as a means of registration. In addition, Silverman said the chipping of guest workers could also aid enforcement of immigration laws at the employer level.

Cow chips are taking on a whole new meaning.

Because you can't track a cow by sticking a bar-code label on it, University of Missouri researchers are embedding microchips bearing low-frequency radio transponders in cows' ears to store coded information such as health records and pedigree listings.