Hold your horses, ladies and gentlemen! Medgadget is not converting itself into a veterinary gadget website. We are rather reporting about the development between IBM and an agricultural technology company TekVet that might have implications for public safety. Basically, these two companies have joined forces to implement “wireless radio frequency identification technology that monitors the health of livestock to help ensure the safety of beef and dairy products.”
How?
TekVet’s livestock tracking, tracing and health monitoring technology is the first of its kind, allowing cattle producers and investors to remotely monitor the core body-temperature and other pertinent animal or herd data, as well as the specific location of individual cattle, real time, via the Internet. The historical and health information is collected and transported through an RFID sensor (TekSensor™) inserted in the ear of a cow. Information is then relayed to a collection of wireless receiving stations on a producer’s lot. The transmitting range of the TekSensor is 300 to 500 feet. The data is transported via a private satellite network to TekVet’s data center, where IBM System x servers, hosted by IBM, process information for millions of cattle at a time.
TekVet customers can access the temperature and animal identification information online to evaluate the health of their cattle for a wide range of infections and medical conditions. This allows producers to take immediate action when precautionary measures are required, such as administering medication or segregating infected animals from the herd. It also provides more accurate and automated management of animals while providing crucial information for cattle investors, regulators, and ultimately, to consumers, who demand a safe food supply.
Press release at IBM…
Product page…