Grindhouse Wetware, Pittsburgh-based biohacking collective, implanted on Saturday the Northstar V1 in a 15-minute procedure on three persons. It is a new light-up device that is the same size as a large coin designed to backlight existing tattoos or mimic bioluminescence.

Gizmondo reports that the magnetically activated LED-equipped silicone implant was made by DIY biohackers in Dusseldorf, Germany. The five LED lights on Northstar V1 begin to blink when a magnet is placed on the implant.

However, the blinking lasts only for 10 seconds, after which the lights return to sleep mode. The creators estimate the implant could light up to 10,000 times before its non-rechargeable batteries die. When the batteries are dead, the implant is then surgically removed.

Beyond the implants cosmetic functionality, which members of the biohacking community want, Grindhouse Wetware cofounder Tim Cannon says future versions of the device could deliver vital biometric information to an external device such as a smartphone.

It could also register a person’s hand movements and use it to wirelessly send a signal to a receiving gadget. Cannon adds that Grindhouse plans to make Northstar V1 available commercially in 2016. It aims to sell up to 100 units of the implant through tattoo studios worldwide.

Grindhouse is just one of the growing number of emerging DIY cyborg communities that are also known as grinders, reports The Guardian. Besides LED lights, they implant tracking devices, magnets and batteries in their bodies, often done only in their kitchens by following tutorials uploaded on YouTube and tips shared on online forum.

The first cyborg is Kevin Warwick, a professor of cybernetics at the University of Reading. Warwick is known as the academic face of biohacking after he implanted an RFID tag in his arm in 1998 that allowed him to be tracked around the campus. It also opened doors for him, literally, and switched lights on whenever he entered the university’s lab. He eventually added more sophisticated implants which include a chip with 100 electrodes that sent signals from his wrist to a computer.

Interest is high in biohacking among security companies, office operators, real estate firms and military organisations, but there are concerns over loss of privacy and providing employers too much data, reports Mother Nature Network. Wisconsin, Georgia, Virginia and North Dakota have banned mandatory chipping.

Forced chipping is seen as the biblical mark of the beast which is also an indicator of the end times. In a poll conducted by Mother Nature, 85 percent said they would not get chipped which they view as invasion of privacy.

More than giving too much data, if the biblical warning on the mark of the beast - believed to be in the form of implants - is correct, people with such implants would be under the control of the state because they cannot transact everyday tasks without having a chip inside their body.

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