The chip that saved the world (batteries not pictured)
“I’m kind of embarrassed to admit this, but the whole thing started when I saw that Tom Cruise movie Minority Report,” says the American-born Yushi Sakamoto from his home in downtown Miami. “When they stole his kid, it almost gave me a heart attack because I have a kid that same age. That’s every father’s worst nightmare. I became obsessed with the idea of someone stealing my kid and became determined to do something about it.”
Over the next few months, Sakamoto spent hundreds of hours in his basement devising a chip that he could use to locate his son at any given time. It was an obsession that bordered on mental illness, but, as we’ve learned in the past few decades, the obsessions of the mentally ill are the primary force behind most of our greatest inventions. Ask Howard Hughes.
“My wife was totally against it because she thought I wanted to put it under his skin,” he told us. “I may be nuts but I’m not that nuts. All I wanted to do was stick it in his shoe or on a big watch he’d always want to wear.” Sakamoto had no intention of telling his son about the chip. The whole key to its success was in its undiscoverability.
Videos by VICE
The “idiotic” first prototype
The “pricey” locator
