Chips and dips

[Guest guest]

Ahh, it's a brave new world. Won't be long and it will standard for all newborns. Satelittes in place right now. Newer models on the way. They will track you and be able to photograph you. I can easily envision an implant that can be switched on to cause you pain should you get out of line. Preach and Zap!!! No way this can continue in this phase for another 427,000 years.

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Microchips may become ingrained

By TOM FERAN

 

 

Newhouse News Service

 

Who doesn't like chips? The only dispute is usually about personal favorites — potato, corn, banana, veggie, ridged or flavored.

 

Or micro, the latest thing in chips. Some people find them hard to swallow, but they seem to be catching on. They can even get under your skin.

 

Radio-frequency identification tags, or RFIDs, are microchips that bounce back a signal from an RFID scanner. The tiny tags can carry more information than a bar code or security label.

 

For now, retailers see them mostly as a way of tracking shipments and inventory. Wal-Mart wants all its suppliers to have the technology in place by next year, and Delta Airlines announced this month that it will spend $25 million on an RFID system to keep track of luggage.

 

 

Getting personal

Meantime, RFIDs are finding more personal applications.

 

Authorities in the Japanese city of Osaka said earlier this month that they plan to "chip" the kids in one elementary school because of concerns about their safety.

 

All pupils will get an RFID tag that can be attached to their clothing or schoolbags. Scanners to read the tags will be installed at the school entrance and also at locations considered dangerous for children.

 

When the kids are scanned at school, the time and location will be sent home by e-mail or automatic phone message. The same thing will happen when they leave. Parents will be able to track children through the day and know when to expect them home.

 

 

Implants, too

But the system isn't foolproof. Tags and badges can be lost or stolen.

 

You get around that problem by using implants.

 

It may sound like science fiction, but the attorney general of Mexico, Rafael Macedo de la Concha, told reporters this month that he and at least 160 people in his office have had microchips implanted in their arms — "only for access, for security," he said, as a requirement to enter a new federal anti-crime information center.

 

More are scheduled to get chipped, or tagged, in the months ahead.

 

 

Security-conscious

Badges? We don't need no stinking badges. We have implants.

 

The chips, each one the size of a grain of rice, are similar to ones already implanted in more than 25 million animals — pets and livestock — around the world.

 

They're made by VeriChip Corp., a subsidiary of Florida-based Applied Digital Solutions. The company says the chips are now used mostly for security or identification purposes but believes they also have valuable medical potential, because of the patient information they can carry.

 

 

Further uses

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not yet approved their use in health care, but Solusat, the chip's Mexican distributor, says more than 1,000 Mexicans have had them implanted for medical reasons.

 

Eventually, Solusat says, the chips could make door keys obsolete. You'd only have to wave your tagged arm at a scanner-equipped door to unlock it.

 

And you wouldn't need to carry a wallet if your credit-card information was encoded, another practical application.

 

 

Where are you?

And while the technology is still being developed, according to Solusat, the company also hopes to provide Mexican officials with implants that can track their locations at any time, using global positioning satellites. They call this the Personal Locator Device.

 

I don't know if Osaka would adopt those for its children, but it does call to mind a schoolyard game.

 

Tag. You're it.