New NFC rumours about the "internet of things"
The rumours that Google and a number of other organisations have formed a study group to look at the idea of offering people free injectable NFC chips in return for special offers, coupons, additional loyalty points an a variety of value-added services around Android NFC phones are quite interesting. I imagine that the idea is to make Android more attractive than iPhone/iPad by making the owners part of the much-talked about "Internet of things". This is hardly a new idea, but what is interesting is that the deployment is being proposed so soon.
Katrina Michael, associate professor of the University of Wollongong's school of information systems and technology, and author of scientific paper Towards a State of Uberveillance, said subdermal chip implants in humans could be commonplace within two to three generations.
Why would I want one of these? Well, for example, suppose that I take my URL "www.dgwbirch.com" and encode it in some way (you can see an example here) and add that to my chip, then anyone who taps me with a Google Nexus S loaded with the right software could read it and have it added to their bookmarks immediately. Some people might want to have their Facebook "Real Name" coded into the chip, but I think that for rather dull middle-aged businesspersons (such as myself) the LinkedIn profile would be better. Who knows - the point is that surveys have shown that whatever the Privacy International's of the world might think, people like the idea:
“We just carried out a survey and one out of four people are happy to have a chip planted under their skin for very trivial uses for example to pass gates more quickly at a discotheque for example and to be able to pay for things more quickly in the supermarket,”
[From CeBIT: Quarter Of Germans Happy To Have Chip Implants | eWEEK Europe UK]
The advantages are obvious. You would never have to remember a wallet, an ID card, a bus pass, whatever, because it would be permanently embedded in you. It is not difficult to see why Google might want to implant chips in people, and it's interesting to note that the rumours coincide with more stories about the imminent demise of QR codes.
But last December, Google started sending out window decals with NFC chips to participating businesses in Portland, Oregon. Earlier this week, Google officially dropped support for QR codes from the product.
Not everyone is as enthusiastic about the chipping as I am. I'm not an expert on the Book of Revelations, so I don't understand the theological objection to tracking at 13.56GHz as opposed to optical wavelengths, but it should be noted that there are people who are against this idea.
One group believes that the chips are a mark of the beast and are against implants. In biblical prophecy, this is a number written on the forehead, to mark those controlled by an evil power.
Well there will always be luddites like these around, but let's be sensible about this. None of the rumours* have suggested that Goggle will insist on having the chips implanted in the forehead: when I was looking at this issue a while back, I was imagining that fleshier areas would be more appropriate. Anyway, I'm curious why people would be so upset about this very practical use of NFC to solve a wide range of social problems.
Yes, use these chips to track dogs and animals but not human beings. This method has not only been suggested for use against white slavery and child theft, but also for many other uses.
All in all, I think that this is a really interesting use of NFC and I fully expect to see it supported in the iPhone 5 [how wrong can you be!! -- Ed.].
In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen megabytes
