Future is tagged
I expect not to be the first one to observe that electronic chips are getting smaller. So small, that a memory chip of a reasonable capacity (512kB) is not bigger than a grain of rice. As a bonus, the chip can be accessed wireless.
There are, however, much smaller memory chips available at the moment. A permanent memory cell 5000 times thinner than a human hair. That means such a cell, or a bunch of them, can without a problem penetrate you skin, travel in your blood, causing no problems to your organism. Add a future nano-sized device for a wireless read or transmission of data…
We can expect that in a couple of years such devices will become increasingly available and thus ubiquitous. What all will be possible to do with them? How will they change our lives?
Several ideas to ponder upon for my dear readers: your cloth will tell your wash-machine what is the proper program to wash. Your food can be equipped with the best-before info and contents and your fridge can then tell what needs to be wasted. What more, your kitchen keeps a list of all your groceries. Do you want to cook something perhaps? Select a recipe (your favorite recipes are intelligently recommended at first) and you will instantly know whether all required is at home. While shopping, you just pass the cashier. Your wallet knows how much money you have in (if you ever are going to need some physical change). You can trace what have you eaten (and what has passed through, of course), including medicines. You will never loose anything anymore, your staff is tagged. In fact, if you allow, all your movements can be recorded, so your family and friends can know where you are or where have you been all day.
I expect most of these will become our everyday reality in a couple of years. You can immortalize your ideas and implications of what can be done under this post.
I wonder how successful can the “not loosing” anything can be. Will it make me be on time not to “loose” a flight? Can it actually detect me running towards the check-in before the plane taking off?
On other news, my faith in humans, specially of the Finnish kind, has proven me right. My mobile phone was returned to the police station after I had lost it 2 days ago. And yeah, I had it tagged using “technologically advanced” ink (i.e., ultraviolet ink) with my student ID. I guess technology was not the reason to have it back.
Cheers!