My Passed-Out Friend Here is Buying...Here's His Arm

Imagine you're out for a night of drinking. Somewhere between breakdancing in the Irish dive and being kicked out of the uppity martini lounge, you realize you've lost your wallet. No more cash, not even an ATM card...your night is over.

&-(

Fear no more, my sobrietyphobic friends; science has come to the rescue:

Imagine having a glass capsule measuring 1.3mm by 1mm, about the size of a large piece of rice injected under your skin.

Implanting microchips that emit a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) into animals has been common practice in many countries around the world, with some looking to make it a legal requirement for domestic pet owners.

The idea of having my very own microchip implanted in my body appealed. I have always been an early adopter, so why not.

Last week I headed for the bright lights of the Catalan city of Barcelona to enter the exclusive VIP Baja Beach Club.

The night club offers its VIP clients the opportunity to have a syringe-injected microchip implanted in their upper arms that not only gives them special access to VIP lounges, but also acts as a debit account from which they can pay for drinks.

It's not clear from the article if you pay upfront and then your bar/club-specific account is debited or if the chip charges against a bank card, meaning you could unwittingly party away your entire checking account. And how do you tip the bartender? Nevermind...not sure I want to know.

Comments

[sidereal]

"The idea of having my very own microchip implanted in my body appealed."

I stopped reading at this point.

Biometrics will solve the same 'problem' and won't require sticking things in yourself. I'm not particularly excited about either one, but it's inevitable, because it's more profitable.

[praktike]

This will go well with my tooth phone and functional laptop tatoo.

[Jimmy Swaggart]

Mark of the Beast! MARK OF THE BEAST!!

[Moe Lane]

(Clicking stopwatch) TIME! I make it 25 minutes to a Mark reference. A bit slower than I expected. :)

[crionna]

I doubt that it charges against your debit card. Probably more of a stored-value type solution.

Personally, I'll wait for nano-tech ink so that I can just wash off my "card" in the morning.

BTW, most bio-metric security solutions can tell if the appendage used is out of a normal range of temperatures.

[wilfred]

great, a way to make getting your wallet stolen much more painful!

[carsick]

People seem to choose big brother type technology and later complain about how it's an invasion of privacy.

"Well, Edward, it appears that at 10:15pm you were at Gristede's buying a 14oz. bottle of water with your debit card. At 11 you were crossing 23rd Street near the Bank of America cash machine on 7th. At 11:20 you were scanned entering and exiting the Origin store in the West Village but you did not purchase anything..."

[Richard W. Crews]

I've always envisioned a scenario where black FBI cars cruise neighborhoods, and shoot people with a fleshette with intellegence. This barb would be built with a mesh/matrix doused in growth hormones to the point where you can't dig it out with a corkscrew after a day or so. Perhaps it will have an infectious agent to keep one from digging too hard in those early days.
The FBI ( or other agents) won't even need to know WHO they shot - just watch the ID and see if it is near trouble. If it is, then the person-handle that correlates to the chip ID will become important.

[crionna]

carsick

Its more than likely that Edward was already recorded in those locations by cameras already in place.

We're already seen nearly everywhere we go, but those looking are generally doing so to protect against theft or lawsuits.

My concern is for the time when those businesses (including busses and taxis here in SF) are required to upload their daily video/still files to a database with facial recognition software that compares them to DMV or passport photo records. Then you'll be both seen AND tracked even without an implanted device.

[Edward]

Its more than likely that Edward was already recorded in those locations by cameras already in place.

I have NEVER been in an Origins. It's Aveda for me, or nothing at all.

[Chris Marcum]

I hope this never brings new meaning to the legal expression "armed robbery." Ouch.

[Gromit]

Crionna is right; the chip simply stores a unique code which it transmits when hit with an RF signal from a scanner. My dog and cats are microchipped -- in fact many animal shelters chip their animals before adopting them out, so they can tell when they end up getting turned back in. The codes are matched to a database kept by the American Kennel Club.

It's a great system for pets, so long as the folks trying to ID the animal have a scanner, and it even allowed a local vet to contact the owners of dog I once found in the street that had no other ID. Unfortunately, the dog wasn't alive when I found it, but the system still worked.

[Neolith]

Biometrics? Well, if my thumb or retinal pattern is stolen, its rather hard to get it changed. Not to mention painful. As far as checking temperature ranges, a bucket of warm water would help you out there. Unless your biometric system is going to deny ATM users in winter, the temperature range would have to be pretty rough.

I'd rather rely on some form of implant with strong key based encryption. I'd do that in a heart beat.

[sidereal]

"Well, if my thumb or retinal pattern is stolen..."

If your thumb is stolen, you have worse problems than identity theft.

[lightning]

Current biometric systems suck, and there doesn't seem to be much indication that they'll be getting better any time soon. The implanted chip (which, remember, contains only a ten- digit number) works well, and works now. "RFID" technology is the coming thing for inventory control.

I'd guess that the way it works is that you put a certain amount "on account" at the beginning of the evening, and when you leave, you pay with a regular credit card and get a nice itemized bill. (That's the way I'd do it.)

The privacy problems are pretty much moot; between the GPS receiver in your cellphone, the EZ Pass on your car, the SmarTrip card for the Metro, and all those credit cards, they wantcha, they gotcha.

[Neolith]

Eh, if I lost my right thumb, I'd have to relearn how to hit the space key, by my left one I could lose, no prob. My cash and my credit history? ;-)

[Phillip J. Birmingham]

I'd guess that the way it works is that you put a certain amount "on account" at the beginning of the evening, and when you leave, you pay with a regular credit card and get a nice itemized bill. (That's the way I'd do it.)

I'll bet it works a lot more like Speedpass, where you wave the RFID chip at the reader, and the credit card you have on file is billed.

[lightning]

Phillip -- That's probably the worst possible way for something like this to work. It's 'way too easy to lose track of how much you've spent that way. In addition, merchants and credit card companies would rather have a few big transactions than a lot of little ones.

Not saying you're wrong, of course.

[shannon]

could you send me an email on breakdancing rules, equipment, history of it, hows it done.. please? thanks if you do.. but before tomorow.. please

[Jackmormon]

Wow. I wonder how many of the sites that came on Shannon's google search she emailed. I wonder if anybody helped her. The pathos of comment spam....

[hilzoy]

Shannon? What Shannon?

(Mwah ha ha)

[Gary Farber]

"And how do you tip the bartender?"

Same way as with a credit/debit card.

Um, this is all incredibly ancient news. At least, that's what all of my uploads say, including those at different quantum states.

[Gary Farber]

""RFID" technology is the coming thing for inventory control."

Might want to look into what Bruce Sterling and various others have been writing about on that for the past several years.

[~LORD~]

Not sure where any of you live, but I am in the U.S. Not sure if they are thinking about doing that here. But if they did, that would be like giving up the freedom they so say we have. And to the debit issue, if the debit card you got is also a credit card then when it is scanned or before you scan you tell them what you want it under. Cause if you do credit, it doesn't charge a fee for use.