Remember the AMD project I previously wrote about? Well here’s the badge you get for attending HOPE. You’re given a removable battery that allows you to participate actively in the AMD project. Don’t want to be tracked for a few hours? Remove the battery and you’re good to go. Hit the jump to see the other side of the badge.
Check out the AMD Project going down at The Last HOPE this weekend. I’d type up an original piece but the official website does it so, so well:
This weekend, the Attendee Meta-Data (AMD) project will introduce a new location-aware social networking system to track and bring together hackers based on a huge array of matching interests. Conference goers will be given unprecedented ability to connect with new people, find the talks they’re most interested in attending, see what’s happening and where in real time, and experience and talk about the way RFID technology is changing the world.
Attendees receive RFID badges that uniquely identify and track them across the conference space. Location information is incredibly accurate—visitors’ exact locations and movements are monitored in real time, and used to drive revolutionary social networking features which completely change the conference experience.
The AMD social networking site lets visitors “tag” themselves based on a diverse set of interests. Old-school hackers, network security experts, cryptographers, political activists, law geeks, lockpickers, reverse engineers, bloggers, privacy advocates, and far more—visitors can label themselves with multiple interests, to become discoverable by fellow visitors from around the world with similar interests, in the same room or across the building. Attendees can then use email or text messages to “ping” the people they discover on the site—new contacts and old friends alike.
Essentially, think Facebook for hackers and attendees with tagging and geo-location via RFID. More to come.
I manage to hurt myself multiple times throughout each given month, usually in places which are easy to fracture, such as the ankles or the wrists. Whether it’s due to clumsiness or completely accidental, the fact remains: I’m in pain. The good news is orthopedic firms are planning on using RFID implants to monitor a transplant’s performance while in use.
Orthopedic devices like a knee replacement must be calibrated to ensure correct functionality. Surgeons need informational feedback when a patient returns for a follow-up after a procedure. Sensors embedded in an implant could transmit that information to a computer allowing the surgeon to determine if the implant is performing to its full expectation. Think of it as Scholastic’s Magical School Bus meets real life; identifying problems on the inside of the body while remaining outside of it.
In a move that shows a blatant disregard for civil liberties and personal freedoms, a Rhode Island school district will be testing out a program that monitor’s student movement via RFID chips in backpacks. Right now, 80 children are using the RFID-equipped backpacks. Buses will also receive GPS units.
Parents and faculty will be able to login to a system to find out where their children currently are and where they have been. Tracking buses is one thing but this is just too big an invasion of privacy. Watching your kids all the time is the sign of someone or something that is insecure and a paranoid freak. Hopefully the pilot program will get canned before it goes any further.
Kids love colorful shit that looks like it’s right out of the early 1990s. Case in point: Swinx. Swinx is supposedly a game system designed by the Dutch that interacts with children. Your kids run around with these RFID-enabled colored wristbands and a clover-shaped base station alerts children to the game they’ll be playing.
Sound confusing? That’s because we’re not children. Kids eat this shit up, trust me. It involves bright colors, running around like a wreck loose and pissing your pants. You call it Swinx. I call it Saturday night.
Cats are awesome. They kill all the rodents in your backyard, don’t need to be walked and make for a catchy Internet meme. Unfortunately, your feline could make friends with some neighborhood alley cats and before you know it, your crib has become the hot spot to be. Keep unwanted animals out with this RFID-enabled pet flap known as Spimecat.
Spimecat was designed by a veterinarian with one idea in mind: keeping unwanted things out of your house. Your cat receives an RFID implant, eliminating the need for a color, and can then enter your house at will. Don’t want the puss out at night? It’s taken care of. Spimecat can detect light levels and can keep your cat in during the evening. I don’t believe it’s readily available to consumers as of yet, but keep your eyes peeled.
Ever since some jackass got an RFID implant in his hand, every geek on the planet has been itching to get one. After all, if you could open your front door or turn on a CD player with the wave of your hand, wouldn’t you get the procedure done? Of course you would. Unless of course, the Mafia is going to chop your hand off for gambling debts you owe.
A Pittsburg-based company called ClearCount Medical Solutions is now using RFID chips inside surgical sponges to prevent loss inside human cavities during surgery. Did you know that one in every 1000 surgeries ends with a misplaced sponge? Not cool. ClearCount’s new system should keep a hold on things inside the OR when your surgeon is losing his or her cool.
Here’s an interesting little hack that will make those of you in London light up with glee. Some wisecrack DIYer went and dissolved an RFID-based Oyster card for the Underground. The result? A lot of wires and an RFID chip left behind. As you can see in the video above, the card continues to work flawlessly and can now be implemented into your hand, wallet or whatever you want to stick the chip in.
Although the method really doesn’t change anything about the card aside from appearance, it does open the door to some possible . Maybe you could replace the chip inside of a card with a different RFID chip your friend at the government lab re-programmed? The possibilities are (probably not) endless.
Seems the brains up in Massachusetts have done it again. MIT has taken an ordinary household object and transformed it into the coolest experimental toy on the planet. Case in point are Quickies, which are essentially Post-It Notes that feed the written information on them back to a computer. The computer then interprets the text or image drawn on the note and adds a digitized version to the proper location. So if you write down a TODO note, it’ll automatically get added to iCal, Google Calender, etc.
The above video does more justice than words can. You don’t even need audio, so view it when your boss is busy in the can.
We’ve seen a pretty wide array of uses for RFID tagging, including senior citizen control and kitteh management. LadyBag is a smart personal accessory which uses RFID tags to monitor the items you bring with you out of your home, such as your keys and wallet, and also judges your emotion based on your person-to-bag interaction.
When the sensors on the LadyBag feel a disturbance in the force (something missing from its inner contents), the item’s logo will appear on the special LED display. The bag also reads your emotional state. If you’re fiddling around with the zipper, a nervous looking emoticon appears. If you’re hugging the bag close, a happy face appears. — Andrew Dobrow