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HP's Memory Spot Chip
Iddo Genuth writes, "HP Labs recently revealed a prototype of the Memory Spot Chip, a tiny wireless chip capable of storing and transmitting data. When it hits the market in about 2-3 years, the new chip will enable a variety of applications ranging from digital wristbands that store patient medical information to sound bytes on paper or printed pictures that can be accessed using a reader-equipped device. The article has an interview with Howard Taub of HP Labs and some photos of the prototype chip." The chip can only be read at a distance of 1 mm, so it avoids many of the privacy concerns of RFID. It has about 1000 times the storage capacity and 100-1000 times the data transfer rate of RFID.
Their timing couldn't be better!
The chip can only be read at a distance of 1 mm, so it avoids many of the privacy concerns of RFID. It has about 1000 times the storage capacity and 100-1000 times the data transfer rate of RFID
Well then, they need to call it something catchy, like "RFID Extreme". I'll buy one to go with my Airport Extreme bas station, and my Extreme Doritos.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
I can only see 1 metre without my glasses,
But shockingly if I get a device to FOCUS the light I can see much further.
Do they make tiny pringles cans?
liqbase
Imagine! No more sheafs of paper!
Actually not having to use a card reader at the store, simply pick up what you want and leave!
I'll take 2.
If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it.
Or, possibly, they could do something like they did with USB. Call it "RFID 2.0", then rename regular RFID to "RFID 2.0 Full speed", and the real RFID 2.0 to "RFID 2.0 High Speed". That's not confusing at all.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
If they are going to make it so that you have to be 1mm away to read the signal, then why not just make a contact point and do away with the wireless function all together. This would truly avoid the privacy concerns and would function just the same. What's 1 more milimeter of distance anyway?
It seems everything these days needs to be wireless in order to be considered a hot new item. This is like making a "contactless pen." Instead of having to press the pen against the paper to write, you can hover the pen less than 1mm away from the paper.
"It's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get." -- H. J. Simpson
HP had to develop such a tiny memory technology for their spy cameras! :)
My blog
What happens if I lose my memory spot?
Could I be malicious and sprinkle hundreds of them on expensive items and the the clerk play pin the scanner on the donkey?
liqbase
The advantage of RFID is that it could be read from a distance... so that you could walk out of a store with a cart full of items and not need to scan each one individually. This removes this ability.
The security concern with RFID is that it could be read from a distance... so a marketing company could scan a cart full of items and not need to scan each one individually. this removes this ability.
OK so now it doesn't benifit you or the store at all... but it protects your security better! But the way I see it is it's no better than the current, cheap alternative of barcodes.
I think where TFA is off is in it's comparing this technology and it's applications to RFID. These technologies are certainly not targetting the same markets or applications. I wouldn't mind the new chip in my credit card (unlike RFID), but don't raise the price of my canned fruit by embedding one in the label.
This new technology is best suited in situations where large volumes of data need to be attached to an object and securely (relative, physical only) read very quickly and with minimal effort. Medical applications come to mind as well as banking, credit card processing, and identification (DL, VISA, Passport).
Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
HP Labs recently revealed a prototype of the Memory Spot Chip, a tiny wireless chip capable of storing and transmitting data.
This coming hot off the heels of the Mystery Spot Chip, which didn't really work, as any photos read off the device didn't appear to obey the observable laws of physics.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Who could deliberately sabotage their chip, and when they're caught shoplifting, they could just say that you didn't realize their chip was faulty. Who'd be able to prove different?
I loved the printed image part, accessible by a reader... :D
Yeah. Would you choose a neurosurgeon who pokes around people's brains in his spare time? I wouldn't.
Too bad the range is so small. Otherwise it'd be so easy to grab people's sentistive information (say phone records or SS numbers, stuff like that) as they walk by. You'd be able to covertly snag information on anyone- employees, board members, maybe random reporters or thier relatives. Right now it so much hassle hiring outside firms to track this kind of stuff down for you. I'm sure those innovative enginners are working on it though. Go HP!
(note to moderators: I forgot to include sarcasm tags in my post above. Sorry. Really.)
Shameless plug for my photos on Flickr
Unfortunately people, and in this case TFA, often compare technologies that have different intended uses (eg. Bluetooth vs Wifi). Sure they have some overlap, but they differ in many ways too.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
A wireless device like this can provide a more reliable mechanism than something with a contact. Contacts wear out over time, and even if the time period is short enough to make wear irrelevant, static buildup or incorrect voltages on the reader device could blow the device when you make contact with it.
And finally, unless you're extending an antenna via the contact, you will need more than one contact to make a usable circuit with the reader. On something as small as a Memory Dot, that could be nigh on impossible to achieve with any regularity. Stores hate it when UPC barcodes don't scan first time. Imagine how annoyed they'd be if they have to try three or four times to contact the memory dot.
Trying to become famous by taking photos. Visit my homepage please.
>> The chip can only be read at a distance of 1 mm, so it avoids many of the privacy concerns of RFID. It has about 1000 times the storage capacity and 100-1000 times the data transfer rate of RFID.
RFID has been able to be read FAR from it's original spec'd distance...so have bluetooth devices. How long will this 1 mm last? What if this 1 mm becomes 1,000 mm?
One major use of such a chip would be implanting it just under the skin on the back of your hand.
Then you just swipe your hand over a reader to buy things.
Since it has lots of memory, you could put all medical data and other "official" information on it to be at the ready.
You could even use it at your employment establishment to get paid.
I'd think that the government would want such a society of highly tracked and managed citizens. It would make it hard to buy drugs or support other terrorist activites without it knowing about them.
I think it was even predicted to happen in the Holy Bible.
Hmm, I need a Memory G-Spot Chip to give to my wife. She seems to forget where it is far too often.
...were able to squeeze all these parts into a chip smaller than a grain of rice
Is this the new standard for chip dimensions? Or does the author think his audience is not able to comprehend such complicated technical terms as 4mm?
Another RFID chip with really short range? Is this part of a new cellphone with really short operating range, realy short battery life, and really dim display, all for security reaons?
And to finish my excellent analysis: When do you really need a lot of memory in the RFID chip? Store the data on a huge disk, and your really just need an index (from the RFID chip) into the data. A barcode would be just fine in most apps.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
These types of devices could be incredibly helpful inside live animals (including humans). Imagine a farmer being able to touch a machine to a computer laying just beneath the skin of livestock. He could use this to collect info from internal probes and other data gathering tools... sugar, water, and fat levels, hormone levels, known pathogens, etc... all could be checked every time the cow wandered in to get milk (as happens automatically in many big farms).
Inside people, temporary chips could be used to do similar jobs for patients in hosiptals; assisting data reporting for patients with diabetes, heart irregularity, etc.
I'm not good at making signatures...
There are contactless smart cards with up to 2 megabytes of storage, built in AES, 3DES, and RSA, that have a 1 inch range and 800 kbps transmit rates. A $1 memory spot looks good compared to a $0.10 rfid chip but isn't so impressive compared to a $1 contactless smart card.
Lasers Controlled Games!
So, it's like an RFID tag, only faster and with greater capacity - and it'll be released in a few years time. That's news how exactly?
Unless technology suddenly stops advancing I'm sure every other RFID tag launched in a few years time will also have those sort of specs.
The chip can only be read at a distance of 1 mm, so it avoids many of the privacy concerns of RFID.
... right? I have had some aquaintences that could bring up an old style analog wireless phone (remember 49 MHz?) from _miles_ away. Just takes a good radio, the tone generator, and a directional antenna. And if you use a wireless baby monitor. Well, wow! They have very sensitive mikes and pick up everything said in their vicinity, the next room, and sometimes downstairs around the corner in livingroom. And again with a good radio and directional antenna they can be listened to from pretty far away. So the claim of read distance of 1mm begs the question, why not use a real electrical contact, and just how "deaf" is the specified receiver?
And baby monitors only have a range of a hundred feet
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
Instead of relying on the sensitivity of today's receivers to come up with "it can only be read from a distance of 1mm", why not implement very simple technology (radio signal ping-pong) to determine the distance of the radio partner? Encryption keys could be passed to ensure a single partner, and possibly moot the entire Pringles Can argument. Or perhaps I'm daft to think any solution could be so simple.
- The Kessel run is for nerf herders. I can circumnavigate the entire Central Finite Curve in a lot less than 12 parse
I guess my dupe tag wasn't good enough.../ 19/0452236/ 17/1319245
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/07
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/07
Make sure that Pham Nuwen hasn't hidden any trapdoors in them!
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
" tiny wireless chip capable of storing and transmitting data." ... it transmits that data to a bunch of private investigators by default.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
It has about 1000 times the storage capacity and 100-1000 times the data transfer rate of RFID.
:)
Wow, so it can store, like, 100k!
(yeah, i know that a lot of storage isn't usually needed in RFID applications and the such, but still...)
Unless they have discovered some new fundamental property of electromagetism, what this has to be read as is this: The system was designed so that the specific reader they have in mind is not capable of reading at greater than 1mm. This says nothing about security because it does not preclude a reader of a different design from reading the devices at a greater distance.
There is no doubt that this technology is more difficult to snoop than RFID. However, I suspect that talking about a technology like this being "secure" entails the logical fallacy of "begging the question" -- the question in this case being who and what we trust it to secure us against.
It is not the technology, but the trust we put in it that creates security vulnerabilities. That trust creates incentives to exploit our sense of security.
Suppose I am a diplomat who trusts this device to keep my country's secret negotiation records secret. This create the incentive for foreign intelligence agencies to build hidden readers into the conference table so when I put my portfolio down the thing gets read. Or maybe they build supersenstive receivers and efficient antennas to read the device from several meters away.
Suppose I am a billionaire who trusts a chip embedded in my palm to keep my secret bank access codes safe. I create the incentive for somebody to chop my hand off.
So, by advertising a system as "secure", especially making broad claims such as it being impossible to read at greater than 1mm, we create security problems.
Another thing to consider: even if the things cannot be read at more than 1mm, they can surely be detected at a greater distance. For example those medical record dog tags might reveal the position of a commando at several meters.
IANARG (I Am Not A Radio Geek) but it seems to me you have to do is look at is the physics of how the devices work in order to assess their security -- not the system in which they are designed to work. At 2.54 GHz, the wavelength these devices operate on is about four and a half inches. If you look at the reader, it clearly is designed with an inefficient antenna, which must be the major factor limiting its operational range.
A 2m dish, which could easily be hidden behind a RF transparent screen, would have 35 dBi gain. This clearly could read the devices at a much greater range.
A more precise statement of security than "cannot be read at more than 1m" would take into acount the size of the antenna and the distance at which that antenna might be located.
Suppose, for sake of argument, that the practical limit using a 2m parabolic dish was that the devices could be read at 5 m and detected at 15m. We could make make a table:
At over 15 meters: I am secure from detection by a hidden 2m dish.
At over 5 meters: I am secure from disclosure to a hidden 2m dish.
At over 4 meters: I am secure from detection by a hidden 1m dish.
At over 1 meter: I am secure from disclosure to a hidden 1m dish and detection by a simple dipole antenna.
At over half a meter: I am secure from disclousre to a simple dipole antenna.
(values are hypothetical and sloppily estimated, but you get the idea).
The problem is, it takes more of an attention span to think about this than to assume you're safe at anything over 1mm.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
now they don't have to pretext, they can read your cell directly!
HP will never get out from underneath these kind of jokes until all the spies and liars are thrown out and they lead the world in absolutely banning Nixonian tactics.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Imagine a Beowulf clu... no, I can't squint that hard.