What are we reduced to when corporations monitor EVERYTHING down to how many rolls of toilet paper are used? The day my genetically modified groceries include a tracking chip is the day you'll see metruly go off the deep end. Peace Goodbye UPC bar codes Wednesday, July 9, 2003 Posted: 9:09 AM EDT (1309 GMT) (pic of ant walking on chips goes here, use your imagination) An ant walks among computer chips. Packages with a computer chip smaller than the head of an ant and a thin antenna are expected to start appearing in a few stores this year. There could be some very invasive uses of these techniques if merchants use the tracking technology to spy on their customers after purchase. -- Marc Rotenberg, Electronic Privacy Information Center WASHINGTON (AP) -- Razor blades and medicines packaged with pinpoint-sized computer chips and tiny antennae to send retailers and manufacturers a wealth of information about the products -- and those who buy them -- will start appearing in grocery stores and pharmacies this year. Within two decades, the minuscule transmitters are expected to replace the familiar product bar codes, and retailers are already envisioning the conveniences the new technology, called "radio frequency identification," will bring -- even as others are raising privacy concerns. Expired milk reported A grocery store clerk will know immediately when the milk on the shelf has expired, for example, and replace it before a customer can choose it. Stores could quickly pull from the shelves tainted and damaged products that are recalled or have expired, especially important in health care items. "It would help you manage your inventory a lot better," says Todd Andrews, spokesman for the Rhode Island-based CVS pharmacy chain that will soon test the chips and antennae on its prescription medicines. CVS's 4,000 stores fill millions of prescriptions each year but many customers forget to pick them up. "If you could utilize RFID technology to tell you that a prescription is in the waiting bin, maybe the product could say: 'I've been here 10 days and I haven't been picked up yet.' Then, you could call the patient," Andrews says. The technology builds upon the UPC (Uniform Product Code) symbol and bar codes that, when read by a scanner, enable manufacturers and retailers to keep up with their prices and inventories. A computer chip smaller than the head of an ant and a thin antenna attached to a bottle, box, can or package will alert retailers and suppliers when a product is taken off a store shelf or moved out of a warehouse. A radio signal is beamed to an electronic reader, which then delivers a message to a computer in the store or factory. Retailers fund research CVS, Procter & Gamble and The Gillette Co. are among the 100 retailers and manufacturers that have put up a total of $15 million for research on the new tags at the Auto-ID Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Other Auto-ID labs at the University of Cambridge in England, Adelaide University in Australia, Keio University in Japan and USG-ETH in Switzerland are also working on the technology. Radio frequency identification technology is not new. The tiny chips and small antennae already are familiar to workers equipped with security cards that, when waived in front of a receiver, unlock the doors to their offices or relay information about the bearer to a guard. The technology's potential for sending retailers and others information about consumers is already raising privacy concerns, however. Potential for spying Marc Rotenberg, executive director of a watchdog organization, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said retailers should be required to disable the tags before a consumer leaves a store. "Simply stated, I don't think most people want their clothes spying on them," Rotenberg said. Researchers developing RFID tags for products so far have focused on the supply chain and limited the range at which a product could be detected. Once their use becomes universal the cost of the tags could be as little as a nickel each, they say. Sanjay Sarma, the lead researcher at the Auto-ID Center in Massachusetts, says that by adding more functions to the chip, installing a battery and attaching a longer antenna, a receiver far away could read all the information on a chip, including its exact location. Alerting consumers, marketers Homes equipped with receiver-readers could alert consumers when they are running low on orange juice or their prescription for heart medicine is about to expire. Hooked up to a national network like the Internet, the at-home devices could also provide details to marketers about a family's eating and hygienic habits. Sarma acknowledges that gigantic privacy concerns the technology raises, saying one way to address them would be letting consumers disable the chips once they leave a checkout counter. "Any technology can be abused and we've got to be prepared, be watchful for the abuse," Sarma said. Ron Margulis, a spokesman for the National Grocers Association, said the privacy concerns are far outweighed by the benefits of RFID. Retailers, he said, could respond much more quickly to product recalls and prevent people from becoming ill from tainted products. "You do give up a bit of privacy but the benefit could be that you live," said Margulis. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
hahahahahahahahah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ya see, that will make it so they won't have to hire people who can read, and in th future stockboys will be robots that transport prestocked shelves in one unit to their place when stuff runs out. In the "big city" by where i live ther's a Fry's (supermarket) that has automated cash registers. You scan all the stuff yourself then it has you insert money into it and gives you a reciept and even says thank you in a creepy synthesized voice. I just think there's something fundamentally wrong with a machine thanking me for shopping in a store, i mean it's not like it's a human showing gratitude, although it's usually not sincere, it's a demeaning preprogrammed response. They don't have to hire anybody to actually "work" there's a guy who sits up high in this little control station thing and looks down to see if people are tryin' to steal stuff. That was creepy, i got outta that place quick and never went back. hey Zia, just wait till they interface this with the LifeLog, then they'll know WHO used the toilet paper. Peace
Howdy doodlee neighborino's, If they make chips that are the size of Ants, won't ant's try to mate with them. Jesus, we could be on the forefront of a new technocolgical wave where highly intelligent superchips are able to carry 10 times their own weight and steal sugar from a picnic. So this Big Brother 2 is a load of crap, it's these little Ants that scare me,.... what if they got into your head and started turning your skull into a cybernetic cross match Ant Stadium for the advancement of digital antiquities. Where will we be then? In Ant hell I tells ya.... You heard it here first. The prophet of doom has spoken. Long live Ming the Mercedesless... (oops, Flashbacks to my previous life as Flash Gordon's (TM) car valeter are becoming more frequent). Love, peace, sexual abandon and hapiness to all who read this post. PS> I realise I'll probably get some stick for this posting, so can I just say... (in order to make your lives easier) 1. I am a prick 2. I am still a prick. 3. I talk shit. 4. A Lot. 5. I mean very little harm... 6. Women tend to say to me.... 'No, don't stop' as opposed to 'Stop, don't... NO......'. 7. I really need to get up from my chair and take a shit. <I WOULD LOVE TO SEE YOU TAKE A SHIT BIG BROTHER> 8. I'm on a diet cause, even if Hash isn't bad for you to smoke, it sure has a hand in turning you into a fat bastard. 9. I graduate University in September and although I won't tell you what I am studying (for your sake, not mine, if you knew how much of a dope head I am and how much responsibility for peoples lives I have)... you'd never go into Hospital again... (did I give a clue away). 10. The magic number ten. Dive it by two, add two and you have my inches in your hand. Ewwwwww.
Does anyone know what the 'SCROLL LOCK' does on the keyboard apart from saying 'Scroll Lock' and being all key like and cute. Answers on a self addressed, sealed Envelope to: Wildc@rds Moment of Afinity Hampstead Heath Common Gay Ground At the back of the Cottage NUGGETS NW1 3LP Terms and conditions apply. Remember folks, this offer is not available in the shops. Why, coz it's shit. - - Laaaanguage Timotheeee.
"You scan all the stuff yourself then it has you insert money into it and gives you a reciept and even says thank you in a creepy synthesized voice" We've got that in the local Schnucks grociery store. I love it. You don't have to wait on anyone and where there is usually 1 register, it has 2 per lane.. it really speeds stuff up. But I hardly ever use it cause when I got to Schnucks I'm usually buying Bacardi or some liquor.. and I'm 18.. and they ALWAYS ask for id at the self-check thing. So eh you know.
What a cotton pickin' coincidence!!!! We have the same thing here sort of. There's a checkout where you have to scan all the things yourself. There's actually a woman who works behind the desk, but she's too busy doing her nails and sending text messages to her countless lovers that she never bothers to do any work. Once you're scanning, you hand over you hard earned reddies and she points to the receipt on the till for you to take. After that, it's pot luck as to whether she says 'thanks' or not, but if she does, it comes across sounding exactly like - "My life is a boiling sesspool of human excrament and I am doomed to suffer this existance behind the counter of the local co-op working for a shitty less than minium wage that I spend on cheap booze, cigarettes and wild nights where I invariably end up fucking some village idiot becuase I'm too old and all the good men have been taken.' Or at least, I think that's what she says. I'm not so sure sometimes. Perhaps she just says 'Thanks'... tricky one that. But, she's my mother and I love her. PS> Love your work.
man this is the kind of shit thats gonna cause the downfall of america, corrupt politicians who cant get enough money or control over us. its only a matter of time before people realize theres more of us than them and many of "us" dont abide by the law or give a fuck about the lives of politicians. america, land of the free... free to the power of the people in uniform-KMK
I hear what you're saying comrade. Down with these Capatalist thugs and freedom for the proliteriat. Since the proliteriat are important to the theories of Socialism and Communism, they are assumed to be the backbone of society and through revolution they can gain power and allow for communial property and business. Hold on, these kinds of moralistic shinanigans never really worked in Russia (although they did give it one hell of a go) and it really doesn't make for quality life in Cuba, China or the Peoples Republic of North Vietnam. Their societies are instead, packed to the gunnels full of morally bankrupt individuals who feed from the misery of the endless queue's of hungry women and children. Take for example, George Bush Jnr. Just ask how much money that man has, how much he has personally spent on his own ego over the last few years and who has been uncerimonously stepped and trodden on in his pursuit of power. The point I'm trying to make here is: no society is perfect, but god love them for trying, Canada is doing it's best. America, shit, that country is going to the dogs... they shoot at each other thousands of times a year and tend not to miss.... just ask any High School Student. Hell, I'm not even Canadian but anywhere that produces the unmistakable talent that is Jim Carey needs to be congratulated. In fact, I'd like to start off a petition for Jim Carey to be elected unanimously, for the natural remainder of his life as President of the World. Nay, make that the known Universe. Sincerely and with hope for a better future for both you and I, J.Carey. Comedian, Entertainer, Actor, Self Styled Publicist.