Grain-Sized wireless memory chip promises links between digital and physical worlds

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July 18, 2006 The concept of information ubiquity and a digital presence for all manmade objects moved a little closer to reality today when HP announced that its researchers have developed a miniature (that's it pictured in the centre of the pencils) wireless data chip that could provide broad access to digital content in the physical world. With no equal in terms of its combination of size, memory capacity and data access speed, the tiny chip could be stuck on or embedded in almost any object and make available up to 100 pages of text information or an audio file. Some of the potential applications include storing medical records on a hospital patient's wristband; providing audio-visual supplements to postcards and photos; helping fight counterfeiting in the pharmaceutical industry; adding security to identity cards and passports; and supplying additional information for printed documents such as workshop manuals that read themselves aloud via your other digital equipment, magazines with more embedded digital information on each story.

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