Tokyo Spy Chip advertising
p2pnet.net News:- You know Blade Runner, the classic 1982 movie where among other futuristic appliances you have over-head drones broadcasting advertising messages?
Well, people walking past stores in Tokyo, Japan, may soon have ads and offers beamed at them.
“The Tokyo Ubiquitous Network Project seeks to install 10,000 RFID, infrared and wireless transmitters throughout Tokyo’s Ginza, one of the most famous shopping areas in the world,” says DailyWireless.org. “The tags and transmitters will provide location-related information to people carrying prototype readers developed for the trial, said Ken Sakamura, a professor at The University of Tokyo and the leader of the project.”
And, “Walking past a radio beacon in front of a shop might bring up details of current special offers or a menu for a restaurant.”
Not quite Blade Runner, but you get the idea. There is, however, more to it than merely advertisements.
“Sakamura hopes the system will provide users with basic navigation and information about the shops and stores in the area in at least four languages,” says the post, “Japanese, English, Chinese and Korean. Bringing the terminal close to an RFID tag on a street lamp will pinpoint the user’s location. The system will then be able to guide them to the nearest railway station.”
Behind the Ginza trial is Tokyo’s Ubiquitous Computing Technology Center, a joint-venture between the Japanese government and companies including Fujitsu, NEC, Hitachi and NTT East.
“It features a 3.5in OLED (organic light emitting diode) touch-panel display and a host of networking interfaces,” says DailyWireless.org, adding, “There is RFID, infrared and 429MHz wireless for interacting with the beacons in the trial, wireless LAN for connection to the internet and a Bluetooth link.”
But RFID tags are also known as spy chips. Their data can travel both ways and one wonders if Japanese police and other authorities might also use the technology to track citizens.
Meanwhile, trials are slated to run in January and March.
If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, here for the p2pnet download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.
Also See:
DailyWireless.org - RFID Ginza Tour, December 27, 2006
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December 29th, 2006 at 6:42 pm
Spy chip suppositories will be next
December 29th, 2006 at 10:16 pm
We’ll know just where to stick ‘em. hehehe