We don’t get the chance to post much actual in-world Grinding here; not that we’re not constantly on the look out for it.

Implanting an RFID chip and modding your stuff to use it is still the state of the art in Grinder Tech. (And if there’s something better you know of out there, EMAIL ME! m1k3y AT grinding DOT be). We’ve mentioned Jon Oxer on here a few times, but the details were incomplete.

Western Australian honorary Grinder slampt has done the best job so far in documenting the process; even videoing the minor surgery he had to implant the chip:

His main reference was Tim Fanelli’s excellent RFID wiki, so (hint hint) that’s an excellent place to get started if you’re so inspired! (And if anybody starts saying you’re getting the Number of the Beast implanted, point them straight to his Implant Philosophy page.)

This is still very much DIY tech. Getting the chip implanted is the easiest part; they’re not expensive at all. The harder part seems to be finding a doctor, nurse or piercing professional happy to inject the chip.

The much more expensive part, especially in spending TIME, not MONEY, is modifying your house, car, motorbike or computer.. whatever it is you want to use the chip to control or access.

We’re still a ways off having off-the-shelf, consumer tech that is RFID Implant ready; give it time. But there are resources aplenty out there to help you. Find your local HackerSpace; failing that, create one!

So get to it. Wow me and report back.

UPDATE: Minor correction, per slampt: “Tim Fanelli has an excellent RFID wiki, which I both contributed to and used. This is a great source of information and people are encouraged to contribute.”

via 80% of the humans I follow on Twitter.

h+ has a great piece written by a genuine Grinder:

I’ve made scalpel incisions in my hands, pushed five-millimeter diameter needles through my skin, and once used a vegetable knife to carve a cavity into the tip of my index finger. I’m an idiot, but I’m an idiot working in the name of progress: I’m Lepht Anonym, scrapheap transhumanist. I work with what I can get

Keep Reading..

via David Forbes

Previously:

• Exploring RFID Implants
• usb memory stick in prosthetic finger
• Rob Spence: emergent EyeBorg

We kid you not. According to its online retailer, the wallet is woven from over 20,000 super-fine strands of stainless steel which “protects your ID like armour plate”.

The idea is sound, in principle. The stitching methodology reminded us of a Faraday cage – an enclosure designed to block out external electric fields.

The wallet promises to completely shield its contents from today’s hi-tech pickpockets, while also being stronger than leather.

Speaking of contents, the wallet can hold six cards, has two internal slots and a billfold – that’s a fiver folding flap to our British readers.

Via reghardware.co.uk.

The folks at BERG developed this neat method for visualizing the sensitivity of an RFID reader. Rather than using an expensive set of test equipment to measure the magnetic field intensity, they just hooked their reader up so that it lit an LED every time their card was detected, and then captured it using a camera.

Link and video via makezine.com.

We talked about the prototype HUD contact in January 2008. They have been working on improvements:

Today — together with his students — Babak A. Parviz, bionanotechnology expert at University of Washington, is already producing devices that have a lens with one wirelessly Radio Frequency powered LED. To turn such a lens into a functional browser, control circuits, communication circuits and miniature antennas will have to be integrated. These lenses will eventually include hundreds of semitransparent LEDs, which will form images in front of the eye: words, charts, imagery enabling the wearers to navigate their surroundings whithout distraction or disorientation. The optoelectronics in the lens may be controlled by a seperate device that relays information to the lens’s control circuit. Another use could be the monitoring of the wearer’s health and biomarkers f.e. cholesterol, sodium, kalium or glucose.

Link and photo via nextnature.net, though the image is a concept only at this point and not yet a working prototype.

Thanks to LBA for the tip-off!

MIT’s Spacebook project looks to be a very interesting exploration of post-privacy:

Spacebook is a project to design an interactive house whose walls gradually change in transparency with changes in local environmental conditions and the presence or absence of people inside and outside the space. The projects uses a new type of glass that was recently patented at the SENSEable City Lab

via Planet Damage

The Nikkei, a major Japanese business publication, is reporting that NEC is planning to sell RFID tag readers/writers, which are priced less than 10% compared to existing products. The company seems to have made major advancements “in the field of semiconductor research”, resulting in the drastic price cut.

The tags are compatible with all of the six worldwide radio communications standards. NEC is ready to accept orders beginning as early as this July. 10,000 of the new tags will be available for approximately $100.

NEC is expecting to rake in $1 billion in sales by 2014 by not only selling the tags but by also leasing compatible software and servers to buyers. The company seems to be willing to expand the scope of usage of RFID tags from the industrial field to the retail sector in order to achieve mass adoption.

Link and quote via crunchgear.com,

Concept, currently under development:

Texas-based MicroTransponder has come up with a neural stimulator to ease chronic pain. Small electrodes are implanted by injection in a procedure that takes only 30mn. Once in place, stimulators are powered by a low-energy radio signal, like RFID tags.

With this technology, there is no need for wires or battery replacement. It is possible to tweak some settings using a PDA or a laptop.

Via ubergizmo.com

From Hack a Day, this video demos “reading and logging unique IDs of random tags and Passport Cards while cruising around San Francisco”:

More details on this from The Register:

The $250 proof-of-concept device – which researcher Chris Paget built in his spare time – operates out of his vehicle and contains everything needed to sniff and then clone RFID, or radio frequency identification, tags. During a recent 20-minute drive in downtown San Francisco, it successfully copied the RFID tags of two passport cards without the knowledge of their owners.

…

Paget’s device consists of a Symbol XR400 RFID reader (now manufactured by Motorola), a Motorola AN400 patch antenna mounted to the side of his Volvo XC90, and a Dell 710m that’s connected to the RFID reader by ethernet cable. The laptop runs a Windows application Paget developed that continuously prompts the RFID reader to look for tags and logs the serial number each time one is detected. He bought most of the gear via auctions listed on eBay.

thanks to Vertigo Jones for the tip-off!

From the BBC News:

The bill proposes tracking the movements of HIV-positive people who behave in what some MPs describe as an irresponsible way.

The proposal is the most controversial of a swathe of programmes to tackle the spread of HIV in Indonesia.

Papua has one of the worse infection rates outside Africa.

As well as proposing to use microchips to track people’s movements, it also suggests tattooing as a way of alerting health officials to carriers of the virus.

It recommends mandatory testing for all Papuans, with special ID cards issued to those who test positive.

Proposal is the first step to implementation.

- photo via nationalgeographic.com

It’s no mystery to scientists that bees have been disappearing and or dying off in record numbers. Besides contributing billions of dollars to the US economy, they play an important role in the pollination of crops. That apple you are eating? Not possible with out a little help from the honey bee.

Tracking their movement has come one step closer:

In the bee-tracking project, Wikelski and his colleagues are using transmitters the size of three or four grains of rice, powered by a tiny hearing-aid battery and with a crystal-controlled oscillator and an antenna measuring up to an inch and a half.

The transmitters, at a featherweight 0.006 ounces (170 milligrams), are small and light enough to attach to the backs of bees from two relatively hefty species, weighing .02 ounces (600 milligrams), with just a bit of eyelash glue and superglue.

Even loaded up with these backpacks, nearly a third of their body weight, “they fly beautifully,” says Wikelski.

The transmitters allow the scientists to track the insects as long as the bees remain within a few miles of their receiver. So far Wikelski and his team have fitted tags on orchid bees at Panama’s Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and conducted successful indoor tests in a New Jersey lab with North America’s biggest bee species, the carpenter bee.

These early tests are proof of concept. Most bees are much smaller than orchid and carpenter bees. In fact, many wild bee species are the size of just a pine nut.

The tags are tiny, but need to be smaller still for honey bees. Although they have tiny robots, having a camera on a bee would make for excellent surveillance. They would just have to avoid being swatted.

Link and photo via nationalgeographic.com.

- via instructables.com

Seen on hackaday.com, nmarquardt via instructables.com, gives step-by-step instructions on how to build a basic RFID reader. Download as a PDF or simply follow the steps on the screen, you can create a tag that will detect other tags near it or one that is orientation sensitive. At the end of the tutorial is a varations section, which list suggestions for other hacks you can do.

Anab Jain has made RFID into something rather pretty:

via MAKE | Neo-nomad.

- image via mchips.com

From gizmodo.com:

The chip is much more precise than the finger pricking method for monitoring blood, and in diabetes sufferers, can minimize the risk of complications like blindness and kidney failure. The first glucose-monitoring and osteoporosis drug-releasing chips will begin human clinical trials next year. MicroCHIPS is looking into developing more advanced versions that can predict heart or kidney failure, biodegrade in the body, and release multiple vaccine or drug doses over time.

Hello Medical Tag! Ok, a primitive medical one, but it’s a good step in the right direction. I wonder if they have even considered adding any kind of sercurity to this? How easy could it be to hack into the tag and trigger an overdose of meds?

No more need for batteries in that remote control:

Taiwanese electronics specialist Favite has been demonstrating its latest remote control module using RFID technology to remove the need for batteries – at least for those prepared to bathe their living room in a two-watt energy field.

Using a passive RFID tag to communicate with a TV might seem strange, but at 433MHz the range is sufficient, and a modern tag is perfectly capable of reporting which button is being pressed while collecting energy from the two-watt induction field being generated by the TV every few seconds.

Favite accepts that not everyone is going to want such a high-powered transmitter in the corner of their living room, so it’s suggested that a rechargeable version could exist, or one powered with a button cell which it reckons should give ten years of life in normal use.

Most remotes still operate on infrared, which is largely line of sight and very, very, cheap. For TVs that line of sight issue has never really been a problem: why would you want control of the TV you can’t see?

Via theregister.co.uk.

- photo via gizmag.com

From engadget.com:

Reportedly, the outfit [GE Global Research] has developed a battery-free RFID sensing platform — one that can provide a highly selective response to multiple chemicals under variable conditions — which could enable a “wide range of low-cost wireless sensing products in industries like healthcare, security, food packaging, etc.” Put simply, the tags get their power from the sensor reader, which activates the tag’s antenna and the RFID chip to collect meaningful data. There’s no word on when these will leave the lab, but the sooner the better, we say.

One more step closer to the RFID tags in the world of DOKTOR SLEEPLESS.

As the news out of Japan hinted, they’re already moving beyond the world of QRCodes. Just as the rest of us are starting to explore it with what we like to think of as ‘futurephones’ (or is it just me?).

And I was left with this question:

So what is different about this Near Field Communication? Is there some thin electronics being printed into the poster? More investigation is clearly required.

The obvious first stop is the wikipedia entry:

NFC is a short-range high frequency wireless communication technology which enables the exchange of data between devices over about a 10 centimetre (around 4 inches) distance. The technology is a simple extension of the ISO 14443 proximity-card standard (contactless card, RFID) that combines the interface of a smartcard and a reader into a single device.

So it’s RFIDs being integrated into our phones; yeah, I think we all saw that coming.

Of course now I’m wondering when we’ll see this outside of Japan. And then Bruce Sterling tweeted: “Wondering how spimey “tikitag” really is. They’re looking mighty spimed. http://www.tikitag.com/“.

And what does tikitag use? NFC:

tikitag uses high frequency RFID (Radio Frequent IDentification) operating at 13.56MHz. tikitag uses passive RFID tags and active readers. tikitag is also compatible with Near Field Communication, a standard based on HF RFID and being implemented in more and more mobile phones.

But enough with the text quotes, what does it look like? Here’s an example:

A simple, but powerful demo. For one, it’s far less obtrusive than having to scan the big graphic that a QRCode is. These can placed inside and behind things, so long as the reader can hit them.

And what sort of applications do they see for it?

So just about everything in the modern consumer world then.

But we all just got QRCodes readers on our iPhones, N-Series Nokias, etc. They can’t be upgrading the tech already, can then? Of course they are:

What mobile phones are NFC enabled?

Today you can buy the Nokia 6131 NFC and in the near future as well the Nokia 6212 Classic. Other: BenQ T80, Motorola L7 (SLVR) NFC, Samsung SGH-D500E NFC, Samsung SGH-X700n (brick) NFC, Sagem-Orga my700X NFC, Nokia 3220 + NFC Shell and some Kyocera models.

So it’s just in new phones by most of the major makers then.

Alright kids, forget QRCodes then, get ready for NFC. I can’t wait to see what comes next; bring on the internet of things!

See Also:

• Nokia’s concept sensor phone
• Bruce Sterling’s LIFT videos on Spimes

See for yourself what happens if you have an RFID implanted and go through an MRI machine:

via the comments over on Dedroidify

No, the MegaCorps don’t want to keep you uninformed and ignorant of how vulnerable you may be. Whatever gave you that idea?

via Cory@BoingBoing

See Also:

• Boing Boing TV: How to hack RFID enabled credit-cards for $8
• xkcd’s Unscientific