Finally RFID finds an everyday use .... almost

Recently I went to a conference on Ubiquitious Computing (Mark Weiser is the father of ubiquitous computing)

The conference was thought provoking and the debates were argued with passion - in particular the pros and cons of RFID and the knock on effect on privacy to the individual.  While everybody could (and did) agree that RFID will improve inventory control and order processing - streamlining businesses and in fact even improving the shopping experience.

Where the debate raged was in the "future" of RFID and the ability to track anything. One arguement was that the criminal element of the world could be tracked and processes could be put in place to prevent them straying further from the path.  Unfortunately what seemed to be unconstrained was knowing WHAT was recorded, WHEN it was being tracked/probed/monitored and of course WHO was doing the tracking probing.

An example use given was, as an emergency monitor for the aged and infirm, and maybe even tracking the prosecuted villans of the world.  This opportunity, to track the criminal element, was taken forward.  For it to be realistic, one would need to capture every criminal or wannabe criminal first and implant them.  This is a little impractical, unless it is something that is done early on in the person's life - ummm, e.g. Birth.  Now this opens pandora's box even further - now everybody is trackable, by anybody with the inclination.

This proved to be the losing arguement - and the house (pro) lost, even though it was actually in the direction of ubiquitious computing.

Now ... the (from Layer 8) is an interesting USE for such technology;
Long weekend: Tip #1 Attention golfers: Never lose another ball in the woods or tall grass again. RadarGolf has created a device that lets your help find your wayward shot using RFID technology embedded...

[via Layer 8]