Everything Is Watching You
Robotics scientists have come full circle on the best way to get a computer to understand the physical world around it, from giving a robot “eyes” to direct rays of light into a “mental image” of its surroundings, to having objects in a room identify themselves to a robot.
But the new approach to having machines emulate human beings is also being hailed as a way to revolutionize retail sales in that manufacturers could embed their products with identifying technology, which would allow companies to collect information on buyers.
Researchers at MIT are working to create an inexpensive, industry-standard product-tagging system using radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. However, the RFID technology is generating some concern from consumer privacy advocates who believe companies will use it to monitor every aspect of the lives of consumers, in real time.
A published report in the trade publication Smart Labels Analyst reveals that in a Tesco store in Cambridge, England, a surveillance camera focused on shoppers every time they removed a package of tagged Gillette razors from an RFID “smart shelf.”
Retailers see electronic tagging as offering greater benefits of controlling inventory and the supply chain, and add that RFID technology could very easily be turned off once the products leaves a store.
The technology could allow shopping carts to calculate the nutritional value of food placed in them and automatically check shoppers out of stores, enable packages to sort themselves for recycling, allow products to alert buyers when they are recalled, and enable washing machines to tell users that colors are being washed with whites, among other things.
RFID technology would create an intelligent network of objects all around us, an “Internet of things,” explains MIT’s Auto-ID Center.
Abstracted by the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center(NLECTC) from Salon.com (07/24/03); Manjoo, Farhad.