| At last, a practical use for your aura
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In what sounds like one of those April Fools articles media outlets enjoy — ones with implausible premises like, oh, Karl Rove turning out to be the source for the outing of a CIA agent or George HW Bush's ne'er-do-well son becoming president instead of Jeb — The Times of London is reporting that NTT in Japan has discovered that the human body's electrical field is a superb conductor, suitable for downloading data:
NTT, the Japanese telecoms group, and the team of scientists that invented the Red Tacton system, envisage a future in which the human body acts as a non-stop conduit for information. Wireless networks — often hampered by intermittent service — will eventually be replaced, NTT says, by "human area networks".
...
With Red Tacton sensors miniaturised and built into every type of device and product, the list of potential uses is endless, Hideki Sakamoto, of NTT, said during an exclusive demonstration for The Times. By simply touching an advertising poster, for example, product information and an order form could be sent to your laptop. Shake hands with a new contact, and every detail that would normally appear on a business card will leap across your arms and download itself to your mobile phone.
Oh, great, the very first example they can think of is spam. [Thanks to John Maloney for the link.] [Technorati tags: RedTacton Tacton]
Posted
by D. Weinberger at July 15, 2005 11:05 AM
Comments
Anyone who has an iTrip (FM transmitter for iPod to listen to on your car stereo's radio) will have noticed this first hand... Put the iTrip somewhere in the car and the quality is fine, like general FM radio. But hold it in your hand and whoa! Humans acting as antennas seems perfectly plausible to this driver.
Posted by: Max | July 15, 2005 11:37 AM
"human body acts as a non-stop conduit for information"
Will I have to meditate each day for two hours to recharge my aura? Are they going to supply a Buddhist monk for each Red Tacton sensor as a means of learning the ways of reenergizing your "human network"? Or is my "aura" considered to be an unlimited power source for the operation of these techniques? Am I going to interfere with my beloved ones as our aura might be more synchronized? ("Honey, could you please go to the kitchen while I digitally sign the school papers of the kids as you seem to disturb my signal very much... even after all these years darling :)")
Just few of my many (probably delirious) concerns with the above :)
Posted by: Henrik | July 15, 2005 12:27 PM
Any word yet on pending lawsuits from the MPAA and RIAA? After all, the human body could therefore be used to facilitate illegal downloads and should thus logically be illegal.
Posted by: Stephen Downes | July 15, 2005 01:11 PM