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MyGlobalCity - Thur Feb 22, 2007 February 22, 2007

Get Out and Vote!Or at least in Estonia, stay in and vote over the Internet using your chip-embedded national ID card. Officials in that country are expecting 20-40,000 people to do so, out of the nearly one million eligible voters.

WiMax for ChileIntel’s WiMax wireless networking protocol is being deployed in Chile by Alcatel-Lucent, who will build networks for corporate and residential customers in 24 major cities. [Cellular News]

VoIP: Back… in the UAE?VoIP users in the UAE (United Arab Emirates) have been unhappy about the ban imposed on specific VoIP providers. However, recent news suggests that two native …

British Big Brother: He Knows When You’ve Been Good Or Bad November 5, 2006

So be good for goodness sake… The year 1984 was a symbolic date that had everything to do with George Orwell’s 1949 novel of the same name. But Big Brother surveillance societies already are here, have been here, and will continue to be here. We’ve let it happen.

And it’s not just China, a country that actually wants all of their bloggers to register with the government, as if they were some sort of diseased creature harmful to the populace. (Websites there already have to be registered, legally speaking.) Privacy International, a civil liberties watchdog group, …

Schwarzenegger Terminates California RFID Bill October 6, 2006

Everybody’s writing about Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoing the RFID safety legislation tabled by California State senate, who called it premature and potentially hampering later technology that would lead to improved RFID secure technology. Maybe this is my gut reaction for another fake Hollywood politician that I have little respect for, but it really sounds like inverted logic. Of the kind where, if you cover your eyes, then no one can see you.

Are you surprised? I’m not. Not one bit. What does this tell you about him, who purportedly represents the interests of the largest state in …

Unwired - News About GPS, Wi-Fi, RFID, Bluetooth - May-27-2006 May 26, 2006

Here are some summaries related to wireless technologies (GPS, Wi-Fi, RFID, Bluetooth) for May 27, 2006:

More RFID Technology Purchases May 10, 2006

In my last post, I talked about how a number of technology companies are buying up their suppliers. Given that RFID and NFC technology is behind most of the new digital touchless payment systems being tested in many parts of the world, it’s not suprising, then, that a company like NCR Corp (National Cash Register Corporation) recently purchased IDVelocity LLC, an RFID provider.

NCR has long been a producer of ATMs (automated teller machines), sometimes called ABMs (automated banking machines). Their technology is often branded with the logos of banks, credit unions, and other financial institutions, …

Legitimate Global Village RFID Applications April 28, 2006

After scouring a few RFID weblogs and websites recently, I came to the realization that there are actually numerous RFID applications that do not fall into the “tracking human beings” category. Such example applications including the teaching of English and preventing incorrect usage of prescribed medicines. Certainly these are legitimate, even noble applications of RFID.

Other non-privacy-invading applications include supply chain systems, preventing lost baggage at airports, animal/ pet tracking, and even validating/ authenticating poker chips at casinos. Or imagine forklifts that can operate on their own, and know what flats they have to pick up and move. Of …

Quantizing Humans And Tracking Supermen - RFID Chips Go Cyborg April 11, 2006

In a recent episode of Smallville, the TV show about young Clark Kent before he becomes Superman, Chloe and Clark are trying to find Lana Lang, who’s developed a deadly addiction to a drug made from Kryptonite. Chloe goes on about how she can find Lana if Lana is carrying her student id card. According to her, new college student id cards have tracking enabled.

I’m assuming that they’re talking RFID chips, and the show is of course fiction, but this is the first I’ve heard of such use of student id cards. Imagine, if you’re a parent, you could keep …

Who Are You? Whose Baby Is That? Didn’t I Write That? March 30, 2006

About a decade ago, just after the public Internet made its debut, cyberpunk author Neal Stephenson claimed in one of his novels that copyright violations would run rampant on the Internet, and there’d be nothing we could do about it.

Stephenson’s prophetic words have come true, especially in the blogosphere, where people lift content in its entirety from one website and post it onto their own. These lifters come in two categories, however: those that give credit and those that don’t. By credit, I mean either including the copyright notice and/or at least a link back to the original article.

Since links …

Will That Be Cash, Charge, or Your Finger? March 29, 2006

The Chicago Tribune reports that Pay By Touch in the United States has outfitted Jewel-Osco supermarket/ drugstores in 14 states with a pay-by-touch system. To pay, you touch your finger to a tiny piece of glass, and supply a phone number.

According to the poll at the Chicago Tribune’s website, at the time of this writing, 71.1% of 671 respondents said that they were uncomfortable with such technology. Apparently customers surveyed at these stores felt similarly.

Interestingly, the technology does not store fingerprints. Rather, it converts features of your finger into an equation. According to Pay By Touch, that means …

Hark, Who Goes There - Digital Identification and the New World Order March 24, 2006

According to CardTechnology Magazine, parts of southern Taiwan are trying out a contactless digital money card, branded by MasterCard, for bus passengers. Apparently, the card cannot be validated fast enough for subway use. The cards are also being used for purchases at stores.

The Taiwanese trial is one of many that are going on around the world. The Feb 2006 print issue of CardTechnology magazine asks the question “Will Banks and Transit Create A Common Contactless Card?” on the front cover. There is a move all over the world to force citizens to give up hard currency and printed identification …