HP Announces Tiny Wireless Memory Chip

Hewlett-Packard researchers have developed a memory chip with wireless networking capabilities that is roughly the same size as a grain of rice, the company said Monday. Prototypes of the Memory Spot chip developed by HP Labs contain 256 kilobits to 4 megabits of memory and can transfer data wirelessly at speeds up to 10Mbps. There are eight bits in a byte. This amount of storage allows the chips to hold a short video clip, digital pictures or "dozens of pages" of text, HP said, adding that the chips do not require a battery. Memory Spot chips get their power using a technique called inductive coupling, which allows power to be transferred from one component to another through a shared electromagnetic field. In the case of Memory Spot, this power is supplied by the device that is used to read and write data on the chip. Data stored on Memory Spot chips could be accessed using a variety of devices, such as specially equipped cell phones or PDAs, making them suitable for a range of applications, such as adhesive attachments applied to a paper document or printed photograph, HP said.

Memory Spot < RFID?

[dubmun (891874)]

The Memory Spot is similar to radio frequency identification (RFID) chips, which are designed to store information that can be read wirelessly. However, there are several important differences. One such difference is range. Information on RFID chips can be read over relatively large distances, while HP said Memory Spot readers must be "positioned closely" to access the data stored on the chip.

Sounds like they should be focusing on something that is an improvement...

Re:Memory Spot RFID?

[rbarreira (836272)]

It is an improvement (for certain applications). Do you want people accessing your private data from far away?

Re:Memory Spot RFID?

[jdray (645332)]

Case in point: I wanted to build a cat door that would read the chip embedded in my cat's skin before opening to let him in. The range on reading that thing is a matter of a centimeter or so, so I'd have to teach him to rub a reader in just the right way to get the door open, which seemed like more of a PITA than it was worth. His feline nature makes him virtually untrainable. He doesn't wear a collar, so the larger antenna versions that look like a name tag were out. This thing might help matters. Of

Re:Memory Spot RFID? [OT]

[Dun Malg (230075)]

Why not put it in his foot/lower leg and put the reader under the mat? If you made the reading antenna mat-sized he'd be sure to stand on it to get in. Then again, maybe you thought of that and I'm missing something obvious.

You don't get to choose where the vet puts the RFID tag. They always put them in the same place so animal shelter employees can actually find them if the pet is lost.

Re:Memory Spot RFID?

[orasio (188021)]

For lots of applications, it is a perceived improvement, it gives a sense of privacy.

There are 8 bits in a byte.

[GoRK (10018)]

There are 8 bits in a byte.

Thanks for the refresher there HP.

Re:There are 8 bits in a byte.

[`Sean (15328)]

Thanks for the refresher there HP.

Damn...you beat me to it! For a minute there I felt like I was back in elementary school computer class on an Apple ][.

Re:There are 8 bits in a byte.

[kahei (466208)]

Not all bytes have 8 bits. A lot of older mainframes have 7 -- that's why octal was popular once, and why UTF-7 is still widely used. A few had 9, although that wasn't widespread. Some specialized computing devices have anywhere from 5 to 10. So pointing out that it's 8, in the context of a whole new specialized chip, isn't redundant.

Re:There are 8 bits in a byte.

[gEvil (beta) (945888)]

Eight bits in a byte? When did this happen?

No kidding. When I was a kid a byte was defined as two nibbles...

Re:There are 8 bits in a byte.

[swillden (191260)]

Eight bits in a byte? When did this happen?

I think the size of a byte became exactly eight bits in the 60s, though it's possible that other-sized bytes existed in machines developed into the 70s. These days the term is pretty unambiguous, but telecommunications standard documents usually prefer the term 'octet', since there have been bytes of other sizes (and even platforms with *variable-sized* bytes). In particular, 6-bit bytes were very common early in computing history.

Re:There are 8 bits in a byte.

[Russ Nelson (33911)]

Sure, because in my day we had to put five septets in a word, and waste one bit. Ahhh, those were the good old days. 36 bit computers. Who wouldda thunk that they'd be supplanted by 32 bit computers? Those computers went up to 36.

Giglibyte is the worst [n/t]

[mobby_6kl (668092)]

No useful text here whatsoever.

More secure than RFID?

[gasmonso (929871)]

Seeing as how Memory Spot readers must be "positioned closely" to access the data stored on the chip, wouldn't these make a better choice for passports? I think this would alleviate a lot of fears.

http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]

RFID?

[someone300 (891284)]

I thought this was exactly what the passive RFID chips do, except that RFID chips tend not to have this large a memory (though is there a technical reason why that's the case?)

RFID vs. HP's new chip

[ansak (80421)]

From what I can tell, the comparison table here would go something like this:

RFID features longer range and a small uniform, pre-encoded response. (e.g. ID Badge at work) HP's new chip features shorter range and a larger response, selectable from a large pool of responses, and probably the pool of responses is changeable even after deployment.

As another poster said, the short ranges at which this thing would work will alleviate a lot of people's privacy concerns. Still I gotta say that tagging people is still tagging people.

mooooo...(NOT!)...ank
...so afraid of disorder, we turn it into a God... (Bruce Cockburn, Gospel of Bondage)

Another Way...

[IflyRC (956454)]

To implant information in a person and access it remotely. This is just bringing us closer to governments requiring chip implants.

OK, but...

[TechDogg (802999)]

... does anybody know how much money Uncle Ben's is getting on royalties from HP?

Hewlett-Packard researchers have developed a memory chip with wireless networking capabilities that is roughly the same size as a grain of rice, the company said Monday.

Compete with Zigbee and Z-Wave?

[us7892 (655683)]

At first is sounded like this could compete with Zigbee http://www.zigbee.org/en/index.asp [zigbee.org] or Z-Wave http://www.z-wavealliance.org/content/modules/Star t/ [z-wavealliance.org] technologies. Then again, what is this good for? The battery is...wait, no battery. Power comes from the device that reads/writes this grain-of-rice sized wireless/memory device...

iPod Flea

[the phantom (107624)]

Steve Jobs: Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to announce the smallest iPod ever, the iPod Flea [google.com].

Commercial Use

[kthejoker (931838)]

I still don't understand why RF readers and things of this sort aren't included on every cell phone, along with an easy, common standard to interface with.

Pointing your cell phone at a product for price comparisons and technical specs, or getting a small video on an item in a museum, or collecting e-mail addresses on College Night, or brochures at a convention, or any other sort of "Additional Info" normally not available at the point of contact, seems to me to be an extremely sustainable business model at a minimum of cost and input.

RFID might not be a commercial utopia, but it's a good start in a direction we could've been taking 10 years ago.

Great....

[cbiltcliffe (186293)]

This amount of storage allows the chips to hold a short video clip, digital pictures....

So now the US government can include a short video or pictures of your last full cavity search on your RFID passport.....

"There are eight bits in a byte."

[Russ Nelson (33911)]

"There are eight bits in a byte." Really?? When I started programming, you could select the byte size. Now we're forced into 8 bit bytes. What a horrible loss of freedom. I blame Canada. And terrorists. And global warming.

Perfect!

[tashanna (409911)]

All those stamps in my passport were getting annoying. Maybe they can put one of these in my passport, maybe when they get those RFID things [slashdot.org] working, so that I can just download where I've traveled. It'd be handy and I can't see anything that could [slashdot.org] go wrong [slashdot.org].

- Tash
Vrooommm... [tashcorp.net]

Re:If you want to know more about me

[fuyu-no-neko (839858)]

check out my webpage, it's on a server embeded under my skin and shares power with my pacemaker.

Do you really want to risk the /.ing of something so close to your heart? ;o)

Re:How long...

[MrSquirrel (976630)]

Didn't you see the article summary? It's not coincidence that the chip is "the size of a grain of rice". You know that last batch of chicken fried rice you had? Yes, it has already begun... my theory is that the chip logs information on your stomach contents, then when it gets flushed back to the sewage treatment plant it updates your data -- the government increased the levels of fat and other unhealthy materials in the most eaten foods, that's what Americans are growing fatter and fatter every year. Their plan? To make Americans so fat, they cannot resist when the government comes in with force. Thankfully I only eat paint chips and mountain dew, so I'm unaffected. Ssshhh, I hear the black helicopters coming, I must make my escape.