HP creates grain-sized wireless chip

THE MAKER of printer ink, HP has developed a tiny wireless data chip that can provide broadband interweb access to anything.

The "Memory Spot" is about the size of a grain of rice, if you can imagine a grain of rice with its own antenna or interweb access.

It can be embedded in a sheet of paper or stuck to any surface and will provide any object with 10 megabits-per-second data transfer rate.

That is about ten times faster than Bluetooth and could give punters near instant retrieval of information in audio, video, photo or document form.

The chip receives its power from the reader device which powers it up as it passes over. In other words it could stick a short video clip on a page that could be accessed by a read-write device that could be incorporated into a cell phone, PDA, camera, or printer.

A spokesHP said that the outfit was actively exploring a range of exciting new applications for Memory Spot chips and believe the technology could have a significant impact on our consumer businesses, from printing to imaging.

If you injected it into someone you could probably enable them to carry an entire life history of data around with them. Just don't tell Tony Blair. µ