Intranet Journal

David Weinberger's Intranet Buzz:

When Everything Talks

It took many years to get Universal Product Codes on all packaged goods so data can be entered into computers without the intervention of fat human fingers. But bar codes contain very little information -- a handful of digits (as is proper for a hand). Now, according to an article in Inter@ctive Week (Apr. 7) by Lois Trager, MIT has come up with a way to pack tons more information into a single bar code: make the stripes encode an address where more information can be found.

"Smart tags" supposedly will be disposable chips that can pack up to 96 bits that would include the manufacturer's identity, the product type, and a 40-bit serial number. This information will be picked up by a receiver that will ship it to a server somewhere that will look it up the way an Internet server looks up an IP address. At the address, there could be any type of information that'd be useful for that particular product. For example, it might point to an expiration date with instructions about what to do if the product is now unusable, or it might point to interface instructions for either a visual display for humans or an API-ish interface for other appliances. Of course, this means that Mars will know exactly how many Snickers bars you've eaten and whether your total intake of those gummy, red Swedish fish violates any global laws of the sea.

Participants in this initiative include Sun, Gillette, International Paper, P&G, and Motorola who is working on conductive ink that could act as an antenna for the new tags.

This is all part of the international conspiracy to make us expect to have more and more information about every frigging thing around us, from razor blades to guitar picks to cast iron pans (to randomly pick three objects for those who need examples of what "thing" means).

I remember drawing a cartoon in high school of an apple with a label on it that said "Contents: Apple." We of course now actually have those labels on apples. The new chips may point us to information about what the apple's been sprayed with, directions for use, and liability disclaimers ("Not to be taken externally").

We will look back on these days as the Quiet Time before things learned to speak.

The Author

David Weinberger writes JOHO and is one of the Ringleaders of cluetrain.com, a manifesto of web ethics. He also provides strategic marketing consulting to high-tech companies, writes for several magazines (including Wired) and is a commentator on NPR's "All Things Considered." He was, as VP of Strategic Marketing, one of the shapers of Open Text's intranet strategy. David sits on several conference boards and is a member of AIIM's Emerging Technology Advisory Group. Reach him at self@evident.com.