Tech & Biz

Real World Minority Report / Big Brother is Watching YOU

by corbinse | November 19, 2008 at 01:15 pm

536 views | 46 Recommendations | 8 comments

I don't know how many remember the movie Minority Report 2002 Tom Cruise plays John Anderton, a top Pre-Crime cop in the late 21st century. Well this has nothing to do with Pre-Crime or "Pre-Cogs", but it does have relative freakish feeling of "they know where you are and what your doing" When John (Tom Cruise) is walking through the city after he has had his eyes replaced. All of the automated systems are calling him Mr. Yakamoto due to the Eye-dent. Well now a company in the Netherlands has come up with a "bar code" so to speak that you wear, and can be linked to your social web page not a sophisticated as Eye-dent. Hmmm.. how much longer till we all get the barcode inked to our neck or the little microchip implanted under our skin. Big Brother will (or is) be watching.

Hi-Tech Shirts Link Social Networks to the Real World
JR Raphael, PC World

Nov 18, 2008 12:23 pm

You see an interesting girl at the bar. Before you approach her, you take a quick snapshot of her with your phone, and -- within seconds -- get automatically connected to her Facebook page to find out her favorite song, or to see if she's even single.

It may sound like something out of a movie, but this sort of online-offline integration is now a reality. A company from the Netherlands has come up with a way to let you wear functioning social Web links on your clothes, and you can take their idea and do it for free. Sound crazy? Keep reading.

The Scannable Shirt

The company, called W-41, has created a line of shirts with specially created barcodes that can be "scanned" by cell phones. The barcodes correlate with any URL you want -- your Facebook page, your blog, whatever. Anyone else can take a photo of the barcode with their Internet-enabled cell phone and then automatically be directed to your URL within their phone's browser. It's just like a regular Web link, only transported to the real world. Rest of the Article

Corbinse

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Amy Judd

at 13:27 on November 19th, 2008

Interesting piece - can you add an opinion flag to it? You can do that in the edit tab.

Jarrett Martineau

at 13:35 on November 19th, 2008

Scary, "no logo" just a bar code...

jessica.lam

at 14:26 on November 19th, 2008

Wow. I'm not sure if it promotes more shallow behaviour or less. Interesting find.

forthebetta

at 15:56 on November 19th, 2008

i'm waiting for an obese woman to be ruler of the (1984-style) world so we can call her "Big Momma"... but seriously...

we're already "chipped" now that everyone has a cell-phone.

Emilio Lizardo

at 16:50 on November 19th, 2008

Indeed ...

Patrick Price Photographer

at 16:53 on November 19th, 2008

Wow! Future, Here We Come!

Cafegurl

at 20:35 on November 19th, 2008

Freaky.....

Erik Larson

at 21:22 on November 19th, 2008

Intense. Now, instead of just wearing an orange "Impeach Bush" Tshirt, I can also direct chicks to my social networking site of choice, where they can read about why I think Bush should be impeached- before trying to pick me up.