Getting chipped at work

What if you didn’t have to worry about forgetting your keys at home or leaving your office card on your desk? In a Swedish high-tech office complex called Epicenter workers get around using tiny chips embedded within their hands. By one quick fix of the wrist, the chip allows to open doors and use office printers. So, never mind your keys, never mind your card!

Open sesame!

The revolutionary chips, which are the size of a grain of rice, communicate through radio-frequency identification (RFID technology). Imagine no more fumbling around with clumsy cards, a simple press against the chip reader is enough to open doors and operate photocopiers. In the future, payments by hand will be possible as well. Briefly put, the chips have the power to replace all troublesome office security passes or chip-and-pin credit cards.  

The Swedish company Epicenter implants RFID microchips in employees

Moreover, the use of microchips can be related to the upcoming tendency of big data. Nowadays, people are no longer afraid of adding tracking devices to their lives and bodies - all the time... It goes from fitness trackers to the recently proposed Apple Watch. Microchips are able to recognize their users, creating a digital log of behaviors. It’s the ease of use at the expense of personal information.

Life-logging

According to Hannes Sjoblad, Epicenter’s chief disruption officer and member of the Swedish biohacking group BioNyfiken, microchipping at work is the near future. “We already interact with technology all the time”, says Sjoblad, “I believe we have just started discovering the things we can do with this. There is huge potential for life-logging”, he continues.

The biohacking group hopes to make more and more people conscious about the far-reaching possibilities and advantages of chips implanted into the human body. According to the Swedish entrepreneur, it’s just a matter of time before we start using microchips for public transport, shopping or updating our sports performances. 

Of course, not all feel equally comfortable with the new RFID technology. For the moment, microchipping at Epicenter stays optional. A professional tattooist inserts the device by using a needle. For your interest, the degree of pain of the implantation is compared to an injection. Despite all this, user comfort seems not borne out in practice. The chipped workers often need to hold their hands in unusual ways to sweep the chip.

For more information on the microchipping at Epicenter, I recommend you the short demonstration video below. 

Link:

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31042477

 

 

So, what do you think about chipped people? Is microchipping the near future? Sjoblad talks about the advantages, but do you see disadvantages as well? What about office security? Comments below!

Wolf

 

Sources:

http://www.demorgen.be/technologie/zweeds-bedrijf-plant-microchip-in-bij-personeel-a2238145/

http://www.popsci.com/swedish-company-puts-rfid-chips-employees

   

Ingenious or Dangerous?

The alternative Margarita

Have you ever been hiking, cayaking or mountainbiking with your friends? If you did so, I think you might recognize the story of Mark Philips. 

Mr Philips is also a very active guy who loves outdoor  adventure sports. But during those nights on the move, sitting around the bonfire, he would like to relax with an adult beverage and some mates to discuss his recent adventures. Only his activities don’t lend themselves to carry along heavy bottles of wine or beer. They can only take the most essential products with them, such as bottles of water.

So after a few trips through the mountains, he thought it would be great to invent alcohol in powder form in order to avoid the extra weight. And at that moment, the idea of so-called ‘palcohol’ was born. It would just be needed to add some water and shake it. In this way you can create a variety of alcohol drinks for every occasion, f.ex. a nice cocktail - it won’t be the best sex on the beach in the world but it’s ok - or even a range of spirits.

Multi-applicable

But this ‘palcohol’ isn’t the only powdered proposition of Mr. Philips!

During my time as a youth leader in the Chiro, we did a lot of two-day trips with up to thirty children. Almost 20 times a day, there was at least one child who fell on his knee, had a blister or another scratch. Naturally we always brought our first aid box to take care of those wounds, which was unfortunately quite heavy because of those different products and disinfectant.

For these moments, the innovation of Mr. Philips and Lipsmark (the company that makes Palcohol) comes to the rescue since a derivative product of the existing palcohol can also be used as a disinfectant. This is a great solution for when you’re located in places with difficult access or to shed some weight out of your backpack. The company even suggests that the powdered alcohol could be a basis for an alternative fuel, but these are just ideas for the future. Now, we have to enjoy our powdered white wine or mojito.

Concerns

I can already hear you think: What if I go to a party and someone spikes my coca cola with this powder? Or what if I have a little brother or sister who’s always sniffing in the closets to find something new, and he or she might easily find or abuse the product? 

Well, you’re not the only one that is not totally convinced of this new creation! 

The ‘palcohol’ was already launched in 2014 but after being approved, a lot of people expressed their concerns. I already mentioned some possible abuses of this powered alcohol but people also feared the powered stuff could be easily snorted so that people become drunk without even realising. Another person also mentioned that the portability and light weight of this powder make it easy to sneak alcohol into public events or even smuggle it on a plane.

Despite these concerns, on the 12th of March, the federal regulators have given the green light to the creators of Palcohol. This summer, you will be able to buy the powered alcohol in some American shops, or even online!

Now I’m very curious about your opinion! Do you consider taking this powder with you on your next adventurous trip? Do you think a lot of people will abuse the product or that it’s a great invention? Comments please!

If you want to know more about this powdered product or other ideas of Mr. Philips, I encourage you to check out his website: http://www.palcohol.com/

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/news/palcohol-us-regulators-approve-powdered-alcohol-that-can-be-mixed-with-water-snorted-or-sprinkled-onto-cereal-10103562.html

http://www.standaard.be/cnt/dmf20150313_01578051

Go paperless or go home

It's innovation, stupid.

Or is it? The concept of working paperless sounds - and, if you think about it, actually is - so simple you can hardly call it innovative anymore. We already have so much have e-readers, online papers, internet article databases, etc. Why do we even bother reading things on paper anymore?
Well, personally, I find it really hard to study or read for a longer period of time on a screen and tend to print every syllabus, article and all PowerPoint presentation hand-outs we receive. I've been doing so for many years, and have only recently realized just how wasteful this is. That is why I have decided to try and change this murderous habit of mine in the future and go paperless.

Evernote

How could I give this a go? Sometimes, technology comes to the rescue: one simple way to help you go paperless is to use Evernote. Evernote is an application (for Android, iOS, but also Windows) that has found a very clever way to reduce the number of trees you kill drastically.
Basically, it's a fancy library to store articles, papers and other texts. But there's more: the app uses OCR (Optical Character Recognition), which is, in human language, text recognition software. This enables you to simply make a screenshot or picture of any article/paper/ticket, store it in a folder (as you would do on your PC) and, later, find it back easily with the search engine function, using any word that appears in the image. The images are saved and synchronized immediately to your account, in a cloud, which means you can access them anywhere, anytime, on any device.

Check out their site on https://evernote.com/intl/nl/ or, if you're in lack of time, this short demonstration video:

Sure, it is only one way to (help you go) paperless, and a more fundamental attitude change is needed, but Evernote is a great way to help you on your way!

So, what do you think? Is your desk crisp, empty and clean, with nothing but a laptop on it? Or can you hardly see it anymore through all the piles of paper, clothes and other trash, like mine? Do you work paperless or are you, just as I am/was, a good ol' fashioned tree murderer? In that last case, how do you sleep at night, knowing that there are at over three million easy solutions to go paperless? Shame on you. And try Evernote.