Tools and Chips

This was in response to one of Jeb’s postings but I don’t know how to link to that. He said my comment was too long and should be its own blog entry.

There are already Palm/cell phones. Since Palms support mp3’s then why not add one of those tiny hard drives and GPS? Maybe the Palm is the device. And if it is, the Tungsten 3 is awfully nice . . .

Credit cards should be done away with. Why not just use your thumbprint to validate who you are and then let you pull up a list of credit and debit accounts to draw from? You should never have to carry a card.

Of course some people may not want their fingerprint being scanned all the time (like the government doesn’t already have it) since you can’t change it. In that case an implanted chip might work though I guess those could be forged (not easily since you’d have to give up your own chip and then have another one installed; and it’s not like you could walk around with ten different chips like you can with stolen credit cards). The data would be in some central place and by scanning the chip you could buy stuff, check out library books, get medical treatment, open doors at work and home, start your car, etc. When the apocaplypse comes and Muslim extremists take over the world you could just have the chip removed.

Post script: Now that I have an iPod I feel certain that Palms and PDA’s will more easily able to take over the functionality of the iPod than vice versa. Really what the iPod has going for it is enormous storage space and the ability to play MP3’s. PDA’s can play MP3’s now, they just don’t have the storage space. But they will. And when they do iPods will be irrelevant. The critical thing with palm-top computing is input. Palm did okay with Graffiti and there are on-screen keyboards and built-in tiny keyboards, but this is a big issue. The input on the iPod is five buttons and a ring. That won’t work.