Last week I published an article in Wired about how the new Nike+ iPod Sport Kit is the perfect surveillance device. Nike+ iPod is a gizmo that allows you to track how far you’ve run and how fast by sticking a little RFID chip into your shoe, which broadcasts your running data to an iPod Nano. A group of security researchers at University of Washington, however, discovered that the devices also make perfect trackers — with just a hundred bucks, you can set up a listening station that notifies you every time somebody with one of these Nike+ sneakers goes by. You can even plot that person’s location on Google maps. Surveillance — just do it! When I called the nice PR person at Apple and told her about it, she actually screamed in pain. I’ve never done that to a PR person before, and it was sort of exhiliarating. Read more about the Nike+ iPod surveillance device.

I also wrote a pissy column about high tech crap of the future, in order to avoid writing about the new high tech crap that’s out this holiday season. So instead of talking about the Wii and the Zune, I describe what DNA DRM will be like, as well as how one day you’ll use BitTorrent to store your consciousness in a distributed P2P environment. Read more about that.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 4th, 2006 at 6:04 pm.
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