HP Builds Rice-Grain-Sized Wireless Memory Chip August 2006 By Nicole Wong

Think of all the things you could do with an electronic Post-it note, one that's smaller than a grain of rice. Hewlett-Packard's research laboratory has invented it -- an inexpensive, wireless, battery-free microchip that can store documents, audio files or video clips -- and someday it could change the way we live.

This microchip has an adhesive back, so it can be pressed like a sticker to the surface of just about anything. Put it on a photo to carry a voice recording of the person featured in the 4-by-6 glossy print. Stick it on passports so officials can examine images of travelers' fingerprints and iris patterns. Add it to soldiers' dog tags and diabetics' medical-alert bracelets so emergency responders can view their full medical records and make life-saving decisions.

"What we're talking about is a way of bridging the physical and digital worlds," said Howard Taub, vice president and associate director of HP Labs.

The "memory spots," as HP calls the microchips, are probably two to five years away from being sold on the market, if HP indeed decides to run with this new technology.

HP researchers envision the dozen of pages of text, 15-second video clip or other data, stored on a spot, could be displayed on the screen of a cell phone that's waved in front of the chip, doing away with the need for a computer or Internet connection.

The memory spots are similar in some ways to the more simplistic radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. But the "spots" are far smarter and more secure: They can store more than 250 times as much data as RFID, transmit data more than 20 times faster and encrypt the data, which sidesteps many of the privacy outcries over RFID tags.

HP emphasizes its budding technology is meant to complement, rather than compete with, RFID tags. RFID tags are the equivalent of electronic bar codes that are expected to help track 1.3 billion postal packages, pallets of inventory, animals and other objects this year.

RFID tags transmit their basic identification data when scanned from many feet away, whereas memory spots only reveal their data to a reading device waved less than 1 millimeter from its surface. That's like the difference between shouting your name across a room and whispering a story into someone's ear.

The memory spot could easily replace the paper manual that comes with consumer goods, providing instructions that will never be misplaced. And it could substitute for the pages of appendices accompanying reports and legal documents. And upstage any other printed materials that would be easier to view or listen to and update digitally.

That's a smart move for the computer and printer giant, which held about 43 percent of the market share worldwide in 2005 for the highly profitable inkjet printer cartridges, according to Lyra Research.

"Here we have a company that is a specialist in printing coming out with one of the big next-generation technologies replacing printing," said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at Enderle Group, a San Jose-based technology consultancy. "This is HP assuring that if the industry does move, then it's on HP technology."

The memory spot is still a prototype. Analysts say the technology is promising but would need to become ubiquitous. The scanners that read and record more data onto the spots could be built into new cell phones and digital cameras or plugged into already-purchased PDAs through the accessory card slot.

HP would receive licensing fees from consumer-electronics companies that adopt its scanner technology. It also would benefit from repeating revenue if it chose to be the primary supplier of the spots, much like its sales from printer ink cartridges.

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