Authentication ID Tags, Edible Electronics and the Vending Machine is Watching
February 29
Welcome to the 29th, this is the 250th edition of the newsletter but the first on 29 February. Happy Birthday to those that only celebrate once every 4 years.
This week we look at a new ID tag that can be used to authenticate physical goods. We also examine some attempts at developing edible electronics and robots. We discover a new DVD that can hold 1 million high definition movies and we investigate a vending machine that uses facial recognition and other AI driven software to sell you more.
ID Tag to Authenticate Anything
Many expensive products use Radio Frequency Identification Tags (RFID tag) to verify the authenticity of products. RFID is also used in contactless building access and other security applications. The weakness in RFID tags is that they can be peeled of one item and reattached to another fake item. The authentication system can not tell that this has been done.
A new tag developed by a team at MIT have developed a smaller and significantly cheaper RFID tag that has s significant advantage over the previous versions. Tiny microscopic metal particles are mixed into the glue that sticks the tag to an object. A terahertz wave, the same wavelength used by the RFID tag itself, is used to identify the pattern of the metal particles in the glue. This is similar to how we use fingerprints. Every pattern in the glue is unique.
The metal particles in the glue act like a mirror for the terahertz waves. the orientation, size and location form a specific pattern that can be read. If you peel the chip off you will change the pattern. The tag is about 4 square millimeters in size. A machine learning algorithm detects tampering with 99% accuracy.
As the tag is cheap to produce and easy to attach it would be easy to authenticate a wide variety of products. There is far more fake or counterfeit product in our supply chain than we think. A recent study of Olive Oil in the US found that 70% of Olive Oil sold was not the quality that it claimed to be or from where it claimed to originate.
Edible Electronics
A team from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology is attempting to create edible robots and electronics. This is not some new food craze but an attempt to develop new tools for health monitoring and delivering nutrition to those in emergency situations.
In conjunction with Wageningen University the team developed a drone where 50% of the mass was edible. The idea being that a drone deployed in an emergency situation may deliver medicine and food. They built a drone with wings made from rice cakes then glued the drone together with edible oils and chocolate. Fly the drone in with sensors and communication equipment. The people being rescued can eat the wings whilst they wait to be rescued.
The team is also developing gut sensors that monitor illnesses of the gut. The advantage of an edible electronic sensor is that it doesn't need to excreted or recovered from the patient.
The team has recently developed an edible actuator. This is the part of a robot that makes it function and achieve physical movement. This would allow the robot to do something useful when inside the body before it is digested.
The team drew inspiration from an Issac Asimov science fiction book “Fantastic Voyage”. In the book 4 people are miniaturized and sent in a tiny submarine to destroy a blood clot in a patients brain.
In 2023 the team developed a rechargeable edible battery using common food ingredients wrapped in beeswax. The battery would have to be recovered to be reused but it does not leave toxic materials in the body if it is unable to be recovered. The battery only gives 10 minutes of power however more advanced versions in the future may power medical devices swallowed by patients.
The team found that gold leaf used by many chefs can serve as wiring and honey acts as a natural semiconductor. There are pigments and dyes that may also act as semiconductors, for example beta carotene that is found in carrots and mangos.
Other projects include a battery powered pill that can emit and receive an electronic signal so that when it arrives at a particular location in the gut would release the drug being transported. The goal is to develop more and more digestible electronic components to enable a range of new applications.
1 Million movies on a Single DVD
A standard DVD holds about 4.5 gigabytes of data. Enough to store about 2 hours of video. A team from a range of institutions in China have developed a new optical DVD that is capable of holding a petabyte of data or enough space for 1 million 2 hour movies.
Current DVDs use a laser to etch all the 0’s and 1’s onto the surface of the DVD. The new method uses a 3D array rather than a single layer. A single disk with 100 layers was developed to store data. A special coating was applied to each layer and data was then etched into each later using patterns of light and a dye in the coating. This allowed etching at a nanoscale.
In order to commercialize the product the speed of writing the data needs to improve dramatically (it is very slow) and it uses a lot of energy. Improving those factors are the next stage in development. The DVD is likely useful for data storage centers, business and media companies that have heavy data storage needs.
The Vending Machine is Watching You
Students from the University of Waterloo in Canada were horrified when they discovered that the vending machines on campus were using facial recognition to record everything that they purchased.
An error message appeared when the software glitched. The students investigated the error to discover the undisclosed monitoring of purchases. The vending machine does a people count and a demographic profile of anyone that approaches the machine. The idea being that the machine can offer you personalized promotions and combo deals. The manufacturer claims that this can boost sales by up to 60%.
This is not the only software application that is being used to try and increase revenue. If you have ever used an Uber at a busy time you will be aware of surge pricing. The busier it gets the more you pay. The idea from Uber is that the higher prices will encourage more of their drivers onto the road and bring prices down again. Wendy’s fast food chain in the US is now trialing surge pricing in their restaurants. Cameras and software are being used to increase prices if the restaurant becomes busy.
How long before we get individual pricing based upon our demographic profile and economic status. Some airlines already do this by increasing pricing for people using certain brands of computer for online bookings (the assumption is that those people are wealthier and less price sensitive). Advertising is already personalized, it won’t be long before pricing is as well. The key to receiving low pricing in the future will be to dress badly and pay cash, preferably with small coins. I am way ahead of this game.
Is that Video Real or created by AI
So you think you can tell the difference between an AI generated video and a real video. Now is the time to put those skills to the test. This site gives you 10 pairs of videos. One generated by AI the other is real. See how many you can pick as real. It is much harder than it sounds. Good luck.
Paying it Forward
If you have a start-up or know of a start-up that has a product ready for market please let me know. I would be happy to have a look and feature the startup in this newsletter. Also if any startups need introductions please get in touch and I will help where I can.
If you have any questions or comments please comment below.
I would also appreciate it if you could forward this newsletter to anyone that you think might be interested.
Till next week.
Can I get Ketchup with my chips?