Hewlett-Packard has unveiled the Memory Spot, a storage device that is about as big as a shirt button but thinner. Packed into the Memory Spot are a radio and a processor. Still in development, the current storage runs between 256 kilobits and 4 megabits and is rewriteable but would likely offer much more storage by the time they are ready for production. Suggested uses include storing audio on the back of a picture, advertising or hospital wristbands that contain complete patient records.
A reader is necessary to pull the data from the Memory Spot. Privacy concerns would likely be allayed by the fact that the reader must be about a millimeter away from the Memory Spot in order to pull any data due to the radio frequency used.
HP has not disclosed how it plans to bring this technology to market (if at all). It could sell the Memory Spots itself or license the technology or both (as it did with its LightScribe CD label-etching technology.