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"I've come across more and more people who've actually tried reading science fiction and can't make it make sense."
- Samuel R. Delany
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| Bank Chip | ||
| A "smart" credit card. |
Although this novel takes place a little way into the future, microprocessor technology implanted in plastic cards is already available.
| She'd check herself out a week into the treatment. The medics protested. The detoxification had gone beautifully, they said, but the therapy hadn't began. They pointed out the rate of relapse among clients who failed to complete the program. They explained that her insurance was invalid as she terminated her treatment. Sense/Net would pay, she told them, unless they preferred she'd pay them herself. She produced her platinum MitsuBank chip. Her Lear arrived an hour later; she told it to take her to LAX, ordered a car to meet her there, and canceled all incoming calls. |
| Technovelgy from Mona Lisa Overdrive,
by William Gibson. Published by Bantam in 1988 Additional resources -
|
The integrated circuit chip in a smart card is not like the standard magnetic strip present on most credit cards and ID cards. The magnetic strip is mostly a read-only device; neither the consumer nor the retailer can write to the magnetic strip. It also has severe data storage limitations.
The chips now available can be used in a variety of ways:
The cards could also download applications that would run on the card itself; coupons and "frequent flyer mile" style programs to reward consumers can also be loaded.
These cards would provide the user with greater security, since they could generate their own unique identifiers. When used with a card reader attached to a home computer, they would provide a more secure way to shop over the internet.
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| Swedes Get 'Chipped' With Vaccine Passports |
| Meetings To Be Recorded And Scored For Body Language |
| Would You Get 'Chipped'? Michigan May Ban Employers |
| Workplace Monitoring Hell, I Mean, Tool For Safe Distancing |
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'... making the point that their likenesses, every move they made, were being transmitted.'
'But the stars are only atoms in larger space, and in that larger space the star-atoms could combine to form living matter, thinking matter, couldn't they?'
'...to build up a video picture would require, say, ten million decisions every second. Mike, you're so fast I can't even think about it. But you aren't that fast.'
'The area affected was five hundred kilometres across, and perfectly circular.'
'Hasan always pitched a Gauzy - a one-molecule-layer tent, opaque, feather-light, and very tough.'
'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
