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Digital Slob Curt Brandao |
‘Pay-per-chew’ must be
on the tech horizonAs far out as it may seem, I'm certain that one day we'll all have TVs that feed us.
A commercial sings "I feel like chicken TONIGHT!" Our pupils obediently dilate. We pause the remote and pull a cooked chicken right out of the screen. "Pay-per-chew," if you will.
This may be our penultimate technological achievement, shortly before we morph into what Mr. Spock called "pure energy," and the "Star Trek" special effects team called "wiggling a couple of flashlights behind green cellophane."
But as long as we trudge along as carbon-based life forms shackled with TVs that only taunt and tease, we'll need bodies to grab all the things TV tells us to sniff out by brand name.
This means shopping -- a process just as treacherous as trying to bring down a mammoth 50,000 years ago. Few of us need spears to bag a bag of Doritos, but Neanderthals never had to fend off geriatrics on Double Coupon Tuesday, either. Though we'll never be disemboweled by a saber tooth tiger as we rummage through cereal in Aisle 7, there are marketers in the dark thickets watching our every move just as closely, and probably salivating just as much.
And if cryptic bar codes on everything has inched us all toward anti-paranoia meds, get ready for a stampede on the pharmacy as merchandisers sink their teeth into us directly with Radio Frequency Identification Devices, or RFIDs.
RFIDs are similar to IDs some put in pets (and aliens put in us to separate the "pre-probed" from the "post-probed"). But RFIDs are as small as fleas, and could attach like parasitic blabber-mouths on everything from money to maxi pads.
RFIDs could have an upside: dooming self-checkout counters. While I hate cashiers who take NyQuil shots with Sudafed chasers as much as anyone, I pay retail so paid professionals will take the heat for holding up the line -- not me.
Also, studies show we're ignoring the impulse racks when we try to purchase our Pop Tarts without a net. Until now, we spent $5.5 billion annually on Tic-Tacs, batteries and anything featuring Cameron Diaz as we fumed behind "smart shoppers" who felt the cashier owed them $8.39, and they had the coupons to prove it.
Impulse buys kill time in line -- we're so angry we need to kill something, and there are no sharp knives or piano wire sold in handy laminated packets to help us solve the problem.
But once all products are laced with RFIDs, anyone with decent credit can sprint to their car like a shoplifter. However, these tags might not come off, and anyone with a scanner could turn our inane daily activities into their reason to live.
I'd feel uneasy, for example, if a bank teller knew I was packing Preparation H (though, if I'm walking around with hemorrhoids, just about anyone can tell from a mile away).
And RFID scanners may not be limited to institutions as trusted as the FBI or Hooters. Imagine a panhandler asks you for a dime. You shrug and he says, "Why not? You've got seven in your left pocket, not to mention two nickels and some OxyContin which, though I can see yours is properly prescribed, I should tell you, from personal experience, that stuff can be a very slippery slope."
A few experiences like that would make me a shut-in for life. Maybe TVs that feed us aren't so far out, after all.
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Curt Brandao is the Star-Bulletin's production editor. Reach him at: cbrandao@starbulletin.com
