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Within a few years a service will be available that will allow
consumers to pay for merchandise using a microchip embedded beneath
their skin. The VeriChip, which is about the size of a grain of
rice, is Applied Digital’s new subdermal chip that could someday
replace the use of all credit and debit cards. Instead of standing
in long checkout lines customers could make purchases by scanning
themselves with special readers.
Although the VeriChip holds the possibility of added convenience,
there are already problems on the horizon. The most obvious one
is the squeamishness of potential users, ascustomers will have the
VeriChip embedded in their skin, which means elective surgery. Also,
Applied Digital is attracting attention from some fundamentalist
Christians who believe the Verichip relates to the biblical "mark
of the beast." It is said that Satan will someday force people
to "receive a mark" on their foreheads or hands in order
to purchase or sell goods. Applied Digital officials say such concern
is unfounded because people have a say in whether they want to have
the chip surgically implanted.
Wired
News November 25, 2003
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