June 20, 2006
Musical security tags
reBlogged from Barry Fox' weird and wonderful patent applications on New Scientist
"Researchers at Hewlett-Packard's UK labs have hit on a cheap way to offer a free CD or DVD taster without the need for cumbersome playback devices.
Modified wireless security tags could contain a memory chip pre-programmed with a short, highly compressed music or video sample.
When a modified PDA or cellphone is brought near the tag, it would excite a coil wrapped around the tag to power it up. The tag would then transmit a music or video signal back to the handheld device for decoding and playback
The tags would be mounted onto a CD or DVD as normal and could be removed at the point of sale for re-use on fresh copies of the same titles. When a title goes out of fashion, the store could reprogram the tag with a new music or video clip.
Read the full musical security tag patent".
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