As wireless technology gets smaller and smarter, it is used in all kinds of innovative ways. Researchers in Japan have developed microscopic RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags that are smaller than a human hair, 0.05mm by 0.05mm. RFID chips in many ways resemble bar codes - they broadcast identification information of one sort or another about whatever it is that they are attached to. The signals from these tags can be used to track products, people, and information. The usefulness of the new micro RFID tags is limited because even the smallest antennas are about eighty times larger than the chips. As antennas shrink in size, this kind of technology will become ubiquitous, embedded anywhere and everywhere.

Initially RFID technology focused on inventory management and logistics: RFID are currently widely used to keep monitor transport of containers at ports, on ships, trains, trucks and their eventual arrival in warehouses. This is by no means the only use of RFID technology, and these new microscopic chips have a much broader potential use - RFID could even be used for paper. Imagine a bureaucracy or records system in which each piece of paper emitted a radio signal that made it possible to digitally track every piece of paper (record) in real time. It would become practically impossible to lose paperwork. And if RFID tags were included in paper money, just imagine the effect on conspiracy theorists around the world.