Red Herring reports that VeriChip, a firm which specialises in RFID tags for human implantation, intends to file for an IPO. In 1993 when I was involved in the Reed Elsevier Innovation Programme with Strategos one of the more outlandish discontinuities we came up with was the move to chip everything, including humans. This seemed to be hard to take at the time, but it’s interesting how, bit by bit, the story is unfolding. The Red Herring article goes on to say that the RFID industry is slated to become a multi-billion dollar industry over the next five years.

Co-incidentally, CIO Insight reports at the same time that Kimberly-Clark, the paper products giant, is investing millions in a factory to prove the uses of RFID – even though it is not expected to bear fruit for a couple of years.