I’d prefer alternate sensory systems personally - humans have quite good sensation in all the areas that count (yes, even that way), but new ways to sense things would be a new experience. Having said that, while sensing magnetic fields with finger magnets sounds cool, I literally haven’t heard of a true success story with them (that didn’t end in tears) and that’s not even factoring in longer term effects. I’ll wait for actual medical grade enhancements.
As for the article itself…
It’s a tiny chip about the size and shape of a grain of rice capable of storing a small amount of data (880 bytes)
That really doesn’t sound like enough to do anything useful; sure you could use it as a unique identifier, but because it’s universally and completely read writeable you couldn’t use it for authentication and I can’t think of any other use that wouldn’t work at least as well without implanting.
What about other non- medically necessary enhancements, like IUDs?
Well, IUDs might not be necessary, but unlike NFC tags they can’t function without being implanted, and have tangible benefits in modifying the way the recipient’s body functions. NFC tags just save you from having to remember a glove or sticker or whatever external carrier you would use. And IUDs are regulated, and implanted by proceduralists in a clean environment.
The thing doesn’t have the inherent capability to monitor my physical location.
It doesn’t need it. The whole point of NFC tags is to act as unique identifiers, if someone sees your NFC tag somewhere they know where you’ve been. And given that range issue (over a dozen feet with an appropriate reader) you can bet that if these become reasonably common or a particular person with one becomes targetted by someone that those readers will start turning up hidden away where you’d never notice them. Not to mention a potential near future of advertisers and Google-esque tracking organisations having yet another source of location data.
Personally, if I were getting one of these I’d want it to at the very least function like an OpenPGP card, and only transmit when receiving an authentication token from an authorized reader using PKI.
