VOL.27 NO.11 Pulse Communicative chips Photo illustration by Manodh Premaratue.
Talk is cheap, and it's getting cheaper all the time.
Falling memory-chip prices and software improvements mean previously mute objects are becoming terribly chatty. Not that we want to hear from them. U.K. firm Molins , a tobacco industry supplier, has filed a patent to connect the hinged lid of a pack of smokes with a microchip and a tiny speaker at the base of the box. Open the lid, and you hear a health warning or a funeral dirge. For millions of people with visual impairments, the Internet is off limits.