Tokyo is planning to turn a city shopping district into a RFID-enabled information complex. Everyday objects such as walls, lamp posts, buildings, etc will contain embedded RFID chips. The RFID numbers will be stored on a computer database, and correlated with location-specific information in four different languages. Special RFID readers equipped with wireless LAN or bluetooth will be able to scan the RFID chips, and bring up whatever information the user requires on a 3.5 inch screen...

Quote: "The Asian region generally leads its North American and European counterparts in ubiquitous computing. Projects like this one demonstrate that in many respects Japan and Korea (which also has a government-supported ubiquitous computing initiative) are world leaders in the realization of the "Internet of Things" in which physical objects are made smart with RFID, sensors, and other networking. Ironically, even though the Internet of Things phrase was coined at the Auto ID Center in the US, a manifestation of the concept like the one in Ginza might well be rejected by the North American and European public, who are generally seen as more sensitive to the protection of personal privacy and anonymity than the Asian public. On the other hand, Americans, at least, are also known to be willing to trade personal data for convenience, so location-based ubiquitous computing like that in Ginza could ultimately gain traction in the US.

It seems RFID is here to stay whether we like it or not. As the article states, RFID enabled mobile phones are just around the corner, and once that market is cracked, then just about everyone on the planet will have their own unique number. Implantable RFIDs are also making big inroads into our everyday lives. In the US there has been around a 300% increase in the adoption of RFID in hospitals, and over 1000 physicians have enrolled in the VeriMed scheme. 

Quote: "As of the end of 2006, 392 hospitals and 1,209 physicians had enrolled in VeriMed, indicating they had been trained how to use the interrogator and database to call up records of patients embedded with the tag. During the six-month period from July to December 2006, the number of participating physicians increased from 275 to 1,209, representing a 340 percent gain. During the same time period, VeriChip recorded a 256 percent increase in the number of medical facilities enrolled in the VeriMed Network. These totals exceed previously stated year-end goals of 200 hospitals and 1,000 physicians.

This is what my friend Adam said about the above article... "A 340 percent gain in the number of physicians now registered with VeriMed in the States. Let's say if we have that kind of gain again we will have could have 5315 physicians registered with this system. I don't think America will be a free country much longer. If say on average each physician were to implant just 1 VeriChip a day, with the current growth in physicians we could have 3277 VeriChips a day on average implanted. Multiply that by 365 and it would come to over one million people being chipped in the States alone by the end of the year. The next year that figure could be four million and the next maybe 16 million by which time it could then quite easily become mandatory. A very interesting scenario, and then we could have physicians chipping ten people a day. It only takes five minutes a person. So imagine then the volume of people. It is mathematically possible to have hundreds of millions of people chipped within the next few years worldwide. Just a matter of mathematics.

Source  RFID update