Body Chalking

Palm owners have long had the ability to “beam” things to each other, especially business cards. The rising proliferation of other handheld computing and communication devices means a rise in opportunities for personal data transfers of this type.

But not everyone owns a Palm. Emerging technologies like Bluetooth and Personal Area Networking (see links) represent non-Palm-compatible alternatives.

This will inevitably lead to an awkward “negotiation phase” where the two participants discover what common protocols their dissimilar devices support. This time-consuming negotiation will partially negate the time savings of automated transfers.

Enter Body-Chalking: the personal-area version of war chalking (see link).

A “body chalked” carrier of personal data equipment will mark themselves in a manner that clearly indicates what methods of personal data transfer they support. The businessman's form of this would probably be the appropriate standards organization logos on pin(s) attached to the users shirt (see links for one).

For non-business use, the hipper forms of this could be:

Palm: a palm logo or IrDA graphic dangling on a piercing somewhere visible.

IBM Personal Area Networking: there's no logo for this, but since this involves hand-to-hand contact, how about a tattoo of an RJ-45 network connector on your wrist or hand.

Bluetooth: a blue cap on one of your teeth. This has the advantage of only being visible when the user smiles, a likely predecessor to data transfer.