Paul Marks of the New Scientist Tech reports that HP is developing a new technology:

The chip, called a Memory Spot, is small enough to be attached to a postcard or a photograph and could be used to append video, audio or hundreds of pages of text to all sorts of everyday objects. In hospitals, for example, the chips could allow doctors to add detailed medical records to a patient’s plastic wristband.

Details of the chip were revealed at an event held in London on Monday. A Memory Spot can be read by a specialised device or an appropriately modified cellphone or PDA. It does not require a battery as it draws power from the reading device's radio field.

Unlike existing RFDI technologies that are limited in the amount of data they can hold and are susceptible to hacking, HP's product can carry up to 500 kilobytes. A special reader is required that scans the data from a close range. The chip is powered by the reading device.

Numerous applications for the technology exist but HP is aiming at the photography market. At $1.00 per chip in volume they can be attached to 2D materials.