So a small Wisconsin business has managed to convince their 40 employees to get microchips embedded in their hands, just so they don’t have to wear a name badge or have to log on to a computer.   They were given “I Got Chipped!” t-shirts to commemorate the event.  Of course the company says they’re not going to be tracked, but it seems like a pretty extreme step just to eliminate name badges to me.

I’m pretty sure none of the employees have ever seen the movie “The Belko Experiment”, or they would have quit on the spot.  In the movie a sinister company implants microchips in their employees heads and then later traps them in their building and starts detonating the chips, exploding heads as part of a bizarre psychological test.

 

 

Personally, I wasn’t even crazy about microchipping my dog, but at least she didn’t know it was being done to her.    I guess in the future it might become commonplace to have microchips in humans to pay for goods and as identity protection, but count me as one of the “Hell No” crowd for now if you come at me with a syringe like that.

 

RIVER FALLS, Wis. — A local firm here made good today on its vow to embed employees with microchips. 

Sporting “I Got Chipped” T-shirts, some 40 workers at Three Square Market, a firm that makes cafeteria kiosks aimed at replacing vending machines, got tiny rice-sized microchips embedded in their hands.

Company officials said it was for convenience, a way for them to bypass using company badges and corporate log-ons to computers. Now, they can just have their hands read by a reader, similar to using a smartphone to pay for goods. 

The company would like to see payments go cashless, as iPhone users do with Apple Pay. Except in this case, consumers use their hand instead of a smartphone to pay.  

The chip is not a tracker nor does it have GPS in it, so the boss can’t track your movements, company officials say. Still, to those who worry about Big Brother having more control over our lives, Three Square Market President Patrick McMullan says you should, “take your cell phone and throw it away.”

The chips come from Biohax Sweden, a company that says it has nearly 3,000 people using it in Europe. The founder of that company, Jowan Osterlund, has struck alliances with companies to pay to have the chips installed in employees or pass them out at tech fairs.

Three Square Market employees say they were having the chip installed to be part of the larger team, and help develop the technology. 

“The pinch hurt more than the injection,” says McMullen. “It stung for about an hour and half afterwards, but now it’s getting back to normal.”

But what seemed normal in Wisconsin played out differently across the Internet. 

During our Facebook Live interview with McMullen, Chris Malak from Winneconne, Wis., said,  “I have a co-worker who can never keep track of their keys thus always asking for mine and no idea what her pass word are. This would be good for her. But as for me, hell no.”