new sony authentication outlet raises some eyebrows

arstechnica.com...

Sony is building a new kind of power outlet that raises a not entirely pleasant prospect—in the future, plugging a phone into a public wall socket might require authentication and take a chunk out of your bank account. But the technology will have many important uses, Sony says, from managing payments for recharging electrical vehicles to avoiding blackouts by intelligently regulating the use of power. Announced by Sony last month, and demonstrated today in a video posted by Tokyo news site DigInfo TV, Sony's authentication outlet manages electricity use on a per-user and per-device basis with NFC (near field communication) and RFID (radio-frequency identification) tools. The technology may be years away from commercial release, but a prototype demonstration shows a handheld dryer being plugged into an outlet that has the ability to authenticate devices. The dryer doesn't need to be modified because it attaches to the outlet through a plug containing an NFC chip. "The authenticated equipment can be managed via the cloud, and its power supply can also be controlled," DigInfo notes. "So for example, if demand is about to exceed supply, blackouts can be avoided by switching off non-vital devices, while keeping other more essential devices such as healthcare equipment and refrigerators on."

just stumbled upon this and it was a pretty interesting read, but in my opinion something that has great potential to be abused by some of the more corrupt governments of the world. On the plus side it seems it wont be ready tell 2030 at the earliest, But as the article goes on to state they are trying to cut down on "electric theft" so i guess from a business point of view these could be good things but i still think outlets that only let "authenticated devices" use them




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Soon they'll come up with an authentication mask, so you have your credit card billed every time you inhale.

I bet they get sued by Apple for design infringement before they can market this.

reply to post by KilrathiLG


Energy theft.... Really?. No, I imagine this outlet will be used more in peoples homes than it would be in businesses. Tom went over his "allowed WAT usage" by charging his I-pad. Tom will now be charged an additional free on top of what he pays per-month.

reply to post by KilrathiLG


Oh great, now power points everywhere will ID us as soon as we use them. None of our devices will work unless they are "authenticated". And our friends will recharge their stuff using an adapter with our ID's in them. Great work Sony. Now please burn in Hell.

As Germany and China are the leading nations in solar panels but as it seems china is by far over taking Germany's R.A.D. area on those products in a way that only few had predicted. Renewable solar panels should be a must for every thinking human. Why even rely on payment for electricity when electricity itself can be harvested and stored by individual storage systems. My point is that instead of buying that 50k car or boat you can just as easily place for that amount of money a system in the home that will allow you to be self dependent from the grid and future enslaved applications as this video attempts to show us that :

"no, you will not be left alone, no, you do need us to survive"

reply to post by Inquisitive1


probally also in their plans but in the article this is how they described energy theft

Further applications would give consumers and businesses improved ability to monitor and analyze power consumption, and prevent "electricity theft." "'Electricity theft' could be avoided if electrical outlets located in the common area of an apartment building were replaced by the Authentication Outlet, as this outlet would only supply power to authenticated devices," Sony said.

but i could definatly see it as a way to instantly shut off delquent bill payers and or torrenters or pirates of softwear or media if they tweak the desgin

Ugh what a nightmare this would be.. I don't see it ever being practical. You'd have to "register" every single electrical device you buy before you can power it up. Microwave, fridge, lights, phones, tvs, stereos, fans, speakers, kettles, electric fry pans, blenders, electric shavers, hair dryers, hair curlers, battery rechargers... also it's pretty much inevitable that your usage & registered devices would be sold to third parties for marketing purposes (goodbye yet more privacy)

I would assume the logic for authenticating a device is located in a chip within the powerpoint, so whats to stop someone from ripping the powerpoint out and wiring up an "old school" one that doesn't have the chip?

"The authenticated equipment can be managed via the cloud, and its power supply can also be controlled,"

This whole 'cloud' business has creeped me out since I first heard the term. I don't quite know what it is but i know I don't want any business doing anything with it. It reminds me of movies like AI where there's some giant central computer that gains intelligence and tries to take over the world. I might just watch too many scifi movies, though.

reply to post by LordGoofus


sorry had to run some errands so my replies will be a bit late,yeah and from the comments section in the article it seems that at this point it would be financially unforeseeable (something like 50 dollars a unit) and under current "plug laws" it would not be legal in the united states as the prototype sits right now but either way still makes me look at it in a slightly conspiratorial fashion and it also seems that the old school plug into a light socket adapter and it could be bypassed but i see hotels and airports being the mostlikely first uses of this product or hell the military as a way to gaurentee op sec as devices that the military does not permit can not be used to sneek out data or the like

reply to post by CoherentlyConfused


yeah once drones go to the "cloud" then i think we really need to start worrying about that kinda stuff but it is eyebrow raising indeed,and i feel ya on that cloud thing i have always looked at it in a suspicious light