Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Backup/Recovery

Seventies throwbacks who like big belt buckles, and pelvic thrusting in public, can now check into a location, or "Like" a friend, with no more than a flick of the hips.

The innovation comes from self-described "innovation studio" Deeplocal, which extended the NFC antenna from a Nexus S phone and mounted it on the largest belt buckle seen since Fireball graced the pages of Bullet comics in 1976.

LikeBelt from deeplocal on Vimeo.

NFC chips have a range of about 10 centimetres (about 4 inches), so by pushing one's groin against a chip one can "Like" a place, or a person, though one might want to check the person is receptive before pushing up against them in such a fashion.

There's no rocket science here, but an exploration of how, and where, we might end up using NFC devices. Londoners are used to taking their wallets out of their pockets to brush past the readers on the Underground – which are placed atop the gates – but in Hong Kong (going back a few years) the vertically mounted readers for the equivalent Octopus system could be activated by bouncing one's buttocks against them (though locals didn't seem to take much advantage of the option).

One can only imagine the scene as passengers equipped with NFC belt buckles attempted to mount London's ticket machines – and then scramble off to get through the gate without even stopping for a post-coital cigarette. ®

Agentless Backup is Not a Myth