Sweeping new State Department regulations issued Tuesday say that passports issued after that time will have tiny radio frequency ID (RFID) chips that can transmit personal information including the name, nationality, sex, date of birth, place of birth and digitized photograph of the passport holder. Eventually, the government contemplates adding additional digitized data such as "fingerprints or iris scans."
Over the last year, opposition to the idea of implanting RFID chips in passports has grown amidst worries that identity thieves could snatch personal information out of the air simply by aiming a high-powered antenna at a person or a vehicle carrying a passport. Out of the 2,335 comments on the plan that were received by the State Department this year, 98.5 percent were negative. The objections mostly focused on security and privacy concerns.

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Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn said when Turkey becomes a full member the European Union’s (EU) dominance on the world map would increase.
Asselborn and his delegation, who have been visiting Turkey, came together with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul. Following a meeting at the foreign ministry residence, Gul and Asselborn organized a news conference. The Minister indicating he was the first European minister visiting Turkey since October 3, the date on which EU leaders decided on the start of membership talks with Turkey, said when Turkey becomes a full member, the EU’s domination on the world map would increase. Luxembourg’s foreign minister continued saying that he did not think that to date any other country’s membership had been debated as much as that of Turkey. He explained the EU’s decision to start entry talks with Turkey was affected by economic and regional factors.

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The Internet search engine Google has launched its books scan engine in eight European countries.
The move comes ahead of steps by the European commission and EU member states who also plan to set up their own European digital library.
Google will on Tuesday (18 October) officially present the opening of its controversial digital library service in eight European countries at the yearly Frankfurt Book Fair, a major German cultural event.
Last Sunday, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium and Spain already witnessed the launch of "Google Print" .
"Google Print" enables users to look for scanned books from libraries on the internet.

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A San Francisco start-up, Pay By Touch Solutions, is expected to announce today $130 million in fresh financing for a novel way of paying for groceries and other goods and services: a machine that reads your fingerprint.
The capital raised -- $55 million of it in convertible notes and $75 million in loans -- will help the company build out its finger-reading payment systems at several nationwide retailers, including in California in the first quarter of next year.
The company has already rolled out its so-called ``biometric'' payment system in a ``couple of hundred'' stores, mostly on the East Coast.
Here's how it works: Customers sign up once, by registering a checking account or a credit card, and showing government identification such as a driver's license. The Pay by Touch technology records the lines and ridges of their fingerprints, and translates the data into a numerical algorithm that is stored in a secure database. The customers thereafter never have to carry a wallet or purse back to the store, and can use their finger to pay for goods across the Pay By Touch network, which now includes stores in 10 states.

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