I remember when in 2002 I bought a Palm IIIx device during a visit in the US.

One of the most fascinating thing at that time was the possibility to beam my contact details to other Palm user by simply aiming at the other device. That was the birth of the digital exchange of business cards.

Later the very same technology come to mobile phones using IrDA, Bluetooth or SMS.

Now it seems that this will be made possible by simply shaking hands when you first meet your party.

Hideaki Matsui, a New York and Tokyo-based designed, has released a smart concept, the Information Ring.

All you will is a ring. When you will meet your party and shake hands informations will be exchanged between the two rings. The more hands you shake the more informations will be collected.

At a later stage you will be able to look at the data that your ring has collected over time by simply putting the ring on a special credit card sized device that will display the data stored.

I am always more attracted by this kind of interaction between the digital and physical world. Common use objects, like rings, are brought to life and gain new functionality.

Just to add another bit to this great idea you should note that when the ring is placed in the card it functions like a controller to scroll the data inside the ring. This will change the function of the ring another time giving it another new life.

How cool is that?

Going through the comments in the Yanko Design post on the subject I noticed that a very similar project was developed by the Media Lab Europe under the name of iBrand.

[via]