Of course American consumers are cheap. When shopping for electronics, they're 'spec-sheet' shoppers, caring only about listed features and bottom line price, rather than the intangibles like quality, ease of use, etc.

What do you want to bet that, starting late Tuesday morning, they'll be demoing this service on an Apple-branded cell phone? Hey, we can't let a whole day slip by without yet another Apple phone rumor, you know..

Interesting indeed. What kind of connector is that on the side? Why would Acer not just use a mini-USB connector for this application? That large rectangular one makes no sense unless that actually WAS an iPod connector (or perhaps eSATA?)...

Sure, there may be an application for this with theft, but all the more reason to publicize this hack then. People need to be educated on the shortcomings of any technology or else they'll be led along blindly by the promoters of that technology. Knowledge of a hack like this will spur innovation and encourage RFID tag manufacturers to create new, better RFID tags (which is good for technology, bad for consumers!).