Technology Item 325 "Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution" 1200 Total Responses But the MOST amazing thing was what happened at my friend Marc Smith's house. He has rigged up a little laser barcode scanner to a handheld computer (pocket pc) with a wireless connection, and has written some code that connects the info that is returned from the universal product code database to Google. I went in? his kitchen and scanned a box of prunes. Then I googled the vendor, Sun-Diamond Growers cooperative of California and learned all about "bromide barons subvert democratic process." Then I scanned "Crackling Oat Bran," googled, and learned about the FDA warning and recall of early releases of the product because of unlabeled dairy and egg contents. Talk about your sentient things! As Marc says, "every thing has a story."