Memory Spot is the size of a tomato seed and can be attached unobtrusively to any object and carry media or data. The Memory Spot will rival RFID tags in carrying information on movable physical objects, but HP calls it the better and smarter alternative.

“It has some of the characteristics of RFID but it’s very different because it’s orders of magnitude different in bandwidth,” said Howard Taub, vice president and associate director of HP Laboratories. “It’s like comparing a monkey and a human. There are some similarities but the capabilities are very different.”

The Memory Spot has a 10 megabits-per-second data-transfer rate and can store up to 4 megabits of data, although the demonstration chips stored only 256 kilobits. The chip has an integrated antenna, which is why it is so much smaller than an RFID chip, which gets most of its size from the separately attached antennae. It receives power through inductive coupling from a special read-write device that extracts data from the memory on the chip.

China sentenced reporter Li Yuanlong to two years in jail on Thursday, adding to its list of writers imprisoned for expressing themselves through the country’s expanding but tightly censored internet.

“I feel it’s very unjust,” Li’s wife, Yang Xiumin, told Reuters of the sentence. “To give such a heavy sentence just for a few essays isn’t rule of law. It’s not justice.”