People are scared witless about identity theft online and yet we are remarkably trusting when introduced, face-to-face, that people are who they say they are.
Today’s invention would offer a first line of defence against scam artists, fraudsters and potential kidnappers.
To protect oneself, you would wear a couple of special adhesive plasters (shown as orange in the image but transparent in reality).
These would have a soft, skinlike texture (something like the remarkable anti-blister material, Compeed), thus making them hard to detect during a handshake.
Embedded in the surfaces would be a number of plastic-electronic fingerprint detector pads, wired to an earpiece.
If there was a mismatch between the name given during an introduction and the identity indicated by the prints, one would know to treat the meeting with extra caution.
Take a look at this technology: http://www.gizmag.com/flexible-sensor-artificial-skin/28213/