Three Square Market, often called 32M, held a party last week to celebrate the inauguration of something completely new: workers who voluntarily agreed to have microchips inserted into their hands for the convenience of buying snacks in the cafeteria, opening doors with a mere hand-wave, and easy login to their computer.

The Wisconsin-based company somehow convinced 41 of its 85 employees to introduce the chip into their flesh, saying that although it is a new and unusual phenomenon in the US, in Europe the practice is much more prevalent.

The company also asserts that the chips are encrypted, and do not have a GPS function as other types of microchips have, so that no one will be able to track the movements of the employee-cyborgs. On the other hand, for some talented hackers encryption is not a serious obstacle to access to computer systems if there is enough of a desire.

One observer, sociology professor at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, Noelle Chesley says that she foresees the implantation of chips into employees will go from nuts to normal over the next few years.