At MIT, the Human Dynamics lab has developed high tech badges that can track a person’s social interactions.

The high-tech badges recognise each other using infrared, then record your speech, note your distance from other people, and track your movement.

Ben Waber, one of the researchers has blogged about the results of handing the badges out to delegates who met with corporate sponsors.

Instead of running away from such technology, people started to actually compete against one another to see who could get the most contacts.