After the end of The Code of Scholars, when I came home and returned my laptop back to its natural position next to my couch (which is where I also sleep), I found this frighteningly intriguing little thing:
It is hard to describe without referring to the picture, because what struck me about it is that it is just so small. It is less than half a centimeter in diameter at its widest, and at first glance, it looks like just a piece of plastic. In fact, it is so small that you can pick it up with one finger simply by pushing down with some force – lift your finger, and it comes up with it. Looking closely, though, I noticed something interesting:
On one side is a coiled span of wire wrapped around what appears to be a dark, metallic substance. Immediately, I thought this was either a tiny voice coil (e.g., speaker) or a microphone. The question is – where is it from? Nothing I have is missing such a component, to my recollection. It also doesn’t appear to have any internal power source, so I guess I can rule out the idea that it is a planted bug…right?
When I first saw it, it was actually on the ground, very likely to be sucked-up by a vacuum or kicked by a stray foot or eaten by a gigantic centipede. Looking closely, the characters on the dark side are “3R3”, with a larger circle to the left and a smaller circle above the 2nd “3”.
Here it is sitting in the middle of my laptop’s trackpad.
Any clues as to what it may be? All pictures link to my media gallery, where you can more pictures of both this mystery device as well as a whole slew of other things,