April 2011
1 post
Was I wrong, about the Iphone and RFID
Interesting article posted today on appleinsider.com pointing out that Apple has filed a patent on using a RFID reader in a touchscreen device. However it doesn’t guarantee that you will see a RFID reader in a consumer’s iphone.
There are other reasons why apple might have filed the patent. The most obvious one for me is to exploited the business need for mobile devices.
As I have said in...
March 2011
2 posts
Sex, RFID and intellectual property, words you...
GlobeRanger has filed a lawsuit against Software AG for stealing its intellectual property(IP). GlobeRanger alleges that Software AG with two consultancies stole its IP and also illegally obtained a RFID contract with the US navy. Part of the allegations is that one of the consultants was sleeping with a US navy employee responsible for the procurement of RFID systems.
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Apple made the right decision about NFC and the...
Apple made the right decision about not putting a NFC reader in the IPAD2. At the moment there are no killer apps that would excite potential IPAD buyers.
Apple has been hiring a lot of NFC experts and hopefully they are working on both hardware and cool NFC applications. If they can create some cool apps we may see NFC in the Iphone5 or the IPAD3.
February 2011
3 posts
Improving Customer Service to High Value Customers
The Standard Chartered Bank is using RFID to improve customer service to it’s high value customers.
Each high value customer will be issued a RFID tag. When the customer enters the store the tag will be scanned. The tag scan will alert the branch manager to greet the customer. Stopping them from having to queue up.
It’s an interesting idea.
RFID and Jails
A jail in Australia has stopped using RFID to track inmates due to battery issues. Every time a battery failed it sent an alarm. Staffs were being overwhelmed by the number of alarms.
Over the past year we have seen a number of RFID installations in jails/prisons that have failed to drive the expected business benefits. All the failed projects have focused on inmate tracking and knowing where...
Bud Light, RFID and facebook
The Bud Light Hotel, a promotional event hosted by Anheuser-Busch, Inc is using RFID to enable patrons to sign into a kiosk.
The patrons have a RFID wristband which identifies them and enables them to automatically logon onto their facebook account.
The kiosk allows the patrons to update their profile and send pictures to their account.
The application of RFID to leisure will grow over the next...
November 2010
2 posts
New Item Level RFID group created
A number of organizations have branded together to develop guidelines for the implementation of item level RFID in retail. Voluntary Interindustry Commerce Solutions (VICS) and standards groups GS1 US and GS1 Canada are some of the associations involved.
Hopefully guidelines will address the numerous privacy issues associated with deploying RFID at the item level.
Iphone and NFC(RFID)
The cult of Mac is reporting a rumor that Apple will be including a NFC (Near Field Communication) chip in version 5 of the Iphone. Apparently Apple has hired a number of NFC experts and has filed a number of patents.
There have been a lot of rumors about the Iphone of which a small minority have turned about to be true. However we know that Nokia has committed to this technology for all of its...
October 2010
1 post
August 2010
1 post
Benefits Vs Privacy
We have just found out about another backfiring marketing stunt, this time it was Uniliver in Brazil. What they did was plant GPS trackers in boxes of detergents and then they were following the purchasers to their home address and giving out prizes. The purchasers didn’t know about the GPS trackers or the prizes when the purchased the product. We have seen this happen time and again with...
July 2010
6 posts
Use of Auto-ID in hospitals grows by over 300% in...
According to Hospital and Health Network the use of Auto-ID(RFID or Barcodes) has grown from 14% of hospitals in 2005 to 47% in 2010.
Wal-Mart to pilot item level tracking
Wal-Mart is to pilot item level tracking on jeans. Wal-Mart has been using RFID for pallet and container tracking for some time and according to some sources this has reduced the number of stock-outs by 30%. Wal-Mart has adopted a very sensible approach and has attached the tags to the outside of the jeans and made it easy to remove. Wal-Mart was a early adopter of RFID for pallets and I would...
All new Nokia smart phones will support NFC from...
Nokia has committed to supporting Near Field Communication (NFC) in all of its smart phones from next year. If another phone manufacturer commits to including NFC in its phones we can expect a boom in NFC phone applications.
Sneak Peak of new RFID book
Here is an extract from the first page of our new RFID book that is being published in the near future.
ACTIVE TAG, An active tag contains a battery and does not require power from the reader to transmit a signal. One of three main tag types, the other two being semi-passive and passive. An active tag is usually larger and more expensive than the other tag types. Active tags can be used for asset...
A visible RFID field
This blogger has done a great post about what a RFID field would look like if it was visible you can read the post and see the images/movie Here
NFC coming to a phone near you soon-maybe
Several companies including Device Fidelity http://www.devifi.com/products.html are developing functionality that will enable a mobile phone to be used as a credit card. Nokia has been working on a NFC phone for some time but it looks like Device Fidelity has developed a Micro SD card that can be used in over 120 mobile phones. I’m still to be convinced that mobile phone as credit cards are...
June 2010
4 posts
Coming Soon NFC to cell phones
Both Visa and First Data have announced that they are going to develop a Micro SD card that will enable any phone that supports the technology to be used as a credit card.
Wanted-Contributing Editor
We are looking for contributing editors for our RFID book, it’s a short book around 60 pages and the editors will get a big plug for the company and themselves on the rear cover. If you are interested, send us a email by the contact page and tell us why you would make a great contributing editor?
1 tag
Moved from blogger to Tumblr
We have moved from Blogger over to Tumblr. Blogger dropped its support for FTP and we found it very difficult to use Bloggers custom domains. We have been pleasantly surprised by Tumblr and if we new about its functionality we would have moved years ago.
RFID in plain english is nearly ready
Our first book RFID in plain english is nearly ready. Just adding a final round of proof reading and getting the front cover to look good.
We decided to write this book after we realized that the market is full of RFID books but that often the terms are explained in scientific language rather than plain english and may be hard for business people without a physics degree to understand.