July 27, 2006
RFID Roundup #1
RFID manufacturer Intelleflex announced US$15.5 million in series B financing from Morgenthaler Ventures. Investors from series A financing also participated. Intelleflex makes RFID tags that are known as semi-active or semi-passive. Because of their battery, this type of tag tends to produce a stronger signal and, presumably, a better read rate. Like passive tags, they activate in the presence of an RFID reader's signal.
With the success of RFID trials during the FIFA World Cup football (soccer) tournament in Germany earlier this summer, several teams in the UK plan to use it for a variety of purposes including expediting access and reducing scalping. Apparently, Liverpool Football Club has been using contactless cards since 2003. Unfortunately for fans, the new practice reduces the chances of a season pass holder reselling a ticket from a single game. I know minor league hockey fans who sometimes do this when they cannot make a game.
Passive RFID tags have dropped down in price to as low as US$0.01 per. So the real cost in implementing RFID is in the enterprise information system, including database storage and data mining.
Privacy advocates will be happy to know that anti-RFID advocate Andrew Tannenbaum of Vrije University is working a on palm-sized anti-RFID device. There's no mention of the use of a Faraday Cage in their .
I previously mentioned IDTechEx's database of RFID case studies. According to SiliconFen, the report actually indicates that there are closer to 10,000 instances of RFID in use, with 60 new cases monthly. There are estimated to be around 1000 RFID suppliers.
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