RFID Gazette

With several thousand pieces of luggage going lost at airports daily, RFID chips sound like an ideal way to reduce the chances of loss. RFID Ltd. is introducing a set of RFID-enabled designer luggage tags for high-end bags from Chanel, Dior, Gucci and others. The tags will vary in color and grain to match the bags they're used with.

The tags are in production now. However, RFID Ltd. has to convince airports to adopt the associated BagChip RFID system,which would include readers from Alien or Symbol. Hopefully, RFID Ltd and others will similarly serve the rest of us who are not part of the jet set crowd and don't buy designer bags.

Computer World has a series of recent articles focusing on Wal-Mart's RFID efforts. First and foremost, Wal-Mart has shifted their efforts towards stores .

This shift is due to an acknowledgement that they've missed their own goal of installing RFID in at least 12 of its 137 distribution centers by last year. Second, despite the fact that many small Wal-Mart suppliers have had trouble finding an ROI (return on investment) in implementing RFID in their supply chain, Procter & Gamble has found .

Now, it should be pointed out that not only was P&G one of the first 100 Wal-Mart suppliers to implement RFID, they're also a giant company themselves. Their ROI in RFID can be realized in volume transactions - something small suppliers just cannot accomplish.

While it'd be nice to think/ hope otherwise, the evidence so far, plus statements from some smaller suppliers, suggests that compliance with Wal-Mart's RFID initiative is hurting them. Nevertheless, Wal-Mart is still promoting RFID adoption.

A survey in Canada suggests that we are eager to see RFID in grocery stores. I'm not one of them. In fact, I find it kind of surprising because Canadians are generally more conservative about technologies that potentially invade privacy. At least, they have been in the past, when RFID-enabled money cards (not credit, not debit) were trialled.

Well, things do change, including attitudes. And it's more than possible that this video from IBM is the reason for it. It's been running in Canada since at least 2005, possibly earlier.

The survey findings seem to contradict the general reaction of consumers towards RFID chips in everything they buy. (This is based on an educated guess, from the thousands of RFID articles I've scanned or read in the past year.)

If the opinions of the 1,056 shoppers surveyed are truly representative of 35+ million people, then there's hope for the acceptance of item-level RFID. On the other, given that 80% of those surveyed had never heard of RFID, I'm a bit doubtful that the general Canadian populace is eager for it in their grocery items. That said, if IBM and Marnlen's new clipped tags are used, there may be more consumer acceptance in Canada and the US.

Big In Japan
McDonald's restaraunts in Japan will allow customers, later this year, to using NFC-enabled mobile phones. (Nokia is one company that has already rolled out NFC phones to be used for payments.)

Hyundai Adopts RFID
Hyundai-Kia Motors is implementing RFID in their Supply Chain to collect real-time distribution information. They are moving from applied bar code labels. They'll be using UPM Raflatac tags.

Dallas Newspaper To Use RFID
The Dallas Morning News will be the first newsaper to use the RFID-enabled Smart Cart system from Cannon Equipment. The system helps to track cart shipments.

Gizmos For Geeks has a great synopsis of the perceptions of RFID: "Depending on who you ask, RFID technology is either the 'Mark of the Beast' or a global panacea destined to rescue the grocery stores and Wal-Marts of the world from shoplifting." Of course, that's true and RFID is much more than that.

RFID, like computing, is so many things to so many industries, with supply chain applications straddling those industries more than any other application. Payments via smartphone are poised to become the application that really takes RFID "to the masses".

However, RFID still lacks popular appeal. But the handy little kit that Gizmos for Geeks reviews may help. Unlike a lot of other RFID kits, this one is just under a $100, has a USB cable, a dozen types of RFID tags, and projects that the average geek or wanna-be can probably do. (As opposed to a trained RFID field person.) The RFID Experimentation Kit also includes a copy of the book RFID Toys by Amal Graafstra, who implanted himself with not one but two chips.

Contactless credit cards that use RFID technology have been growing in numbers over the past two years. With their increased presence comes increased security risks, however. A New York Times article from October 23, 2006 pointed out some of the major security flaws in these contactless credit cards. So what can be done? Ask the Advisor has some answers in their recent article Can Contactless Credit Cards Be Hacked? 5 Tips to Stay Secure. It's worth a read.

Finally, someone with a lot more influence in the RFID industry than I said it: VeriChip implant unnecessary and a little creepy [Spychips]

Thanks to RFID Journal's Editor and Founder Mark Roberti for saying what had to be said. I've been pretty vocal about the questionable use of implanted RFID chips, a la VeriChip, and have repeatedly said that some wearable object with an RFID chip is just as good. Which is what Mark Roberti says as well.

On the other hand, Roberti also criticizes media for bad press regarding implants. I assume I am such a person. Or maybe not. Regardless, I see absolutely nothing wrong with making people aware of useless or offensive applications of RFID.

I could be misunderstanding, though Roberti didn't say he's against monitoring people with RFID, as Liz McIntyre points out at SpyChips. In fact, you have to read his article and decide for yourself. Nothing against him personally, but while he says it's creepy and isn't a big fan of implanting people, there could be some benefits of doing so.

From my viewpoint, all power to anyone who wants to willingly have an RFID chip implanted in themselves, but I'll continue to maintain that no one has any right to force an implant on anyone for any reason.

VeriChip's recent poor IPO performance would suggest that not many people think there's much of a market for living human implants. (VeriChips were used to identify the dead during disaster recovery in New Orleans, after Hurricane Katrina.)

Since our last report on the RFID Tribe's RFID map of the world (via The RFID Weblog), the number of points that illustrate RFID Tribe's organizations have increased from 233 to 271, or a growth of over 16 percent within the past two months. While this map shows organizational location, it doesn't put a face on the major influencers within this industry. What follows here is the list of RFID Gazette's top 25 influencers in the industry, grouped by Individuals, Organizations, and Countries.

Hitachi recently came up with tiny "powder" RFID chips. Well tiny's fine, but what if you want to eat your chips? You're in luck. Kodak just filed a patent for edible RFID chips. They're designed for monitoring a patient's gastric tract and are covered in a harmless gelatin, which eventually dissolves.

What's more important than that they can be ingested is that these prove that RFID chips embedded deep in the body can be read by a scanner. But Kodak is also saying that pills could be manufactured with these chips inside them, so that doctors or nurses can confirm a patient took them.

While this might seem a bit scary, they might possibly be used for early-stage Alzheimer patients that are still living by themselves. Because of their use, however, these chips would (hopefully) not be used for food supply chain management. My question, though, is what is Kodak, a maker of photography products, doing coming up with such a chip?

The spygame just got interesting. In a move that seems straight out the James Bond playbook, Hitachi has released tiny RFID chips in powder form. They're 0.05mm x 0.05mm square - smaller than the thickness of an average human hair. RFID meets nanotechnology - or at least not too far from it.

These tiny chips even have enough room for 128 bit ROM memory - which can store a 38-digit number. Of course, by themselves, there's not much they can do. But couple with other near-nano devices, surveillance could take on a new twist. Or they might be used with the so called hybrid cybugs (robot bugs - insects with implanted technology) that the Pentagon is supposedly developing.

Now, if they combine these powder chips with sensors and sensor networks or bionic hornets, they could have some really powerful applications.