RFID Gazette

This is a roundup of recent RFID news and views.

The ROI of RFID
While many small vendors cannot use the volume of RFID tags to make the ROI (Return on Investment) worthwhile, some companies are finding it. A trailer dealership near Toronto, Canada is using RFID to manage over a 1,000 trailers in four lots and claims they've had a return on their investment since the installation last September. [via RFID Journal]

RightTag Acquired
RightTag, an RFID equipment manufacturer, has just been acquired by Inova Technology. RightTag were the first company in the RFID industry to manufacture a 13.56 Mhz Bluetooth-enabled scanner.

NCR Division Acquired
NCR's Systemedia Division's RFID assets have been acquired by The Kennedy Group, who provide RFID labels, packaging and other products. [via RFID Update]

NFC, or Near Field Communication, is a technology that's been in use in Asia and Europe for a few years, allowing consumers with appropriate NFC-enabled cell phones to pay for all manner of self-payment purchases, such as bus fares and movie tickets, or for items from vending machines.

To date, that hasn't really been the case in North America. However, MasterCard and USA Technologies are in the process of pushing out 6,000 vending machines in over twenty American cities. Customers can use an NFC phone for purchases, thanks to the new e-Port technology from USA Technologies.

One thing I see holding back the popularity of such vending machines is the lack of NFC phones, though Nokia is making progress in that regard. Still, ABI Research said back in 2004 that by 2009, about 50% of all cell phones would have NFC. What remains is to see whether consumers become comfortable using such a payment method.

Domino ISG and OTA Training recently announced a teamup to provide RFID training and certification courses. They will take place at four Domino CoEs (Centers of Excellence) in the US and UK, and newer centers in Asia and elsewhere in Europe. [via RFID Solutions Online]

The courses are an extension of those that OTA Training already provides their clients, and by partnering with Domino, students will have hands-on training at the CoEs. Start dates are expected to be announced later this year.

Last year, Domino received approval from GS1 UK to offer training for GS1, particularly in SCM (Supply Chain Management). OTA has previously had their training program adapted by CompTIA for the latter's RFID+ certification program, which is vendor-neutral.

RFID training is a critical step for the industry, as a lack of skilled workers is expected to hold companies back from adoption of the technology. Hopefully, more companies follow the lead of Loftwares, who recently had several employees certified.

What RFID Is Not
Spychips points to an AIM Global newsletter item that kills some so-called RFID truths. Keep in mind that AIM Global is an important  RFID international standards body with very well-placed industry people in its membership list. They list 6 RFID myths, amongst them: that RFID is secure and no threat to privacy.

Calling Occupants... Of Interplanetary Craft
[with apologies to Klaatu] RFID is an ideal technology for the supply chain, regardless of what kind of industry. Most of the time, location is not a barrier, either. As such, RFID could be useful for the interplanetary supply chain that NASA is setting up for the planned Moon base for 2020, and crewed missions to Mars. New Scientist Space has more details, though RFID is not mentioned in the article.

RFID Industry Mergers
PanGo networks and InnerWireless have announced a merger. The two companies had been working on an asset tracking project together for a joint customer, a hospital. [via RFID Update]

Loftware, Inc., in New Hampshire, announced that they now have the honor of being the 2nd largest employer in the world in terms of the number of certified staff. Eighteen of their staff are now CompTIA RFID+ certified. Congratulations to Loftware. This is good news, and hopefully other companies will follow along.

CompTIA RFID+ is relatively new RFID certification program. A CompTIA surveylast year showed that there is a lack of skilled workers in the industry. A few colleges in North America are starting to get RFID labs and study programs, and there are new training centers in Canada and the US. In fact , industry insiders have suggested to me that the RFID training niche is likely to explode in the next few years. RFID kits are also becoming more readily available at a lower price.

With all the companies levying lawsuits about patent infringement, you'd think that Australia's Sandtracker would at least sell their patents or give them to the RFID Consortium patent pool. Instead, they've decided to abandon them [Stuff NZ]. According to the Stuff New Zealand article, Sandtracker had original thought they could crack the 7-cent barried for RFID chips. So they created their RFID tags with their chips, which use quartz crystal diodes instead of the typical silicon.

Problem is, regular RFID readers cannot be used with these tags. They apparently wanted to redesign their reader and transponder, but decided to abandon the patents. Meanwhile, an Israeli company, SmartCode, has cracked the 5-cent silicon-based tag level. And there's printable RFID tags, which Philips is working on, which if successful will result in sub one-cent tags. However, some people have said that they feel printable tags are a ways off yet.

Still, RFID chips are bound to go down under normal economic influences, as production volumes increase. The catch-22, of course, is that chips (and thus tags) are too high for many organizations to want to adopt RFID technology. Which is why the projects of larger organizations such as Wal-Mart and the US DoD (Dept of Defence) are so important in helping bring prices down.

In one of my random updates about VeriChip, I'm unpleased to report that the chairman of VeriChip's parent company still hasn't had himself implanted with an RFID chip - as far as I know - despite claiming he would do so, what, about two years ago? Now, if you've kept up with the RFID industry, you might know that VeriChip is planning an IPO (which they filed for a year ago). And this in the midst of poor performance for some companies in the industry and the generally accepted view that most human beings would never willingly allow themselves to be implanted. Feel free to disagree, but in my opinion, forced implanting is one of the worst applications of RFID, not to mention a travesty of personal privacy, regardless of the political BS being fed to us. Besides, there are so many useful, legitimate, non-infringing applications.

I haven't followed the IPO but I'm thinking they'll have a very hard time with it. (Even VeriChip, in their SEC filing, stated that many patients would be unwilling. Apparently a lot of doctors are uncomfortable with implanting their patients - thank goodness.) Nevertheless, they don't seem to be having any problem implanting 222 people in total with RFID chips, for a sales total of about US$100K. [Speaking of implanting, one of the character's in this week's episode of Smallville is abducted and has a tiny GPS chip implanted in his/her shoulder (don't want to spoil it). Though at first, I thought it might be an RFID chip.]

Gentag, Inc., has received a broad patent entitled "RFID Based Sensor Networks" that apparently covers a wide range of wireless devices including cell phones, PDAs, and laptops. Such devices, if RFID-enabled, would be nodes in sensor networks such as those used in crowdsensing applications. [via MoreRFID]

It's hard to say right now what the implications of this patent are, by my own personal opinion is that this could be a coup, as sensor networks based on mobile devices will very likely grow in importance in the medium to long-term. This would be both for experimental community-based projects and commercial applications. Combined with Internet databases, some very powerful applications could result.

The patent is actually co-owned between Altivera (Gentag) and Symbol (Motorola).

RFID, Ltd., is completing the design of uniforms embedded with RFID tags. The uniforms would be worn by firefighters, EMTs, and police. In the event of a high-risk situation, the tags can be used to pinpoint the wearer's location, making rescue easier. The design was spurred on by fire chiefs, whose squads are typically at high risk. Said Nicholas Chavez, president of RFID, Ltd.

...not only monitor locations of their squads but also their heart rates, respiratory developments, and skin temperatures.

This could in fact be an incredibly groundbreaking application of RFID, if it saves even one life. The uniforms are been targeted at the one million US firefighters.

source: .

RFID Update has a 3-part series on RFID trends for 2006. Number 10 was "RFID and the Citizen: Passports, Privacy, and Politics". I would have have put this as number 1 myself, in terms of public concern. Their number 1 was "The Industry itself". Each item has a number of links to related articles, and the series is definitely worth a read to get a perspective of what's happening. These types of articles are never easy to write - I know first hand. But here are my 5 issues in RFID (not quite the same type of list).

1. RFID and identification. Should citizens be concerned? Is it all fear-mongering or do we really need RFID citizen cards between Canada and the US?
   
2. The industry itself. How's the industry doing? Can it support RFID IPOs?
   
3. Item-level tagging. I'm referring to the retail industry and the intent of giants such as Wal-Mart to tag everything. A reduction in price for item-level tags should push this application forwards.
   
4. RFID in the pharmaceutical industry. The FDA D-Day, Dec 1st, has come and gone, but in fact, a US Federal Court judge apparently issued an injunction lifting the e-pedigree requirements on certain drugs. The pedigree requirement is a good idea, especially for fighting drug counterfeiting, by the industry has been self-admittedly behind the curve. Will they catch up in 2007? Well, it's been 10 years since an e-pedigree solution was mandated. What's taken so long? (Item-level tagging costs, technological hurdles, etc.)
   
5. RFID in payment systems. Do we need contactless credit cards? Are they secure? And should it be legal for merchants to refuse cash?

Of these, three concern me, but only because of my own personal feelings about them. I've written about them often enough, so I'm not going to repeat myself. You'll notice, though, that I'm talking less about the technology and more about issues.