RFID Gazette

Yet More Anti-RFID Envelope Makers
National Envelope Corporation is the latest company to go after the potentially lucrative anti-RFID envelope and wallet market with their Smart Card Guard products. The envelopes can be used to protect contactless credit cards, ID cards, and e-passports. [via Contactless News]

A Smart RFID Mirror
Paxar is currently showing off its smart mirror at a show in Miami, Florida. The mirror, typically to be used in retail clothing stores, gives customers information about a tagged item of clothing. [via RFID Update]

Free RFID Discovery Service
Affilias is offering a service to companies that want to share RFID EPC data over the Internet. What information is to be shared can be configured on a per subscriber basis. Affilias calls the service ESDS (Extensible Supply-Chain Discovery Services) and hopes it'll become an industry standard. [via RFID Journal]

A roundup of recent RFID-related news.

NFC Vending Machine Demo
RFID in Japan has a YouTube video showing someone buying a drink from a vending machine and paying for it with their NFC-enabled cell phone.

RFID Implants For Payment Systems
A nightclub in Barcelona, Spain is allowing patrons to use implanted RFID chips to enter a VIP area and pay for drinks. Said one of the owners of the club:

I know a lot of people have fears about it. Having a radio-transmitting chip under your skin makes you very unique.

Right. So do horns sticking out of your head, which I'll have implanted before an RFID chip.

Dual-Purpose RFID Labels
Checkpoint Systems is introducing an inventory tracking and anti-theft system for retailers. The system uses RFID labels that serves the dual purpose by having two different circuits. This is apparently worrying privacy advocates who feel the system might track customers who chips after a purchase.

Sirit Gets California Toll Road Contract
RFID use in toll roads continues to increase in the United States and the OCTA (Orange County Transportation Authority) is expanding their own existing use. They've awarded Sirit a three-year contract for US$2M in RFID transponders as an extension of a prior contract. [via RFID Update]

RFID Asset Tracking For Jewelry Retailers
Jewelry retailers can breathe a bit easier with a tracking system from from RSI ID Technologies. The system includes tags, readers and software, and allows retailers to keep track of in-store jewelry items as well as provide data on which pieces are generating interest. [via RFID Journal] A number of jewelry stores in the Middle East have already been using a different RFID system for asset tracking.

How RFID Helps
CRM Buyer gives a good example of how RFID helps in a number of applications including supply chain and security. For example, US ports handle about 7 million containers yearly but there are only enough personnel to inspect about 2%. RFID locking systems and other security measures in terms of supply chain process can reduce the security risk. The CRM Buyer article is fairly general and is targeted at those new to RFID use in SCM (Supply Chain Management).

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.

I doubt even a "little" thing such as supplier revolt will divert the steamroller known as Wal-Mart from pushing their RFID program forward. While suppliers probably aren't at the revolt stage yet, it does appear that they're not thrilled but afraid to criticize. And they have yet to find an ROI (return on investment), mainly because Wal-Mart declared last year that suppliers had to not only comply but had to find their own ROI. Wal-Mart wouldn't help.

That's a huge mistake, as far as I'm concerned. Instead of acting like a dictatorial government and holding threats of financial ruin over every supplier's head, they could have taking their integration sessions a bit further and nudged suppliers along with advice. Sure they're in business to make money. So charge for it then and stop being doofuses. I can't see Wal-Mart bartering, but you never know. For financially -strapped suppliers, Wal-Mart could consider product in exchange for some help finding ways to make RFID work for individual suppliers.

Ultimately, helping their suppliers find the ROI is a much wiser course of action that would help RFID take a better toehold in the supply chain. Not doing so suggests that Wal-Mart doesn't really care about anything but their bottom line - which is already the perception people in small towns have, where the retail giant has displaced mom and pop stores.

Singer Nelly Furtado appeared on last night's CSI:NY franchise as an amazingly successful shoplifter at high-priced New York boutiques. Towards the very end of the episode, one of the CSIs found a device in a purse they confiscated from Furtado's character. And guess what? It was a "credit card scanner" which, according to two other CSI characters is "based on RFID", "works remotely" and "from three feet".

I'm guessing that the writing team read that New York Times article about the inherent security flaws in RFID-based credit cards, which I've discussed a few times. No doubt the episode was shot months ago. Since the NY Times article, credit card companies have skirted around the issues or outright denied them, but have said that their cards (meaning the new generation) are secure and have new security features.

Still, that's not going to stop speculation from TV shows and movies. RFID tech was also mentioned in Law + Order: SVU a few months back.

While RFID is expected to create many jobs and opportunities, this isn't the first time that people have predicted that the use of RFID in the enterprise may affect jobs, namely the loss of them. There are other concerns, such as employees will be affected by process. Amid concerns about how RFID and employees in the retail sector, the ILO (International Labour Organization) met in Geneva earlier this year to discuss the issues. Two reports resulted, one entitled (PDF, 60 pgs). [via The RFID Weblog]

The latter report is split up into 7 main sections:

1. Retail trade: Characteristics, trends and prospects
2. Retail trade: Regional overview
3. Technology and supply chain management
4. Radio frequency identification
5. RFID and commerce
6. Social and labour implications
7. Social dialogue

Regions analyzed include the US and North America, the European Union and other parts of Europe, Japan and other Asian countries, and Africa and the Middle East. Included in the report is a discussion of the benefits of RFID, both in pallet-level and case-level tagging, as well as how RFID affects workflow processes.

While the report says that some jobs may be lost, employees could be trained for customer service work. I find this hard to accept, as not everyone is cut out for customer service. Since RFID will make business process workflow more efficient, it's likely that labor needs will be reduced. There will be a shortage of skilled workers in relation to RFID, so employers considering a switch to RFID should consider in advance where they may want to reposition to-be-affected employees, if at all. Retraining may have to be part of the process, which will potentially cut into any profits gained from the use of radio frequency technology - something to be considered.

RFID Mirrors
A new mirror from Paxar for the retail clothing industry uses RFID technology to help customers learn more about a particular item of clothing, including garment descriptions and suggestions for matching items and accessories. Touching the mirror will also signal sales staff that a customer needs assistance. [via The Retail Bulletin]

RFID + Parking
"Meter maids" are getting help with the out of control parking situation in South Korea thanks to RFID tags on every car. Handheld readers would scan car tags to determine if a particular car is allowed in the city on a given day, and a fine issued if not. [via PSFK]

Managing RFID Adoption
Line56 has a three-page article outlining how to break RFID adoption into five stages, to more easily understand what your returns might be, as well as how process workflow might be impacted. The five stages they discuss are Creep, Crawl, Walk, Run, and Sprint - the latter of which includes actual implementation. I've only scanned the article but it does appear to have some generalized value for a manager researching how to go about RFID implentation for their company.

One of my biggest beefs with large department stores is that there is so much variety of style and size that I often can't find what I need. Marks & Spencer is one clothing retailer that is trying to solve this and other inventory management problems through RFID.

Based on a successful trial, M & S plans to triple the number of their stores, up to 120, that will use RFID item-level tags on merchandise. Their target period is spring 2007. During the trial period, the retailer doubled the number of their tagged items to nearly 50Mln over the summer and fall seasons. This necessitated item tagging by 15 suppliers in 20 countries. The current trial involves items from six clothing departments, which will be expanded to thirteen by fall of 2007. Said James Stafford, head of clothing RFID,

Stock accuracy has improved and stores and customers have commented on the more consistent availability of sizes in the pilot departments.

This highlights one of the benefits of item-level RFID tagging in retail: more efficient control of out-of-stock items. Better inventory management, of course, leads to satisfied customers who can actually find what they're looking for, in their size, and thus greater profits.

[sources: , VNUNet]