While we've long discussed both the benefits and nefarious uses of RFID but IBM's got a new purpose for wireless tags that could benefit pharmaceuticals. IBM announced that it will include RFID tags on drug packages as a way to track and verify the authenticity of a particular substance. Next thing you know our nanobot controlled interiors are going to be analyzing embedded RFID in order to decide whether harmful drug interactions will occur if fully digested and metabolized. Ah, the miracles of science.
Ever since these newfangled RFID e-passports hit the mainstream, understandable concerns have frequently surfaced regarding the security (or lack thereof) involved. The Dutch version has already been cracked, Germans can clone theirs, and Ireland's doesn't even have a protective sheath to keep its data safe from unauthorized readers; now it appears that you have one more reason to stick with the ole laminated paper version, as security researchers have released "proof-of-contact code that they say enables an attacker to read the passport number, date of birth, and passport expiration date." The flaw was unveiled by Adam Laurie -- a well-respected watchman of Bluetooth security weaknesses -- in his "Bugtraq" newsletter, but no specifics were reported regarding how evildoers could extract such precious information and subsequently steal your identity. Nevertheless, those RFID-shielding manufacturers must be licking their chops right about now, and rightfully so.
Having covered different facets of RFID, I found logic in covering this news also. Anyway, this blog is supposed to show anything related to RFID.
Let's face. Researchers in Amsterdam have gone ahead and created a device which would prevent RFID tags from being read and this was being done with the aim of protecting users from this technology which was posing a threat to their privacy.
Called the RFID Guardian, it is a PDA size handheld device which warns a person that when a RFID scanner is trying to read a chip by beeping. This device runs on a 550MHz XScale 32 bit processor with 64Mbytes of RAM. The next few months would be spent by the research team on debugging and preparing the device for commercial use.
Though one can question its commerical viability as questioned by an industry observer who says that since RFID is touted to be next big thing in the pervasive computing, all materials in the future will come embedded with RF identification. RFID gaurdian would keep on warning, forcing the user to turn it off to stop the incessant beeping. Well, he goes to propose another model instead - A RFID Jammer.
This device, the size of a fountain pen, could act as a shield by emitting a constant RF jamming signal capable of preventing any RFID reader within a six foot radius from reading any of your RFID data. Now there is a device worth having.
Surely, the scientist from amsterdam is also listening. Expect some surprise too.
The RFID market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of nearly 20 percent over the next six years and several factors are coming together to ease adoption of the technology. Still, many businesses aren't ready to deal with the growth, according to an expert with the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA).
Frost & Sullivan recently reported that the total North American RFID market for manufacturing and logistics is predicted to grow at a compound annual growth rate of nearly 20 percent over the next six years. Yet, about 75 percent of the technology companies responding to a CompTIA survey earlier this year said there aren't enough people trained in the field. Eighty-percent said they believe that a lack of talent will hinder RFID adoption.
David Sommer, VP of e-business and software solutions at CompTIA, who speaks often about the looming shortage of RFID-trained workers, said that many factors are converging to promote RFID growth, but companies must focus on training workers to make sure the technology will work for them.
Global standards, interoperability, and declining prices are working in favor of rapid adoption, said Sommer, who worked with more than 20 organizations to develop CompTIA's professional RFID certification program. Sommer said he does not believe that there is a "magic number" for calculating when the cost of RFID technology will be low enough to trigger widespread adoption.
"We've seen where the tag itself, the semiconductor with the antenna, has gotten down to the 10- to 17-cent level," he said during a recent interview, adding that the prices vary depending on how companies deploy the technology. "The costs are continuing to decrease to the point where they are becoming very attractive."
In 2007, consumers will begin seeing more RFID tags on individual items. They will appear on higher-end electronics and pharmaceuticals before they make it into everyday products, he said.
"You're going to see them on expensive items, things that are easily counterfeited," he said. "It will be a ways down the road before you see it on the item level on something like toothpaste. It's a question of time and economics."
Eventually, when RFID is used in personal items such as clothing, retailers are likely to use technology that allows consumers to have the tags "killed" at checkout counters.
First, companies must train or hire people who have mastered the technology. "Few people understand how to tag goods to make sure they're readable and how to configure readers in order to make sure they work," Sommer said.
He urges training for technologists deploying solutions, for solution providers, and for users. CompTIA offers an international, vendor-neutral certification program to measure technologists' ability to install, maintain, repair, and troubleshoot for hardware and software functioning. It also offers links to certified training and test-taking resources.
Item level RFID is set for substantial growth over the next decade. A new study from IDTechEx forecasts and explores key markets that will apply item-level tagging, advances in technology and the mass adoption that will follow. Dr. Peter Harrop from IDTechEx summarises this study. See www.idtechex.com/item for more information.
Visit www.idtechex.com/item to learn more about IDTechEx research on Item Level RFID
Item level RFID is the tagging of the smallest taggable unit of things - the library book, apparel, jewellery, engineering parts and laundry are examples. Already profitable for most suppliers, item level tags and systems will be the world's largest RFID market by value from 2007 onwards. Item level RFID tagging will rocket from $0.16 billion in 2006 to $13 billion in 2016 for systems including tags. In 2006, 0.2 billion items will be RFID tagged in the world. In 2016, 550 billion items may be RFID tagged. Those adopting item level tagging today do so willingly and are prepared to pay for good performance as they enjoy rapid multiple paybacks.
Relatively problem free
This is in some contrast to pallet and case tagging where consumer goods companies are required by retailers to fit the tags regardless of economics. The consumer goods companies are therefore reluctant purchasers of RFID and these tag and interrogator prices are in free fall from oversupply. The RFID tag and interrogator suppliers involved typically lose money. Here we are talking about Far Field UHF tags, which work well enough on pallets, cases and air baggage under US radio regulations but are only relatively trouble free elsewhere in applications with very low reader density, shortish range and dry, non-metallic environments. That means retail apparel in the UK and Japan and books in bookshops in the Netherlands, for example. The problems elsewhere are because, as yet, few countries outside the US permit adequate UHF power levels, bandwidth and signalling protocols for RFID. By contrast, HF is the most popular frequency for item level tagging and, with well over one billion such tags delivered, it encounters few remaining technical problems. So called Near Field UHF is a promising alternative that may give lower costs when proven in high volume applications.
Unique requirements
The biggest item level potential involves uniquely coding very high volume products, such as consumer goods, postal items, apparel, books, drugs and manufactured parts. These total 5-10 trillion items a year. Item level tagging therefore involves most or all of the following features and this creates technical and business challenges and benefits that are very different from those in other applications of RFID.
Suitable for Electronic Product Code EPC coding/mass serialisation and open systems
Small
Made in millions to trillions yearly
Need to read items individually but also many at a time
Proximate metal and/or water
Potential paybacks rarely worth more than a few percent of the value of the item tagged
Tags need to be disposable or fitted for life
Unquantifiable safety and security benefits are often sought and achieved
The US Food and Drug Administration will make tagging of up to 20 billion prescription drugs a legal requirement in the US, the TREAD Act will create a tire tagging market in the US and many new high priced retail items will enjoy the excellent paybacks currently found with apparel in the UK, China and Japan. China will rapidly adopt item level tagging. Globally, healthcare supplies, tools and assets are being urgently fitted with RFID for safety, security and cost control, including theft reduction. Boeing and Airbus are progressing the tagging of aircraft parts and equipment. Over ten million test samples for blood (Europe) and milk (New Zealand), drug research and other uses have been tagged with the potential of billions yearly.
However, it is challenging to meet the most sophisticated requirements for item level tagging and to evolve appropriate technical specifications and approval procedures for, say, mission critical aircraft parts. At the other extreme it is tough to get down to the price that justifies tagging a can of soda in a supermarket or a letter. Item level tagging has therefore started with the many lucrative intermediate requirements as shown below and it is rapidly widening in scope.
Evolution of item level RFID by tag price showing earliest date of mass adoption of leading application in each price band is shown below
Source: IDTechEx
Projected value of item level RFID tag sales by application in 2016 is as follows
Source: IDTechEx
Change in technology
The technology will change. Today we have most item level tagging being HF, with smaller but significant amounts of Far Field UHF and some 2.45GHz and LF (125-135KHz) tags. Within five years Near Field UHF will become popular and in ten years a significant amount of item level RFID will be done without a silicon chip, sometimes by direct printing. The average price of just under one cent for an item level tag in 2016 will cover a range from 0.1 cent primitive ink stripes and thin film transistor circuits to $8 tags for aircraft parts to high specification and even more expensive military tags. Some tags for dangerous, expensive or mission critical items will have batteries and sensors in them and even act as Real Time Locating Systems (RTLS) on assets in hospitals, museums, art galleries etc not just in supply chains.
The table below shows that the larger potential markets for item level RFID promise a wider range of benefits. They may not be as price sensitive as is popularly believed.
* May rise to 1000 in ten years as East Asia expands Source: IDTechEx
IDTechEx has newly researched this subject in great depth including extended visits to China. (For example, the State Monopoly Tobacco Administration sells 37.5 billion packs yearly and is keen on RFID for anticounterfeiting). IDTechEx has now produced the world's first in-depth report on item level RFID, the most lucrative and soon the largest RFID market. As befits the importance of the subject, in dwarfing all other forms of RFID, the report extends to two volumes - "Item Level RFID Volume One: Forecasts, Technology, Standards" and "Item Level RFID Volume Two: 100 Case Studies, Paybacks, Lessons Learnt". For more see www.idtechex.com/item.
Texas Instruments Inc announced a multi-year deal to supply its next-generation RFID silicon to smart label maker Moore Wallace.
Under the deal, TI becomes the primary supply of ultra-high frequency EP Gen 2 flexible inlays for new Moore Wallace RFID labels.
Specifically, TI's RF silicon components would be inserted into Moore Wallace's RFID thermal transfer labels, which customers can encode with RFID as well as print barcodes and text onto. The result is a label that is EPC Gen 2 ready.
Gen 2 is currently being reviewed by the International Standards Organization as the first global RFID technology standard. It is widely expected to get the green light from the ISO by early next year.
Under the deal, Moore Wallace would be able to make more than 500 million Gen 2 smart labels annually using TI silicon.
"[The deal] is unprecedented from the context of Gen 2 production readiness," said Enu Waktola, TI's EPC retail supply chain marketing manager.
Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
This likely would be the first of many deals with RFID label markers for TI's Gen 2 inlays, said Erik Michielsen, director of RFID at ABI Research.
"This is significant in that it demonstrates how RFID solutions are ramping up for high-volume Gen 2 deployments," said Michielsen. "This is a big step for TI in that this is probably is the initial opening announcement for their Gen 2 label partners. I imagine there'll be more to come."
Waktola said the agreement with Moore Wallace was not exclusive and that TI also is working with other label makers.
It makes sense that TI struck its first Gen 2 label-making deal with Moore Wallace, one of the world's biggest makers of RFID labels, since the companies have been working together on RFID since 1998. "We are leveraging the relationship and production capabilities that we can bring together to the market," Waktola said.
While smaller silicon makers, notably Impinj, are also marketing Gen 2 inlays, Michielsen said partnerships between large companies such as TI and Moore Wallace give the RFID industry Gen 2 supply stability and clout. "It sheds a positive light on the future for Gen 2," he said.
The TI-Moore Wallace deal also points to where Gen 2 RFID product volumes are headed next year, Michielsen said.
Moore Wallace sells its RFID labels to between 30% and 40% of so-called compliance program suppliers in the US today, said Nancy Mitchell, Moore Wallace's RFID product manager. That is, companies who comply with the RFID mandates of large goods purchasers such as Wal-Mart, Target and the US Department of Defense.
Most of Moore Wallace's RFID customers are consumer goods product makers, Mitchell said. Industrial manufacturers, which include the DoD, are its next-largest group of customers, followed by pharmaceutical makers. While drug makers are fast adopting RFID, she expects this customer mix to remain unchanged for the next year or so.
TI's Waktola said she expects Gen 2 RFID hardware, such as readers and printers, to be on the market this quarter.
The new Moore Wallace smart labels are currently being sampled, with full production slated for later in the third quarter.
Mitchell said a number of consumer goods makers have already begun pilots of the labels and she expects them to convert to Gen 2 during the next two quarters.
Moore Wallace has distribution channels for the new labels in Asia, Europe and North and South America, she said.
Currently, the company would just manufacture the Gen 2 labels in North America and expects production at its plants in Asia, Europe and South America at some future point. "We've been discussing that internally but don't have any specific timelines," Mitchell said.
RFID tags and the software used to track them can be used to spread potentially harmful viruses and worms, according to research presented yesterday.
In a paper entitled "Is your cat infected with a computer virus?" presented before the IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing, three Netherlands-based researchers show how RFID tags can carry malware and propagate via databases along the supply chain.
"The security breaches that RFID deployers dread most - RFID malware, RFID worms, and RFID viruses - are right around the corner," wrote the study's principle researcher, Melanie Rieback, an American PhD student at Vrije university in Amsterdam.
The sky is not falling, of course, and the paper's main message seems to be that RFID software should not implicitly trust the data it pulls off RFID tags. It should be subject to the same security check as any potentially untrustworthy user input.
The paper's title refers to a hypothetical scenario outlined in the paper's introduction, in which a household pet implanted with an infected RFID tag is able to spread an infection to a veterinarian's computer system, with damaging consequences.
Rieback, and fellow researchers Bruno Crispo and Andrew Tanenbaum, found they were able to execute an SQL injection attack against an Oracle database and Apache web server using 127 characters of data stored on a cheap RFID tag.
SQL injection attacks are well-known from the web applications world. Using escape characters and SQL queries, crackers are sometimes able to interface directly with a back-end database, amending or deleting data as they see fit.
In Rieback's scenario, the virus uses SQL injection to write itself to a database whenever the infected tag is scanned. In a real-world scenario, this scan could happen when a pallet of goods arrives at a store or warehouse. New tags entering the system would have the viral code written to them.
"The manipulation of less than 1 Kbits of on-tag RFID data can exploit security holes in RFID middleware, subverting its security, and perhaps even compromising the entire computer, or the entire network," she wrote.
Rieback's paper outline a few other types of attack that could work from RFID tags. Even though RFID tags are limited in the amount of data they can store, she found that buffer overflow attacks are even possible, due to looping commands permitted by the RFID spec.
The research could open intriguing new possibilities in the field of virus propagation research.
Old floppy disk viruses spread along social networks, as friends and colleagues physically swapped disks and used them on their own computers. In a similar way, mobile phone viruses that spread via Bluetooth also require physical proximity to spread, much like their biological counterparts.
Email worms also spread along social lines, but over greater distances, using their victim's address books to find targets. Network worms have tended to have simple algorithms for randomly generating IP addresses to attempt to spread to.
There are not believed to be any recorded cases of malware designed to spread along the supply chain, but the new research seems to indicate that is at least a possibility.
You've no doubt seen them: those fitness buffs jogging in the neighborhood or park with their Nike shoes and the tell-tale white iPod earwires, listening to music while getting healthier. They might just be the owner of the RFID-enabled Nike / iPod Sport Kit, which lets runners monitor their efforts.
But researchers from the University of Washington think that a security flaw in the Sport Kit (which uses an active RFID tag) lets stalkers also monitor runners. They claim that someone with a scanner can track a jogger's regimen from a distance of up to 60 feet, even from a car. They could go as far as skimming RFID data and recording jogging times and even plotting routes on Google Maps for later use. [Info Shop via RFID News]
While this potential threat shouldn't be taken lightly, one thought comes to my mind. The average human being isn't going to go to such lengths. Anyone who does go to all that effort to stalk someone doesn't need to utilize the Sport Kit flaw to do so. Their sickness would prompt them into doing it by other methods. In this scenario, I think, it's the person and not the technology that's to blame. On the other hand, this flaw can be exploited by more than just stalkers, possibly encouraging borderline personalities into surveillance activities that they might not otherwise bother with.
When you see the acronym RFID (radio frequency identification) in a paper, you immediately think about how Wal-Mart and other big retailers plan to replace bar codes. But two students from Purdue University got a brilliant idea and are using this technology to teach English to non-English-speaking children. Their Merlin’s Magic Castle (MMC) software uses RFID tags technology that the students embedded in toys. For example, when a child holds a toy firetruck with an embedded tag, MMC computer screen displays "fire*ruck" and asks the child to supply the missing letter. The MMC software is currently compatible with several games including Trivia Game or Scavenger Hunt. And now the two students plan to sell licenses to big game companies.
For example, here is a picture of little kids touching a fire truck with a RFID tag and trying to find the correct answer (Credit: Purdue University).
Here is how — and why — MMC works according to "Learning with Merlin" (Purdue University Insights, Fall/winter 2005).
Merlin’s Magic Castle runs on a computer and uses Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology that the students embedded in toys. When a toy is run over the computer’s scanner, the program registers that RFID, and as Merlin says the toy’s name, it also appears on the screen. "These multiple levels of stimulation (audio, video, and haptic [touch]) influence better comprehension and information retention," said project leader Alexei Czeskis, a junior double majoring in computer science and math, and minoring in Russian.
Below is a picture of Amicia Elliott and Alexei Czeskis, the two students who developed Merlin’s Magic Castle (Credit: Purdue University).
As you can guess, MMC has not been widely covered yet. Anyway, here is a link to a presentation of MMC which gives some more details (PDF format, 5 pages, 41 KB).
Merlin’s Magical Castle (MMC) is designed to be a fun way to supplement classroom education. Whether in school or at home, children can find learning exciting with this tool. A friendly wizard greets the children at the start of the computer game and gives them various options of what they can do. There is an assortment of games a player can choose from, such as: Trivia Game, Scavenger Hunt, Fill in the Blanks, Category Quest, etc.
These games involve interaction between the toys of interest and the computer, which can identify the scanned toy and give the children feedback as they play. For example, in the Trivia game, Merlin gives the player a hint about the toy that he is looking for. If the player scans the correct toy, Merlin cheers, if the toy that was brought to Merlin was incorrect, he’ll offer another hint. Category Quest, presents the player with a toy and asks them to find other toys that are similar. This game involves abstract thinking — one has to be able to identify the similarity between a dog and a cat because both have four legs.
MMC comes equipped with computer software, a scanner, and electronic tags which are embedded into appropriate objects. In the current version of MMC, tags are implanted in toys. When this toy is brought near the antenna, the tag is scanned and its identification number is sent to the computer. The computer will then identify the toy.
Now the students plan to sell licenses to their software to established companies such as the Walt Disney Company or toy manufacturers like Mattel and Hasbro. Good luck to them!
Regulators in India recently designated 865-867 MHz as the country's UHF RFID spectrum, in line with the frequencies used by the United States and Europe.
In a move expected to kick-start RFID adoption among Indian companies, regulators in India recently designated UHF RFID spectrum in accordance with the frequencies used by Europe and the United States.
"India has a strong export economy, so getting this spectrum was an absolute must," says Ravi Mathur, CEO of EPCglobal India, which is based in New Dehli.
Clearing the spectrum in India will enable Indian manufacturers to tag shipments of goods to meet the UHF RFID requirements of customers in Europe and the United States. Prior to the ruling, each use of the UHF spectrum for RFID required special permission from the WPC. Until now, Mathur maintains, some Indian pharmaceutical companies supplying tagged shipments to Wal-Mart have been forced to do so after the products have already arrived in in the United States, where the UHF spectrum for RFID is 902 MHz to 928 MHz. Because Wal-Mart and other retailers are requiring more of their suppliers to tag shipments of goods, Indian companies will increasingly be expected to tag their exports, as well.
Tags that comply with EPCglobal's Gen 2 standard are designed to operate between 860 MHZ to 960 MHz without degradation in performance. Thus, Indian companies will now find it much easier to encode and read tags on goods shipped, regardless of whether those goods are bound for the United States or Europe (where the UHF spectrum for RFID is is 865 MHz to 868 MHz).
Being able to use the 865-867 MHz UHF band for RFID will also be a boon to India's high-tech businesses. "The Indian software industry is in a position to be a major provider of RFID systems solutions [to the United States and Europe], but it needs to be able to test and develop RFID. In addition, chip manufacturers are also in discussions about producing RFID chips in India. With the spectrum allocated, Indian companies can work with UHF RFID without requiring special clearance," says Mathur.
EPCglobal India is also hoping to see an Indian university become one of the Auto-ID Labs—a federation of research universities that has evolved from the now-defunct Auto-ID Center and is dedicated to researching and developing new technologies and applications for revolutionizing global commerce.
India had originally considered allocating 2.4 GHz as the spectrum for UHF RFID, but EPCglobal India argued that having UHF spectrum incompatible with that used by the United States, Europe and other key markets would have seriously limited the ability of India's businesses to stay in step with RFID adoption elsewhere around the world.
"Our objective was to ensure that RFID spectrum in India would [provide] important access to the world markets," says Mathur.
EPCglobal India says its petition to the WPC faced initial opposition from both India’s military and railways, which had previously had had access to the 865-867 MHz spectrum. In its application to the authority, EPCglobal says it was supported by allocation of the UHF spectrum that had already taken place in the United States and Europe.
Transponders (also called tags or labels) help to identify any kind of articles , for example containers used in logistic processes. The applied technology is known as RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) technology. A distinctive feature of this technology is, unlike the barcode label technology, that a reader decodes the data encoded in the tag. This reader generates a radio frequency field which not only serves as the power source of the tag but, at the same time, transmits the captured data - in a non-contact and non-line-of sight way. Tags can be read through non-metallic substances such as glass or plastic located between antenna and tag.
Metal has a shielding effect. Unlike barcodes the RFID technology provides the possibility of re-programming identification and/or object data on the tag whenever it is required, which means the tag can be written electronically.
A basic RFID system consists of three components: reader, antenna (connected to the reader) and a tag, attached to the object to identify.
Giving priority to the development and production of readers, scemtec supplies all-including systems consisting of data base software, readers, antennas and tags. In addition, system studies are provided by scemtec in order to support their customers in choosing the most suitable include-all system.
The reader consists of either micro processing electronics with a serial interface or a handheld terminal with integrated reader. In addition, an either internal or external antenna is required. The writing and reading ranges depend on the shape of the tag. Simple reader modules (proximity reader) have short ranges of only several centimeters, whereas those of the long-range readers are up to 2 m long. The bigger the tag is the longer are the ranges.
Tags come in various types. There are tags of different memory sizes or they are categorized as either read-only or read-write tag. Therefore, scemtec developed the so-called “multi-standard” reader, a reader, especially developed to read and write to any type of tag.
At present RFID systems usually operate at 125 kHz or 13,56 MHz in Europe. scemtec offers multi-standard readers for both frequency ranges.
Tags have numerous advantages. A summary:
Tags are used to identify and trace any kind of objects, for example containers Identification of the object does not require line of sight. That means, opening of the container is no longer required and it stays intact
The data transfer from tag to reader is not affected by dirt, ice, water , scratches etc. The tag could even be embedded in plastic
A variable data storage allows in-use data modifications
Process security is given due to the circumstance that password protected tags additionally could be encrypted in order to prevent others than the authorized readers from reading or modifying data
High data security because of the fact that transponder data are complete, unchanged and saved at any time
Certain tag types allow a simultaneous reading of several tags (anti-collision mode)
Tags provide a wide range of applications, just to mention a few:
The portable device holds promise for deployment in areas and under conditions for which a permanent RFID installation would be too expensive or impractical.
Nov. 17, 2006—Transportation researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the New York State Department of Transportation (DOT) are testing a solar-powered mobile RFIDinterrogator that will monitor traffic flow by reading EZPass tags attached to passing cars. Motorists use the tags to pay for bridge and highway tolls wirelessly. Last week, Rensselaer began testing a single RFID reader on Jordan Road in Troy, N.Y. In the spring, they plan to hold a pilot involving six solar-powered readers.
New York State currently monitors traffic flows on certain roads via 15 permanently stationed readers, which collect data from the EZPass tags. The new solar-powered portable solution provides a method of monitoring traffic flow for situations where it's too costly or unnecessary to install a permanent RFID reader—such as on roads where construction is underway, or on those traveled heavily only for special events.
The portable RFID unit, dubbed mGate, connects to a laptop computer via a USB cable, with batteries charged by a solar panel. Operators load the unit onto a trailer hitched to a truck for transport. When deployed alongside a road, the unit’s laptop sends the encrypted tag ID, timestamp and reader location via a wireless Internet connection to the Rensellaer server.
The system will ultimately be used to calculate how long it takes traffic to move from one installed RFID reader to another. However, the current pilot is only testing read rates. Eventually, traffic data from the mGate system could be used to reroute traffic when congestion looms, or to alert motorists via signage or the Internet about slow-moving road conditions, reducing the need for employees to identify problems as they arise.
Researchers received a $3.9 million grant from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to fund the program, says Jeffrey Wojtowicz, a research engineer in civil and environmental engineering at Rensselaer.
Its another Groundbreaking FDA Approval of RFID Technology
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the marketing of another RFID-based technology for use in healthcare: the SurgiChip, whose goal is to "prevent wrong-site, wrong-procedure and wrong-patient surgery." An RFID chip, encoded with surgery information such as patient identification, date, procedure, and assigned surgeon, is stored until the day of surgery, when it is affixed to the patient's body with adhesive and only removed once the surgery begins. At numerous points in the process, the chip-encoded information is scanned and verified by the patient, an error-checking technique that balances technological automation with the patient's own expectation of treatment. Illinois-based label and printer maker Zebra Technologies is providing the RFID hardware for the system.
Despite numerous high-profile stories of this FDA approval, the product appears to be in only the earliest stages of marketing; the surgichip.com website includes a mere three pages of product and company information.
RFID's adoption by the healthcare industry made progress this week with the announcement by AMTSystems of new pilot programs for its SurgiChip product. The SurgiChip, which was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in November, uses an RFID-based verification system to "prevent wrong-site, wrong-procedure and wrong-patient surgery." Industry analysts estimate that between five and eight surgeries per month are performed in which an incorrect part of the body is mistakenly operated upon. While only a very small percentage of the total number of monthly surgeries, those few mistakes can cause dreadful and traumatic outcomes.
The Palm Beach Orthopedic Institution of Palm Beach, Florida, is one site where the SurgiChip is being used successfully to prevent such mistakes. The hospital has performed about 300 surgeries since implementation of the system a year ago. The cost of SurgiChip falls between $6 and $9 per surgery for the first year, then decreases to $3 the second year. AMTSystems provides the software and integration, while the RFID printers, labels, and associated hardware are products of Illinois-based Zebra Technologies.
Healthcare is an area of increasing focus and innovation among RFID technology providers. In niches like the SurgiChip's, RFID offers extremely high-value opportunities to protect against human error. In other cases, RFID is a way to provide asset tracking for the expensive equipment and instrumentation found throughout hospitals. Patient-tracking is another area of interest, in which an RFID tag is worn that not only signals the patient's whereabouts but also includes encoded medical history information that can be scanned with an RFID reader-equipped PDA. A doctor can then immediately and accurately access the patient's medical history. A related concept is that of the controversial VeriChip, the human-implantable RFID tag that includes an ID number by which an unconscious or otherwise unidentifiable patient can be looked up in a master medical history database.
The field is early yet, and the solutions rather immature. Hospitals are notoriously conservative spenders, so selling them on new-fangled technology is only possible through the demonstration of very compelling benefits. Regardless, there is reason to be optimistic: a report came out just last week predicting that "RFID and its related technologies in the hospital marketplace will skyrocket to $8.8 billion by 2010."
Students at the University of Washington in Seattle are using RFID tags to identify trees that have been genetically modified to grow quickly.
Graduate students at the University of Washington in Seattle have gone out on a limb with a project that involves embedding RFID transponders in trees. The idea might not be as wild as it sounds.
The university’s Precision Forestry Cooperative was set up with funding from the state legislature to use advanced technology to improve conservation techniques in the forestry Industry. In 2002, after two years of preparation, students embedded the tags in two-year-old saplings to see if RFID could be used to identify trees that have been genetically modified to grow more rapidly. The trees are planted and monitored. Eventually their seeds are harvested to create a new generation of faster-growing trees. Big money was invested in the genetic modification, so the seeds of the original saplings are very valuable.
“We have used plastic ribbons to mark trees, but the trees are often vandalized by hunters and others,” says Gerard Schreuder, acting director of the cooperative. “Embedded RFID tags are not visible, and they remain in the tree throughout its life.”
Students embedded a 134.2 kHz glass-encapsulated transponder from Texas Instruments in each sapling. Each tag has 80 bits of read-writememory, which can be used to store a serial number and other data about the sapling. A scientist with a handheld computer equipped with a reader can go to an area of the forest where genetically modified saplings have been planted, scan the tag and gather data on the tree in the field.
Trees grow from the top, so the transponders stay at the same height. New growth forms around the transponder, so it becomes completely embedded in the middle of the tree trunk. Because of the moisture in the tree, the only way to get a reading is with a low-frequency tag. That limits the read range to about 2 feet.
The limited read range is a shortcoming, but Washington’s forestry service is still interested in the system. The service is required by law to protect the trees in watersheds and along rivers and streams. Based on the university’s pilot, the service believes that RFID could help it more quickly identify trees in a particular area. An RFID system could also potentially reduce the amount of time, paperwork and money needed to gather data on millions of trees across the state.
Schreuder says the cooperative hasn’t taken the RFID research beyond the pilot stage, but he hopes to soon hire a new director who can pick up where the students left off. In the meantime, the project has piqued the interest of several forestry companies. In addition to employing RFID to monitor genetically modified trees, some are considering branching into new areas, such as using the tags to certify the quality of wood. Which suggests that RFID could, indeed, take root as a means of tracking trees.
The authorities in the Indian capital Delhi have turned to microchips to tackle the growing problem of stray cows roaming the streets.
Delhi has about 40,000 cows roaming the streets
A court had earlier ordered authorities in south Delhi to offer a reward of $45 to anyone delivering a stray cow.
The authorities then sell the cow to a new owner but they are concerned people might take advantage by bringing back the same cow for the reward.
A $11 microchip in the cow's gut will now show a cow already brought in.
Protected
Commissioner of the local municipal corporation, Rakesh Mehta, said the chips would allow resident welfare associations to determine whether the cow brought to the local authorities was a stray one or not.
"Otherwise, people can sell their own cows for quick money," he said.
Following the earlier Delhi High Court order, a number of cows and buffaloes have been brought to the authorities by people eager to receive rewards.
Cows are revered as sacred among Hindus and are protected by law.
There are nearly 40,000 thought to be roaming the streets of the Indian capital.
Officials say unauthorised dairy farms are one of the main causes.
They say stray cows pose a serious traffic hazard.
With IATA's decision to settle on one standard for RFID tags in airline baggage that sector of the market is due to rise from $20 million in 2006 to $100 million in 2016. RFID will also be used by airlines to tag crucial aeroplane parts and by airports to improve security...says Dr.Peter Harrop of IDTechEX
As the RFID business grows strongly from $2.8 billion in 2006 to $26 billion in 2016, transport will be taking its fair share. A seminal decision was the unanimous vote of IATA, in October 2005, to settle on only one specification for the world's baggage tags, this being based on the UHF frequency band. This was courageous, because UHF works well with dry, non-metallic environments such as retail apparel in the UK and books in shops in the Netherlands, where there are few readers to interfere with each other but air baggage is none of these things. The technologists are wrestling with that one but in Europe and East Asia it is largely a waiting game as they hope for easing of UHF radio regulations to something nearer to the power levels, signalling protocols and bandwidth enjoyed in the US. However, few countries are willing to match the US regulations. Work rounds are on the way and the seven million or so airline bags that are lost yearly in the world, at a retrieval cost of about $100 a time, must surely reduce some time soon.
The split of value sales of RFID systems including tags in the air industry is shown below.
Figure 1 Percentage spend on RFID systems including tags exclusively for the civil air industry by application in 2006
+ includes trailers, Ground Support Equipment GSE, buses, cars, trucks, taxis etc.
Figure 2 Percentage spend on RFID systems including tags exclusively for the civil air industry by application in 2016
Source: IDTechEx
Boeing and Airbus are energetically introducing RFID on parts and equipment to reduce counterfeiting, automate status checks and make the supply chain more efficient. Virgin Atlantic, FedEx and others are deeply involved. UHF is preferred but there is interest in HF where appropriate.
In transport in general, there is a boom in RFID tickets and cards to improve security and speed of transaction and some are increasingly usable for general purchases. Twenty million of the new e-passports are being issued this year, with their RFID labels for security and automated recording of movements. That figure will soon reach 40 million yearly as over 50 countries adopt them. Over eight million ExxonMobil Speedpass key fobs are in use for purchases at gasoline stations. The 4.5 billion credit, debit and account cards from Visa, MasterCard, American Express, JCB and others are gradually being issued in RFID form so they transact faster and are more reliable and longer lived. The first 20 million were issued last year. Well proven HF is used for RFID for ticketing, bank cards and passports.
However, nothing stands still for long in the RFID business and there is now great interest in locating people and things with RFID. For example, one major airport is trying to figure out how to make all people in the airport carry something that lets them be located at all times, the better to eliminate queues and improve evacuations and security. Tracking freight and baggage with the off electronic reader here and there and making heroic assumptions about what happens in between is all well and good but we need Real Time Locating Systems RTLS. These usually consist of RFID at 2.45 GHz because, at this license free frequency, you can locate things using time of arrival from interrogatory beams or be parasitic off pre-existing WiFi networks or use peer to peer ZigBee RFID. However, this is a very busy frequency like UHF and there are a lot of interference issues. The good news is that the cost of RTLS systems and tags is tumbling down. The tag no longer drains its battery in a short time, it is smaller and other impediments are largely overcome. RTLS on vehicles, assets, freight and even people - when they volunteer for queue elimination and other delights - is on its way.
It is well-known that the adoption of RFID is happening around the globe. But where are the success stories and in which market sectors? The below excerpt is an Independent research and analysis on RFID by IDTechEx. This highlights the leading adopter nations, the big spenders and surprise niches for RFID implementation.
IDTechEx keeps a close eye on which countries are eagerly adopting RFID and which are not. Our sources include intensive travelling, conferences, literature searches and our IDTechEx RFID Knowledgebase of over 2300 case studies covering over 2500 organisations and 85 countries. The results are rather surprising.
Firstly, the US is the greatest adopter, with by far the largest number of cases of RFID in action and orders that are often the world's largest by value. It has even pulled ahead in the last year, with over 840 recorded projects. More surprising is the UK holding second place by number of cases, though not the money spent, where China has more claim to fame and Korea and Japan are strong rivals.
The top ten countries by number of case studies are shown below but it did not look like this only one year ago. China and Korea have jumped up a notch and, remarkably, Australia has jumped from number ten to number seven. When we saw the unusual activity in Australia we focussed research onto the region for a new report RFID in Australasia 2007-2017 www.idtechex.com and we reveal some of the results here. New Zealand is a follower, with the exception of the work of Fonterra, the world's largest milk cooperative.
What is going on in Australia? The rapid advance of Australia in RFID is on a broad front, from books in libraries to tagging of humans in hospitals, but one could say that about many countries. What sets Australia apart from most of its peers are aspects such as the legal requirement to tag cattle and racehorses, and the trials and rollouts of tagging fish, tomatoes and other foods by its vibrant food industry. Australia will not stop there. It is likely to introduce legislation to tag all four legged livestock ahead of most other countries. With the major trading blocs finding reasons to protect their food industries, external suppliers such as Australia, with the world's largest population of sheep, must be beyond suspicion. RFID is a part of that.
In the Books, Libraries and Archiving sector, Australia is doing more than its size would indicate. The same is true of the Financial, Security, Safety sector which exhibits considerable innovation. For example, we have RFID being used to track police vehicles, criminals in correctional facilities, paedophiles and even forensic samples. That breadth of approach is not seen elsewhere. RFID is used in passports and payment cards and many mass transport card schemes in Australia. One interesting result is that, although Australia mimics the world as a whole in having HF read-write passive RFID dominate its markets, low frequency use comes next not, as so often elsewhere, UHF. LF tags are used on marathon runners' shoes and bicycles etc in other races, on a wide variety of animals and on conveyances in Australia.
Number of case studies in the IDTechEx RFID Knowledgebase for the top ten of 85 countries.
Source: IDTechEx
Applications of RFID in Australia
Source: IDTechEx
A contrast to Australia is given by another country of similar population and economic size - the Netherlands, which is also unusually active in applying RFID. Primarily, this is based on use of RFID cards and other RFID in the leisure sector, such as in football matches. The Financial, Security, Safety and the Logistics and Postal sectors are also big users of RFID in the Netherlands, with item level tagging by RFID labels an important way of applying RFID there. One thing is common to Australia and the Netherlands: both use High Frequency (HF) far more than any other frequency for their RFID. That is also true of the world as a whole.
Before mass-market retailers like Wal-Mart or government agencies issued mandates that companies use RFID products that met specific criteria (such as that set forth by EPCGlobal’s Gen 2 specification), RFID was more a curiosity in the supply chain. When the technology was used, it tended to be in closed-loop applications where a single party controlled all aspects of the deployment (in contrast to Gen 2, a global interoperable standard with wide adoption by hundreds of companies).
With standardization and proliferation, the need to understand the different ‘flavors’ of RF tags and readers was underscored. Here’s how they’re different:
Ultra High Frequency: The Gen2 preference for long range, rapid reads
Ultra High Frequency (UHF), the most commonly utilized frequency for Gen 2 supply chain operations, runs in the 902-928 MHz band in North America, and somewhere between 860-960 MHz internationally. UHF is known for its longer read range (typically cited up to 30 feet rather than the three feet maximum typically defined for HF). Generally, the wider the allowable bandwidth, the more information you can transmit in a shorter period of time.
“Most Gen 2 is UHF because its longer read range and higher data rates make it ideal for retail applications,” says Mr. Melling. “If I have to reach 100 palates as they come through the door, I need to have both the range required to read the tags and the throughput to process that data quickly.”
But there are a few disadvantages to UHF. First, the tagging of objects that contain liquid or metal – two elements that can disrupt radio signals. “Metal reflects it and water absorbs it,” notes Sara Shah, ABI Research. Under normal circumstances, the metal in the object being tagged and the tag’s antenna form what’s called a parasitic capacitor the unintentional presence of which can diminish the tag’s ability to receive power from the reader.
The end result: “it looks dead – it won’t respond to a reader,” notes Clarke McAllister, CEO of ADASA. But companies are coming up with clever ways to combat that problem, Mr. McAllister notes. The manufacturer of a portable tag encoder (i.e. a mobile tag issuing device) recently unveiled its FAT tag (Foam Attached Tag)” for businesses interested in attaching Gen2 RFID tags to metal parts and liquid containers in their supply chains. FAT tags are thicker than standard tags (about an 1/8 of an inch thick), so they can reduce the problems that kill signals in these environments.
Adds Ms. Shah: “Some vendors offer solutions that use Ultra High Frequency bands around metal and water environments but they use various techniques to mitigate these issues, like encase the tag in plastic.”
Some concerns have been raised that the spectrum set aside for UHF RFID differs slightly across the globe – 902-928 MHz in North America and 865-868 MHz in Europe, for example. As Symbol’s Melling points out however, this is not a concern if tags are built correctly. Readers may be slightly different, but it is relatively easy to build one tag that works well globally. Even if your product travels through China or Japan, into Europe, and then back to the states, the same tag responds to all the frequency bands. “You’re not moving readers from country to country, you’re moving tags,” Mr. Melling says.
High frequency: Short range, secure, and resistant to metals and liquids
High-frequency (HF) RFID resides within the 13.56 MHz band in North America, and around the globe. As a frequency, it’s older and more established than UHF, but has a shorter wavelength, which means it can generally only be read within a couple of feet (or as little as 10 cm according to key international standards). Because of this, it’s the frequency most associated with today’s RFID-based payment and access control applications like contactless smart cards or event tickets. HF’s most notable advantages are that it works better around metals and liquids than UHF, and that it is well-established internationally.
“The real strength is there’s been a global standard for high frequency tags for a long time, you can pretty much use high frequency bands anywhere in the world no problem,” Mr. Melling says. “But the read range is a limited.” In addition to read range, another limitation is its speed: HF operates much slower than UHF, which is why most mass-market retailers and suppliers use UHF tags and accompanying products. But just as with UHF, there are ways to circumvent the ‘read range’ issue, says Mr. McAllister. “Companies like Impinj have demonstrated that UHF antenna structures can be made to fit onto small bottle caps and such. “There are many examples of how both HF and UHF are breaking barriers in size and speed.”
While HF might not be suitable for moving large containers across a supply chain, it is the frequency of choice for one of the biggest, burgeoning RFID small-scale supply chain operations: pharmaceutical tracking and tracing.
“If you take a look at the use of RFID in pharmaceutical applications, you’re talking about putting very small tags on very small items – the primary focus being track and trace that will enable an electronic pedigree,” says Matt Ream, senior manager of RFID Systems at Zebra Technologies, a printing solutions provider that manufactures HF and UHF RFID labels, among other things. “One of the biggest concerns about UHF technology is that UHF technology has not been approved for use on biological agents.”
In other words, UHF technology could potentially raise the temperature of live biological drugs such as vaccines, and render them ineffective.
Right now Zebra and partner Magellan Technology, developer, manufacturer and licensor of advanced read and write 13.56 MHz RFID systems, are working on a product that makes automated pharmaceutical processes faster and more secure – debunking two myths about slow speeds associated with HF, says Mr. Ream.
As RFID begins to be incorporated into pharmaceutical supply chain operations, a major concern of pharmaceutical manufacturers is slowing down line speeds.
The HF technology Zebra is working on with Magellan can program and verify 45 tags per second, more than six times faster than existing HF and UHF products, Mr. Ream says. The technology runs on ISO 18000-3 Mode 2 technology, yields high read rates, and uses a different modulation technique from other HF technology (called Phase Jitter Modulation or PJM).
“It really communicates differently from frequency modulation and amplitude modulation,” says Mr. Ream. “PJM communicates data by shifting the signal’s phase versus the frequency or the amplitude found in most other RFID systems, allowing you to speed up your primary communication speed.” Additionally, the tag has the ability to return the signal on any one of eight return channels: One output channel from the reader and eight simultaneous return channels, increasing the number of tags you can read by a factor of eight.
Low Frequency: 'making hay' with animals and closed loop applications
Low Frequency (LF), the third most commonly used RFID frequency in North America, isn’t a direct competitor in the arena of applications that require any sort of range, but is highly useful for closed-loop applications. Running at frequencies in the bands from 125 kHz to 134.2 kHz, some of the most common LF RFID applications are livestock tagging, Exxon Mobile’s Speedpass, and certain access control applications. Because of its shorter wavelengths, it is better able penetrate objects like glass windows. “(A major application) is the use of Low Frequency tag in automobile ignition systems,” notes Mr. McAllister. In most modern cars, a tiny LF tag is built into the ignition key – a reader in the steering column authenticates the key and allows the car to start
Looking to the future …
So, will UHF become the dominant standard for all supply chain applications? Will more sophisticated additions continue to help solve the metal-water challenges presented by UHF? What applications will we see more of in the future?
“That’s a huge question,” says Mr. McAllister. “Everyone’s watching with interest what the market’s gonna do – because there’s a number of innovations going on. I perceive a big huge play for either HF or UHF is in item level tagging. The question remains, which one will the market choose to adopt for large scale item-level tagging for pharmaceuticals and retail?”
New generation of games use ID technologies to bridge gap to virtual environments
The days of gaming were once spent with crowded rooms of onlookers peering into a fluorescent screen being brought to life by millions of electrons firing down a tube. Over recent years the technology behind the playing field of video games has changed as smaller, thinner, and more visually defined displays emerged. But just as high-definition television sets have now started to work their way into the mainstream, a new way to experience video games has started, ever so slightly, to fall into the gaze of the tech savvy public. It’s a way to play games that takes human interaction beyond pressing buttons or waving controllers at a screen, instead relying on direct human movements and locations to act as inputs. And identification technologies – barcodes, RFID, and smart cards -- are making it possible.
Live action gaming for the physical world: Pac-Man and La Fuga go RFID
Pac-Man – a classic franchise that has been around nearly as long as video games themselves – recently made the transition to a new medium. A group called Mobile Radicals created a mixed reality game that uses mobile phones and RFID technology coupled with human bodies running around a playing field. The game is played almost identically to the classic formula with teams divided up into ‘ghosts’ and ‘Pac-Men’ (only in this game they’re known as Pac-Lan, just to avoid any copyright issues). Situated on the field is a series of color-coded discs, each with its own unique RFID tag. Each Ghost and Pac-Man is uniquely identified by an RFID tag worn in the costume. Pac-Lan can also read the location of the ghosts in relation to the last pill that he collected, and just like the classic arcade game, the hero can collect power pills so he can hunt down and kill the ethereal stalkers who then have to restart at the center of the map.
A similar game has popped up across the pond, in Madrid, Spain. A company called Négone opened an interactive game called La Fuga (The Breakout) in which up to 300 participants dawn passive RFID tags (meaning that they don’t require a power supply) and a PDA attached to a wrist strap. The objective of the game is to escape from a futuristic prison environment that contorts itself depending on player performance. As contestants move into different sections of the playing field their location is picked up by several RFID readers that tell the game system to spit out questions to the PDA on the player’s wrist. Answer the questions correctly and the pathway continues to open up, doors popping open like something out of a new-age horror movie. Get out of the prison before time runs out and victory is yours.
Similar technologies are in fact nothing new to the realm of live action games. Laser tag games at local amusement parks have been using identification technologies for reload stations for some time. Players who run out of “bullets” have to run within the range of a reload station, and then press a button to recharge the ammunition. Each team has a separate reload station, and each gun has its own unique ID signature, making it possible for the station to differentiate between a friendly gun, and the gun of an enemy. But the level to which these new games rely on the ID technology is revolutionary.
Video games systems test RFID for player ID and character interaction
In recent months, ID technology has increased its reach into the video game industry itself. During the spring Electronic Entertainment Expo, Sony Executive Phil Harrison showed the world a game called The Eye of Judgment that makes use of ‘ID signatures’ on the back of playing cards. Ken Watanabe, the mastermind behind nearly everything to do with Sony’s Playstation, dubbed the signatures “Cyber Codes.” They are actually 2D barcodes that interact with a standardized 3 x 3 playing surface and Sony’s EyeToy (essentially a digital video camera) that reads the barcodes. As the cards move along the playing surface, the character that each represents mirrors those movements on the display screen.
In Japan, a number of arcade games have been using trading cards to dictate character movements and even to store a player’s information so they can come back to the arcade and pick up where they left off.
But, arguably the largest step forward for RFID-based gaming is Mattel’s announcement of their HyperScan console, a system that is totally based around radio frequency identification and the possibilities it affords users. The system is scheduled to ship for the 2006 holiday season, and should retail for around seventy dollars. Games will cost about ten dollars, and will come complete with six, RFID equipped, trading cards. Apparently each trading card is an active RFID tag, meaning that they have a standalone power source. Sadly that also means that each card has a limited number of hours of play. Mattel has been quoted as saying that the amount could range from 20 to 40 hours, depending on the specific use of the card.
Will RFID bring new appeal or simply hinder the gaming experience?
How will the games play, and how will they benefit from RFID technology? The HyperScan website indicates that the system will come with a fairly standard looking video game controller, while the RFID integration will come in the form of character cards. The website calls it “scanning in” whereby players will scan a character into the game and then be able to play as that character. The demo shown is an X-Men fighting game, where characters from the Marvel Comics universe are scanned into the system to do battle with one another. Chances are Mattel will have to come up with more inventive uses for the RFID aspect of the console, beyond what will likely seem little more than scanning a barcode. To truly make a noise in the already crowded gaming industry, the company that has traditionally been responsible for dozens of children’s games will have to find a more innovative way to bring RFID to the masses.
There’s no question that radio frequency identification has begun to work its way into the minds of game developers, but to truly become a viable additive to the games industry they’ll have to think up truly creative uses for the technology beyond just storing information. It seems as though the arcade trading card games are the next logical step, with different movements and positions dictating the movement and position of characters on the screen. But will this be enough to make ID technology an integral part of gaming’s future? Like so many things, only time will tell.
Source: RFID News Article by: Nate Ahearn, Contributing Editor
The GSM Association (GSMA), which represents operators serving more than 40 percent of the world's phone users, said on Monday that it was pushing for a global standard on near field communications (NFC).
The short-range wireless technology would be based on having a radio frequency identification (RFID) chip embedded in the handset, along with some sort of NFC software. As for cost, a GSMA spokesperson told ZDNet UK on Monday that "we don't have a figure for it but we reckon it's a relatively modest cost to add it to the handset".
There could be wide-ranging applications for such technology. "You could have it as a key for your car — it would recognise who you are, open the car door, put the right music on the stereo, that kind of stuff," the spokesperson said. Such a phone could also act in a similar way to Transport for London's Oyster card, itself an NFC device, or as a payment device in shops
A user could also use the phone to download a concert ticket which would then be recognised by an RFID reader at the venue, suggested the spokesperson, who added that NFC would, in effect, let you "integrate both your wallet and your keys into your mobile phone".
However, the timeframe for phones with integrated NFC remains unclear. The GSMA's spokesperson said the organisation was hoping to submit a white paper on the subject to the NFC Forum and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) by the end of this year. Beyond that, said the spokesperson, "it depends on how fast those particular bodies move".
The GSMA represents operators around the world. The 14 operators working together to develop business cases and user requirements for NFC include Orange, Vodafone and 3.
This article is an addendum to my last article on Nokia's plan on fusioning mobile phones and RF Identification. Nice read on.
Nokia brings RFID to mobile phones
Nokia is attempting to push radio frequency identification (RFID) into the mainstream with its launch of a kit that adds the technology to its mobile phones.
The company said that by combining its Nokia Mobile RFID Kit with a standard handset it has created the first GSM phone product with RFID reading capabilities.
The kit, which was unveiled on the opening day of the CeBIT IT trade show, can extend the mobility of field force personnel by integrating RFID reader technology into "familiar" mobile phone-based devices, according to the mobile phone giant.
The product can improve task and workflow management, providing businesses with a new way to collect data such as meter readings and time and attendance information, said Nokia.
Part of the company's field force product range, the kit uses the 13.56MHz radio frequency range at the very short range of typically 2-3cm using the ISO-14443A standard.
By touching RFID tagged objects, users will be able to initiate tasks in their Nokia phones, call and send text messages, access databases and record new data entries.
"The phone reader will read the content of the smart object and translate it to an action," said Gerhard Romen, head of market development at the Nokia Ventures Organisation, in a statement.
"For example, a field service engineer can intuitively start browsing the latest service instructions to repair a machine on site."
The Nokia Mobile RFID Kit, which will be available from this summer, contains two Xpress-on RFID reader shells compatible with the Nokia 5140 mobile phone, application software for the phone and 20 RFID tags.
The world's largest provider of cell phones is offering a kit that will enable workers to scan tags remotely and transmit data via their cell phones
March 17, 2004—Nokia, the Finnish cell phone maker, today unveiled the world's first RFID-enabled GSM cell phone at the CeBIT2004 trade show in Germany. The Nokia Mobile RFID Kit features two RFID reader shells—plastic housings that fit over a cell phone—20 13.56 MHz tags and software to enable mobile workers to scan tags and access information remotely.
Nokia expects the kit to appeal to companies such as Halliburton and Schlumberger, which provide field services for the oil and gas industry, as well to utilities and companies providing security for buildings.
"About two and a half years ago, we started looking at RFID as a way of empowering people to do things," says Gerhard Romen, head of global market development at Nokia New Growth Business, the product development unit that created the RFID kit. "Today, RFID tags tend to be mobile and readers are stationary, but things get really interesting when you turn that around and make the tags stationary and the readers mobile."
The RFID phone might be used by a engineer in the field checking a meter on a gas pipeline or other industrial equipment. The engineer would scan the tag attached to a meter to identify which meter was being read. The phone-reader would record the time of the read, and then the engineer could key in the meter reading into the phone using the buttons on the phone. The data could be stored in the phone and downloaded to a PC via an infrared connection.
Data can also be transferred via the GSM system. For example, a security guard walking a building could read a tag at each door whenever the guard checks the door to confirm it is locked. That information could be sent to a control center via the cell phone, and someone in the control center could monitor the guard's progress in real time.
In another application, a telecommunications repair technician could read a tag on a malfunctioning switching station or other remote asset. The phone would be programmed to go to a specific Web site to download a service history and a schematic diagram of that switching station to the cell phone. The engineer could then learn what previous problems that site had and which cables are carrying electric current.
Another feature triggers the phone to call a predefined number when a particular tag is read. So for instance, a security guard might scan a tag on his belt when in trouble and the cell phone would automatically call for help.
The software for the reader is written in the Java programming language. Nokia has a community of developers who create software for the phones, and Romen says he expects these developers to create new applications for customers.
The new RFID reader works with the Nokia 5140, a GSM phone that is water resistant and more rugged than a typical cell phone. Users simply slide off their existing Xpress-on cover and slide on the RFID reader. The software needed to run the reader is automatically loaded into the phone and the reader becomes operational.
The readers, which are made by third-party manufacturers that Nokia is not identifying, use the ISO 14443A communication protocol, so companies that purchase the kit can buy additional tags from Philips Semiconductor and other vendors. The read range is typically 2 to 3 centimeters (0.8 to 1.2 inches).
Nokia has been working with several companies over the past year to test how convenient and easy to use the device is. This is an important issue, according to Romen. "We've been testing it in the energy, gas supply and security industries," he says. "One of the key things with a new technology is understanding the requirements of end users who are not IT experts. Can they read the screen without glasses? What happens if I drop it? How long does the battery last?"
Romen says that the battery in the cell phone will last several days when reading 50 to 80 tags per day. The company believes there is a significant business market for the device, but also expects consumers will eventually discover the benefits of using their cell phone to control RFID applications. While it will be several years before consumer applications are common, he envisions consumers one day scanning items in stores and automatically downloading information on the product from the Web, or scanning the tag on a product to register it with the manufacturer.
Pricing for the RFID kit, which will be available at midyear, will be set by Nokia resellers. Several companies, including Minec and Magnatec Technologie, sell a handheld, GSM-enabled computer that can be equipped with an RFID reader. These sell typically sell for $1,200 to $1,500. The Nokia kit should be significantly less than that, since the GSM-enabled phone is sold separately and it doesn't have all the capabilities of a handheld computer.
New generation of games use ID technologies to bridge gap to virtual environments