RFid Blog

A Japanese firm has pioneered the idea of embedding RFID tags in bottle caps to keep a track of consumer behaviour and preferences.

The tag embedded in the bottle cap measures 24 millimetres in length and has the ability to communicate at distances of up to ten centimetres, and will not be affected by accidental contact with the beverage.

The RFID or Radio Frequency Identification technology is very similar to the barcode system but it differs in the way it can be read while retrieving data. RFID tags don’t need to be in the line of sight to be read and they are readable from a much longer distance than the barcode.

RFID technology is being used by more and more companies nowadays to place them at a vantage point in a highly competitive market.

Vivian Reding, the European commissioner for information society and media, stated that the technology offers tremendous opportunities and said that its growth should be encouraged.

Source.

The Port of Oakland, the first major port on the Pacific Coast and the fourth busiest container port in the USA has announced that it is embracing RFID technology to make its trucking operations more efficient under a strong security atmosphere.

For which, the California-based Port of Oakland has decided to adopt active RFID system of WhereNet Corp, a wireless asset tracking and management solutions provider.

Under the program, RFID tags will be embedded to the trucks that ship material to Port of Oakland facilities. These tags will contain all the vital information about the trucking companies who take their trucks to the port. Using RFID readers, the port authorities will read the tags as they enter into the Oakland International Container Terminal.

Commenting on the proposed RFID program, Mike O’Brien, security officer for the Port of Oakland explains,

While enhancing security measures is always a work in progress, we consider beginning to identify and track trucks on our premises with the latest technology as an important step forward.

In the process, they will maintain a database to allow authorized trucks to get into the port facilities. In this way, they can build a strong security-line in the port terminals.

It seems that the European Union is taking a lenient approach towards the controversial RFID technology. Instead of forcing the citizens to adopt RFID hurriedly or by pressure, the Union gives them full freedom to think of its advantages and disadvantages.

The European Commission, an executive body of European Union has decided to formulate laws on RFID after consulting citizens, scientists, data protection experts and manufacturers.

Viviane Reding, European Commissioner confirms,

There will be no new regulations, but we will clarify how existing regulations apply to the technology.

Admitting security concerns of RFID technology, she says that the current privacy law is enough to deal the situation. She adds,

If the industry goes for it by self-regulation and by looking at what we got already.

RFID as a technology is in full swing in European markets accumulating revenue of £ 500 million and the market is expected to touch nearly £ 7 billion in the next ten years. Therefore, the regulatory body does want to unnecessarily interfere into the market by enforcing laws.

RFID as a technology is slowly but gradually dominating the healthcare unit. We have a notion that RFID is useful in healthcare units when it comes asset tracking. However, it is now being used to treat the patients.

From this news source, I came to know that RFID chip maker, VeriChip has developed a new system that helps hospitals and health workers to track patients information for diabetes patients on wireless RFID chips.

The company has embedded its VeriMed RFID chips in the Diabetes patients at the Diabetes Expo in Atlanta.

Scott R. Silverman, Chairman and CEO of VeriChip,

Since the inception of the VeriMed System, we always knew that the diabetic community was in need of a way to communicate their medical information better and more frequently. We will continue to focus on diabetics and to enhance our relationship further with the American Diabetes Association. The Atlanta Diabetes EXPO provides us direct access so we can continue to educate an important target audience.

The VeriMed Patient Identification System consists of an implantable RFID chip with a handheld RFID scanner and a patient database to provide medical workers instant access to health information for patients in need of emergency treat who are not able to communicate.

Intel Corporation, the largest semiconductor company in the world has entered into the RFID bandwagon unleashing its first RFID chip, Intel R1000, which is compact and compressed in nature and promising to reduce the cost of RFID readers.

The Intel R1000 is a chip fitted for the use in ultra-high frequency RFID readers because it compresses 90 percent of the components in an RFID reader into single small chip. Its size is 8mm by 8mm.

With R1000, the manufactures and companies can reduce the cost of RFID readers by half. At present, the cost of an RFID reader is $1500 or more. The latest RFID chip can also put into multiple applications.

Announcing the launch of R1000, Kerry Krause, Director of Marketing for RFID at Intel states,

Today, readers are too expensive, too complex, and have too much variability from manufacturer to manufacturer. With the new Intel R1000 chip, I wouldn’t be surprised if, by end of the year, we see reader prices cut in half.

Certified by EPCglobal, the Intel chip also comes with a software development kit to simplify the process of programming readers. The company plans to ship the new chip by the end of this year for $40.

With confidential data more than ever open to risks nowadays, the latest DataGuard Tape Tracking System could enable manufacturers to rest a little easier now. Designed by Oakdale, Minn.-based Imation Corp., the system is claimed to make use of RFID-based labels attached to each tape cartridge, which in actual is checked in and checked out via entry and exit workstations, as maintained by the company.

James Milligan, general manager, commercial/OEM division, Imation said that the main role of tape in the data center hasn’t come to any change, but what seems to have changed is the rising pressure on data center managers, for reasons of compliance and governance, to be capable of locating and retrieving data quickly.

These days highly rigid information security and financial compliance laws, plus audit requirements, are driving organizations to observe their processes for managing these assets. In some cases, organizations have to make data loss or theft public which most of the time causes to negative exposure.

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Reno GmbH, the second largest shoe retailer in Europe has announced that it would embed RFID tags into the soles of all the shoes that it supplies to nearly 1,700 stores in the continent.

The retailer has reached out an agreement with Checkpoint Systems Inc to tag the chips within the soles. As per the deal, Checkpoint will provide millions of tags to Reno. The tagging process is likely to be concluded by the end of May this year.

The Germany-based shoe company says that the use of RFID tags will help them in checking the thefts of shoes and improve the shopping experience of customers who visit their outlets in large numbers everyday.

The wafer-thin RFID tags will be integrated in the large proportion of all the shoes and displayed in the stores for the customers. Hence, the workers at outlets don’t need to make frequent search to provide the ordered products. At the same time, the customers will save their time and energy.

Hitachi, the company which earlier held the record for the smallest RFID tags dubbed mu-chip has broken their own record with even small tags called RFID ‘Powder’.

The earlier mu-chip measured 0.4 x 0.4 millimeters and the new record breaking tags measure just 0.05 x 0.05 mm.

These new tags can have a 128-bit ROM for storing a unique 38 digit number. According to the company they have used semiconductor miniaturization technology and electron beams to write data on the chip substrates to achieve the small size.

Such devices can be used to track and identify people. For example if you participated in some sort of a protest and the cops sprinkled some tags on the mob then they can easily track down all the participants easily.

Via: technovelgy

Moscow Metro, one of the most heavily used metro systems in the world with 278.8 km of route length, 12 lines and 172 stations has introduced RFID-enabled ticketing system on a trial-basis to check ticket fraud and diminish equipment failures.

Moscow Metro, which has wide networks throughout Russia carrying 8.2 million passengers on a normal weekday has decided to embrace RFID technology after confronting loopholes in the existing ticketing system.

As part of the trial program, the state-owned enterprise would use RFID technologies of UPM Raflatac. The trial will run still end of summer.

Nearly five million RFID tickets bearing 13.56 MHz RFID tags will be issued to the passengers during this period. The number RFID-enabled ticket inlays may be increased to 30 million depending upon the results.

The Moscow Metro has decided to introduce RFID tickets for the passengers after marking loopholes in the previously used magnetic-strip cards in the tickets. These cards were counterfeited and used fraudulently.

The Department of Home Security (DHS) has finally decided to postpone the controversial RFID program, which underwent in trial to track foreign visitors crossing the US borders.

DHS dropped the RFID program abruptly after realizing the technology is not so effective to track the visitors since readers did not detect RFID tag-embedded I-94 documents reliably during the testing.

Confirming this, DHS secretary Michael Chertoff said,

I mean, this is the real world. I think, yes, we’re abandoning it. That’s not going to be a solution. So in the real world, when something fails, we drop it and we move to the next thing.

As part of the US Visitor and Immigration Status Indicator Technology program, foreigners were provided I-94 document with an embedded RFID tag. These tags carry ID information of visitors who cross US borders. However, the RFID readers failed to extract data from I-94 document effectively.