NFC is the nearly technology at the moment. Payment systems are being pushed, but people may not really want to use their phone for everything, especially when they already have touch to pay systems. Maybe other applications like four squary sort of things ie location and presence based systems may be more appropriate, or maybe NFC phones will just be used to identify the serial number of your fridge !
Charlie Walton was a true pioneer of RFID - he has just passed away aged 89. One of his first inventions was an RFID- based door unlocking device - and this is probably still the most familiar application for most people.
More at :http://venturebeat.com/2011/11/27/charlie-walton-inventor-of-rfid-passes-away-at-89/. One interesting of his life is that he was very much an "inventor", and this is certainly something that inspires young people, perhaps more than ISO standards or ROI.
Great one this - for $200 (US) have a permanent reminder your dearly departed for the mobile-phone using generation http://www.personalrosettastone.com/faq.html .No word on upgrades should formats change.
If drowning your sorrows (see above) why not visit the cheeky pub in Georgia USA - self service thanks to RFID ...
Still awainting results of NFC payment trials and no definitive news as to whether Apple will support NFC in Iphone 5.
the NFC forum have produced a report http://www.nfc-forum.org/resources/white_papers/NFC_Smart_Posters_White_Paper.pdf on deploying NFC to make a sort of minority report-lite environment. the Register is still skeptical but Google seems to be investing heavily in this area. Killer application still seems a way away but I don't seem able to get my phone to read QR tags so who knows !
RFID is becoming the deus -ex machina of choice for many TV shows - Hawaii 5-0 had a storyline where the baddies were triathletes, and our heros were tracking them via the championchip device complete with bleeping point on electronic map. However the dastards had swapped them and so there was more running etc. until good triumphed. Whether this increases or decreases RFID acceptability remains to be seen
Interesting paper from Chris Paget (http://www.tombom.co.uk/extreme_rfid.pdf) about accessing epc gen2 tags from very long ranges (100's of metres) using equipment built for less than $1000. Basically he increases the range by increasing the power of the transmitter and using a more directional antenna, thus increasing the power density in the region of the tag. You do need a ham radio operators licence to broadcast at these powers though... This is really not new - physics is physics but the "loophole" of the ham radio licence is new. Aside from the fact that you could use this approach to pick up Bin Ladins underpants assuming they are tagged, this may open the way to other applications - eg a foursquare-like (http://foursquare.com/) scanning RFID reader that you could install in particular locations, or long-range tracking in warehouses, assuming safety - he is using 70watts output - and regulatory compliance
This conference and commercial exhibition ran from 14th/17th April 2010. The IEEE conference was relatively small, with 35 papers 20 odd posters and about 100 attendees. Highlights of the conference included work on accurate range, bearing and velocity measurements for Passive RFID, work on antenna design and some work on localisation. On the commercial side the RFID in healthcare consortium workshop was well attended. In the US the main healthcare uses include equipment tracking and billing for equipment. Hospital systems tend to be active tags with indicators for location or WiFi-based. Handwash checking is becoming an important application. Vendors are still not always satisfying the customers -Aeroscout especially worrying because of interference issues (and middleware not always helpful), and the workload associated with keeping tags maintained is high when a hospital has 10000+ tags….Nobody knows how to calculate ROI
Interesting that data-processing algorithms are not very far advanced at present.
Take Home messages:
Localisation is requiring increasingly complex modelling. Multipath remains the biggest issue. Machine learning not very common (yest)
EPC GEN2 UHF tags are becoming universal – range is steadily increasing as is memory space and survivability
The Fujitsu washable tags are encouraging apparel manufacturers and retailers to begin including them in garments and in scrubs etc. Many stalls had demos running.
Middleware is a big issue – Microsoft SAP IBM all trying to get into the game ,but there is a backlash against “BIG ERP”
Ubisense ultrawideband tags give very high resolution but expensive.
DASH 7 consortium trying to get into the RTLS market
FDA still don’t know what they are doing with tags, but blood labelling via HF becoming important.
Lots of opportunities in secondary health care market.
Much ado via big brother watch http://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/ about 2 million households in the UK having microchips in their bins. Not sure but it sounds like RFID to me.. basically the system reads the bin ID when being loaded into the rubbish truck- and hence can work out your waste weight and lead to "pay as you throw". http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8550929.stm maybe less concerned. There does seem to be some exaggeration, the bins can't really tell if you are putting recyclicables in the normal bin and you can always put things in next doors bin. We pay for water on this basis, why not other services ?
This is a project - reported by the BBC world service and in italian http://comunedipartenope.it is a "community of virtue" based in Naples ( Parthenope was a greek settlement where naples now stands). People sign up to a code of ethics http://comunedipartenope.it/content/codice-etico (in italian). From the RFID aspect what is interesting is that they are using RFID to identify people who sign up to this, so that they can be acknowledged in shops etc. I'm not sure what the enforcement policy is...
Watching the "Andromeda Strain" (2008 Miniseries) an important plot point hinges on having both RFID and biometric security tokens being validated. Passwords are so 20th century...
Another interesting release from google - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/07/google_favourite_places/ linking favourite places on google maps with real life. Essentially the system uses barcodes in particular places, the user takes a picture and pxts it to a server and the phone gets back the details. RFID or NFC may make this slightly easier. This sort of thing also raises the issue of privacy and anonymity. My definition is that anonymity means that you cannot be identified Privacy means that information about you is only released when you think it is appropriate. My personal view is that there is little credible right to anonymity - in a public place it is always possible that someone could recognise you, and there is no way to legislate against that. However a stronger right to privacy- which can include information derived from publically available sources (data matching) seems reasonable.
On the TV last night 21st October ( episode not yet on TVNZ Website ) Sheldon was busy tagging his socks with RFID so he could select the correct ones for different situations. Very similar to the "magic" bag http://www.hinz.org.nz/uploads/file/2008conference/P08.pdf . One thing I wondered was why he didn't use that technology to ensure that he didn't forget his USB stick ?
Interesting US Patent (7,602,301 - link) on a system torecordhuman movement based around on-board sensors, and then uplinking via cellular or other networks.To me, one of the intersting aspects, particularly in terms of activity tracking is the degree to which already installed sensors and tracking devices along with existing infrastructuctures can support it. This is already a commonplace in terms of cell-phone tracking, but I just got to wondering if what we will end up tracking is people's things, not them. For example if exoskeletons (http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2008/10/hal_robot_exoskeletons_available_for_rent-2/)catch on,tracking their ;location and settings and hence inferrring activity should be trivial.
Senior Lecturer in Computing,
AURA lab site at:
http://www.aut.ac.nz/study-at-aut/study-areas/computing--mathematical-sciences/profiles/research/radiofrequency-identification-applications-laboratory
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