Japan-based chemical and tech company Asahi Kasei has developed a small healthcare product that should make life for paramedics, emergency doctors (and patients) easier: the portable device (pictured) makes it possible to instantly access all medical data on a specific person with a PC or smartphone, via RFID. → Read More
IDENTEC Group, a global RFID solutions provider, announced today that it has completed a $7.5 million equity capital round with private investors. IDENTEC says it serves more than 2,000 customers in 16 industries.
The company currently holds 100% or significant ownership in nine RFID solutions businesses and boasts sales and marketing operations in the US, including four US-based RFID companies. → Read More
Hitachi subsidiary Hitachi Information Systems has announced [JP] the development of a next-generation RFID tag today. What’s new about it is that the tag withstands the heat of welding: in other words, companies don’t need to drill screw holes anymore to put them into place. Hitachi says that their new tags can be welded into place in just 10 seconds, whereas conventional ones take around 5 minutes to be attached to objects. → Read More
Well here’s something to freak you out as you brave the Black Friday crowds today. (Remember: Matt wrote a nifty little survival guide for today’s insanity.) A local TV station in Florida has warned its viewers to be on the lookout for so-called electronic pickpockets. Using “a credit card scanner attached to a battery pack,” an evildoer can quite easily obtain sensitive credit and debit card information—without you even knowing! Yes: it’s yet another warning about the dangers of RFID. → Read More
According to an FCC filing, the folks at Keurig (they basically make a single serving coffee machine) could be adding RFID tags to their pods in order to allow the machine to sense the type of coffee being placed into the device. This would, in turn, allow the machine to change temperature, milk type, and whatever else the coffee requires. → Read More
The following is in the interest of saving you money, which is probably my number one goal here at CG: preventing you from spending money when you don’t have to. I’ve seen ads on Drudge recently pimping RFID-blocking wallets produced by a company called Identity Stronghold. The idea behind the wallet is to block the RFID chip found in your credit card from being surreptitiously scanned. Now, I’m sure it’s a fine product and one that works as advertised; I have no “issue” with said wallet. But that’s partially why you can get away with not buying one: it’s fairly easy to disable the RFID chip in your credit card. What do you need? Nothing more than a hammer! → Read More
Just think of all the fun you could have if the iPhone could interact with RFID tags. But you don’t have to wait for Apple for iPhone version 7 for this feature. Nope. You can build your own iPhone compatible RFID reader right now. → Read More
I question the actually utility of this, except for in corporate ID badging. It is cool though, combining OLED, RFID, and 3D into an ID. Plus, how is that for an alphabet soup of acronyms? Thanks to NetbookNews for the tip. → Read More
One of the more interesting booths at CEATEC is that of the Tagged World Project. It aims to deploy many RFID tags around an elderly person’s domicile, and then equip their slippers (or other house clothes) with RFID readers that will read the tags in its proximity. Then a variety of analyses can be performed on the data collected to determine, ostensibly, how healthy and active an older person is. Read on for more. → Read More
I don’t buy into a lot of cyber-scares, but having my vital statistics accessible to anybody who feels like snatching it out of the air is definitely something I’d like to avoid. It’s not a new threat, but it seems that RFID-enhanced IDs are fast becoming the standard instead of a high-tech option. And since the security surrounding them is laughable to any serious hacker, it’s dangerous proposition to mandate them. → Read More
RFID technology seems to be on the rise lately. After Mitsubishi announced a super-efficient tag reader last month and NEC said it was able to dramatically cut production costs for RFID two weeks ago, it’s now Hitachi’s turn: The company has announced today that it has developed the world’s smallest RFID chip. → Read More
The Nikkei, a major Japanese business publication, is reporting that NEC is planning to sell RFID tag readers/writers, which are priced less than 10% compared to existing products. The company seems to have made major advancements “in the field of semiconductor research”, resulting in the drastic price cut. → Read More
Someday in the future, presumably before flying cars and floating cities, there might be tiny implants to help manage pain. These RFID-powered chips the size of rice should help with chronic pain and neurological disorders similar to the large, external packs being used right now. Unlike the current crop however, these would be wirelessly powered and controlled via a computer or PDA, which should normalize life a bit for the patient. → Read More
Americans, virtuous and true, would you use your cellphone as a credit card? That is, instead of whipping out the plastic in front of some high school kid manning the register at Target, would you wave your connected-to-your-credit-card-account cellphone in front of a scanner? In the blink of an eye your transaction is completed, with the total amount being charged to your credit card account. Such a sci-fi way of paying for goods and services rendered just went on trial in Malaysia, home to those neat towers we hear so much about. → Read More
Radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags are widely used today to identify and track persons or objects using radio waves in a number of areas: payment systems, electronic toll collection systems, transportation systems, logistics etc. Existing RFID tag readers can only be used for tags moving several km/h, but now Mitsubishi has developed a device that’s able to read tags moving as fast as 100km/h. → Read More
Remember Nabaztag, those little rabbits that waved their ears to notify you whether you received an email, your stock was going down, or if North Korea has launched nuclear war against China? Well, now you can put those buggers – and anything else, really – onto the RFID-reading Mir:ror and then program interactions with everyday objects.
The $29.95 kit includes two tiny rabbits and three RFID stamps. When you place an item on the mirror it registers the item online. They have a few clever ideas for how to use ztamps including opening computer files when you bring paper files up to the mirror or “keeping track of every time you use your tools, take your medication, or pour out a glass of Vodka.” Sadly, my mir:ror would probably wear out if we’re talking about that final use case. → Read More
Sometimes passion and adrenaline gets in the way of recognizing early signs of heatstroke, but maybe this system developed in partnership between Hothead Technologies and Kennesaw State University can help. The system embeds a RFID tag with integrated thermal thermometer and a transmitter into a football helmet to broadcast stats to a handheld PDA up to 500 meters away which trainers would use to monitor athletes temperature. The software side of the system tracks and monitors each individual person for specific tracking and analysis. The combination of the two is what might save some people from heat stroke or even death. → Read More
Does your passport look like this, with a strange-looking symbol on the bottom? Then you’re in luck, for your passport contains an RFID tag! Now, we’re not exactly the tin foil hat types, but news that one of those security researcher types has managed to copy sensitive data off various passports in San Francisco without the owners’ knowledge does annoy us. What’s worse is that the pertinent officials, the Foggy Bottom bunch, don’t really seem to care. Why would they? → Read More
