RFID News

Doctor, your sponge is beeping

2006-07-18T10:32:00.000-07:00

Tue Jul 18, 2006 08:21 AM ET

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Technology that helps airlines keep track of baggage and sounds an alarm when a shoplifter tries to leave the store may be able to stop surgeons from losing a sponge inside a patient, a study said on Monday.

Doctors at Stanford University School of Medicine who tested sponges embedded with radio frequency identification tags said the system accurately alerted surgeons when they deliberately left a sponge inside a temporarily closed surgical site and waved a detector wand over it.

But they said the size of the chips used -- 20 millimeters or about 0.8 of an inch -- was too large and would need to be reduced to be practical on sponges and surgical instruments.

Alex Macario, a physician and professor of anesthesia who led the study, said the future probably will see a combination of tags and other techniques such as counting instruments and sponges before and after an operation.

"We need a system that is really fail-safe; where, regardless, of how people use this technology, the patient doesn't leave the operating room with a retained foreign body," he said.

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Boeing to Use RFID "Smart Labels" on Some B-787 Parts

2005-10-28T11:18:00.000-07:00

Boeing plans to introduce RFID (radio frequency identification) "smart labels" on some "maintenance significant" parts of its B-787 Dreamliner to improve configuration control and help airlines reduce costs.

RFID automatically uses radio frequency waves to transfer data between a reader and items that have RFID devices affixed. The "smart labels" contain a microchip and antenna and operate at internationally recognized standard frequencies. The RFID tag stores data similar to a bar code, but offers enhanced data collection and other advantages, such as being able to read without a direct view of the label, and a dynamic read/write capability.

Mike Bair, Boeing's 787 vice president and general manager, says Boeing's customers "are eager to take advantage of automated identification technology, especially the capabilities and benefits of RFID." And Lou Mancini, Boeing Commercial Aviation Services' vice president and general manager, said he believes the technology "will enhance parts traceability and reduce cycle time to solve in-service problems by improving the accuracy of information exchanged between customers and suppliers."

Boeing plans for the tags to contain unique identification as well as maintenance and inspection data in accordance with industry standards developed by the Air Transport Association. Typically, parts that will incorporate RFID smart labels will be serialized end items such as LRUs (line replaceable units) and life-limited parts as well as on-board emergency equipment. The labels will be applied during the manufacturing process by the responsible systems and equipment supplier prior to delivering the airplane to airlines.

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Maritime Industry Next Up To Catch RFID Wave

2005-10-28T11:10:00.000-07:00

By Laurie Sullivan, TechWeb News

One of the world's largest shipping concerns is preparing to participate in a track-and-trace, radio frequency identification technology supply chain pilot in Asia with EPCglobal Inc., a non-profit organization spearheading RFID adoption. The move underscores an unprecedented wave of RFID adoption in the maritime industry.
Cindy Braun, general manager at Maersk Logistics, a division of shipper A.P. Moller-Maersk Group, which is participating in the pilot, detailed the program on Wednesday at an RFID forum hosted by the Wireless Internet for the Mobile Enterprise Consortium at the University of California Los Angeles.

"It's expected the project will provide ways to tighten security through U.S. customs, as well as border crossings between south China and Hong Kong," Braun said.

The project will begin later this year and end in December 2006, with findings from the pilot published the following year. EPCglobal is sponsoring the project in south China in cooperation with the Hong Kong government. Maersk will match the Hong Kong government's undisclosed financial investment for the project.

This RFID project in China is one in many for Maersk. The company is preparing its warehouses globally by installing networks, readers and infrastructure to manage RFID shipments for customers delivering goods to companies such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in the United States and Metro Group AG in Germany. On average ships today carry about 3,000 containers, up from 200 million in 2002, said Braun. About 100,000 documents are required to ship that cargo. RFID could reduce some of the paperwork with automatic data collection from readers and tags.

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US State Department web-site > The U.S. Electronic Passport

2005-10-26T22:38:00.000-07:00

The proposed U.S. Electronic Passport is the same as a regular passport with the addition of a small contactless integrated circuit (computer chip) embedded in the back cover. The chip will securely store the same data visually displayed on the photo page of the passport, and will additionally include a digital photograph. The inclusion of the digital photograph will enable biometric comparison, through the use of facial recognition technology at international borders. The U.S. 'e-passport' will also have a new look, incorporating additional anti-fraud and security features.

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McCarran Airport RFID System Takes Off

2005-10-26T13:02:00.000-07:00

Three airlines are tagging luggage to track it through the Las Vegas airport's baggage security and handling system.

By Mary Catherine O'Connor

Oct. 25, 2005—Two years after announcing its plan to replace bar-coding with RFID as a means of sorting and tracking baggage, McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas has completed the first phase of its RFID deployment, according to Swanson Rink, the consulting engineering firm that designed the system.

On Labor Day weekend, Alaska, AirTran and Champion airlines started placing RFID tags on checked baggage. RFID interrogators (readers), mounted on conveyors that bring the luggage through an explosive-detection system, read the tags, identifying each bag before it is checked for explosives. The tag then routes each piece of luggage to the appropriate plane or, if the explosives detector finds suspect contents, to another security-screening station.

RFID is a favorable alternative to bar-coding for luggage identification. Due to the unpredictable orientation of the label to the optical scanner, 15 to 30 percent of the bar-coded labels being used to identify the luggage at McCarran are not properly read as the bags move through the airport luggage handling equipment. Each piece of luggage for which the bar code is not successfully scanned is diverted and manually read. Because RFID tags do not require line-of-sight with the interrogator, they are much more easily read.

"We're seeing [RFID] read accuracy rates on the order of 99.5 percent," says William Gibbs, Swanson Rink's senior mechanical engineer and the controls engineer for the McCarran project. Fewer misreads means bags move through the system more quickly, lessening congestion and increasing the likelihood that each piece of luggage will be loaded onto the appropriate flight. But Jim Lusche, vice president of Swanson Rink and the McCarran project manager, says it will be difficult to prove RFID tracking decreases the amount of lost luggage, because airlines tend not to publish detailed information about the volume of luggage they misplace.

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i-Konect Announces First Milestone Release of Singularity

2005-10-24T10:02:00.000-07:00

Sunday, October 23 2005 @ 10:32 AM CDT

Mason, Ohio – i-Konect announced the first milestone release of Singularity 1.0, an open-source java-based platform that integrates Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and sensory data with enterprise applications as well as business partners. The Singularity architecture segments the functionality into two major components (Information Services and Middleware). It is designed to provide integrators and users the ability to more rapidly deploy RFID technology and significantly advance the realization of a return on investment.

Ron Rose, i-Konect's President, stated, “Singularity's M1 release is a significant milestone on the path to creating a robust , open, industry-standard RFID/Sensory integration platform that will be used globally as a foundation to enhance supply chain management and security.”

Singularity's M1 release focuses on the Middleware component that captures and filters RFID data. Complex event processing, coupled with business context and process control, integrates key information with existing enterprise systems (e.g., CRM, ERP, WMS), as well as new or customized user applications. Singularity also supports standards developed by EPCglobal ™ (e.g., ALE, EPC-IS).

The Information Services component is an Enterprise Service that would ultimately reside as a member of a company's Enterprise Service Bus (ESB). Although an ESB is not required, utilizing a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a best practice approach for providing EPC event information to the enterprise as well as to external business partners via the EPCglobal Network™ or the DoD's Wide Area Workflow (WAWF). An SOA approach with Singularity's EPC-IS provides a federated deployment model that enables global Track and Trace visibility with the logical appearance of a single EPC-IS repository.

Singularity software distribution is provided by Sourceforge.net.

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eWeek :: Reva Expands Users' RFID Options

2005-10-24T09:56:00.000-07:00

By Renee Boucher Ferguson
October 24, 2005

Reva Systems Corp., a newly launched RFID networking company, announced its Tag Acquisition Processor last week, an offering that amounts to a rack-mounted, standards-based device for managing facilitywide radio-frequency identification readers.

The Reva TAP, which supports both current readers and the upcoming Generation Two readers, manages RFID readers at the system level. It provides a number of capabilities, including coordinating read schedules and optimizing the use of RF spectrum across a facility.

At the same time, location virtualization capabilities let users see refined tag events linked to specific locations, versus seeing every tag event that crosses a reader's threshold.

TAP also takes the RFID data acquired from readers and pumps it into transaction applications, which represents an interesting opportunity for Reva outside networking.

The box, which is relatively inexpensive (about $10,000 for the base unit), takes the place of RFID middleware in cases where in-depth integration is not necessary. TAP takes data from readers and, through a basic interface, transmits the data to applications.

"We expect customers to have a new choice when rolling out RFID in an enterprise," said Ashley Stephenson, CEO and co-founder of Reva, in Chelmsford, Mass. "If you're using [TAP] in one of your facilities, typically you would not need to have RFID middleware as well."

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Toyota South Africa Motors Ltd. Selects Alien Technology(R) RFID Solution for Vehicle Identification

2005-10-19T08:43:00.000-07:00

MORGAN HILL, Calif.--Oct. 1, 20057, 2005--

Automated Vehicle Tracking Will Accelerate Throughput of Produced Assets in the Supply Chain, Resulting in Reduction of Time to Invoice Dealers and Thus Time-to-Cash

Alien Technology Corporation today announced that Toyota Motor Corporation's South African operation, Toyota South Africa Motors (Pty) Ltd., has selected Alien(R) RFID products as the basis for its automated vehicle identification application. The use of Alien's low-cost, EPC-compliant RFID tags and readers will enable the automotive manufacturer to accurately and cost-effectively track vehicles from post-production to shipment, thus helping to reduce the time required to invoice dealers on new vehicle shipments.

'Toyota is a quality driven company, in every aspect of our business, and requiring the highest quality and reliability standards from our vendors plays a major role in our global success,' said Johan Stoop, Senior Manager, Manufacturing Engineering Services for Toyota South Africa. 'We are impressed with the Alien complete industry-standard solution, which provides consistent and reliable reads, as well as the outstanding performance in reading ranges over the many RFID solutions evaluated.'

Traditionally, RFID-based vehicle tracking applications have been hampered by the use of costly microwave systems and proprietary RFID protocols. Toyota's application will benefit from the use of open, global-standard EPC RFID technology that combines consistent reads, even in a heavy metallic environment, with the ability to leverage extremely low-cost RFID tags. In Toyota's implementation, an Alien RFID tag will be applied to each vehicle during production.

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Hospitals Save Costs, Time with Wireless Tags

2005-10-19T08:40:00.000-07:00

October 18, 2005

By M.L. Baker, eWEEK
A typical hospital owns more infusion pumps than licensed beds. Although not every patient needs a pump, leaving many idle, the hospital rents still more of them to be sure that a nurse can find one when it's needed.

At thousands of dollars a pump, such equipment surpluses are expensive. As a result, many hospitals are turning to RFID technology to keep track of pumps, as well as other expensive mobile equipment, including wheelchairs and patient monitors. According to a report by Spyglass Consulting, the number of hospitals using RFID tags to track assets will skyrocket from 10 percent in mid-2005 to 45 percent by the end of 2007. Such programs promise to cut not only costs, but also the time that clinicians and engineers spend searching for equipment, and the time patients spend waiting for it.

This month, Cisco Systems Inc. pledged to accelerate the process, launching its Clinical Connection Suite. Its latest network service prioritizes information from and tracks the locations of wireless devices, including VOIP (voice over IP) phones, laptops and certain RFID tags.

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CXOtoday.com > RFID Makes Headway In India

2005-10-19T08:32:00.000-07:00

By Neha Agrawal
Delhi, Oct 18, 2005

Historically, RFID is said to be a technology around since World War II, when the British put IFF transponders in planes to identify returning aircraft.

Lately however, it has caught the attention of the whole world. A 2-day conference-cum-exhibition has been organized by EPCglobal India, in New Delhi. The focus of this event is on global developments, applications, benefits and future of RFID technology in India across retail, aviation, logistics, IT and pharmaceutical sectors.

At a press meeting, Ravi Mathur, CEO, GS1 India spoke to CXOtoday about the benefits of RFID technology, its current state, future dimensions and implications.

Commenting on how far this technology could be adopted by the SMB segment, he said,"There are two key points, first being the cost and the second being a comprehension of the usage area. With demand soaring high, costs shall automatically crash and there are some areas like export, arrest counterfeit, spurious medicines etc where people shall be left with no other option."

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Cisco and Intel Collaborate on RFID Project in China

2005-10-13T14:04:00.000-07:00

Oct. 11, 2005 -- Cisco Systems and Intel Corporation have announced a collaborative effort to support EPCglobal Hong Kong's EPCnetwork initiative, to bring end-to-end supply chain visibility to the Pan Pearl River Delta (PPRD) region. Cisco and Intel are developing Electronic Product Code/radio frequency identification (EPC/RFID) enabled solutions for the network's infrastructure, which will connect manufacturers and logistics companies in the PPRD with retailers worldwide.

The collaboration is one of many programs underpinning the two companies' allied vision of enabling organizations and consumers to improve the way they do business, interact and stay connected through innovative, standards-based solutions. EPCglobal Hong Kong is the only organization in Hong Kong authorized to issue EPC Manager numbers and is championing the EPCnetwork initiative to create end-to-end supply chain visibility for PPRD-based suppliers.

Based on the recently announced Cisco RFID Solution, the EPC intelligent network infrastructure will help enterprises to increase visibility into product information, thus improving business flow and lowering operating costs. The key elements of the Cisco RFID Solution include the Cisco Application Oriented Network for RFID, Cisco Services for RFID and the Cisco Wireless Location Service, which together deliver integrated RFID capabilities that support enterprises' need to optimize available network capacity while simplifying RFID infrastructure deployment.

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BEA Acquires Pioneering Provider of RFID Infrastructure Software; Extends Infrastructure Offering to the Edge

2005-10-11T13:27:00.000-07:00

ConnecTerra Adds World-Class RFID Expertise and Products to the BEA Infrastructure Portfolio; Can Help Companies Integrate Growing Volumes of Supply Chain Data Using SOA

BEAWorld 2005—LONDON—Oct. 11, 2005—BEA Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: BEAS), today announced the acquisition of ConnecTerra, a privately-held pioneer in RFID middleware technology based in Cambridge, Mass. The acquisition is designed to immediately extend the range of the BEA infrastructure portfolio to easily integrate Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and other device data as “liquid assets” available across a company’s business units, applications and processes. The acquisition can help customers address the growing amount of RFID data captured across supply chains.

Founded in 2001, ConnecTerra is a pioneering provider of RFID infrastructure software. More than 25 consumer packaged goods, retail and transportation companies and system integrators rely on innovative ConnecTerra technology for generating new levels of business intelligence. ConnecTerra also plays a leadership role in the groups that are shaping RFID standards, including EPCglobal where ConnecTerra has been a member since 2002, holding leadership roles on the architecture and security committees and contributing to an upcoming “application level events” standard.

“ConnecTerra is an exciting acquisition for BEA and our customers,” said Alfred Chuang, chairman and chief executive officer, BEA Systems, Inc. “Most of the early RFID adopters are already using BEA and ConnecTerra technologies, and this gives us the industry’s first end-to-end standards-based infrastructure for RFID – from the capture of raw RFID events to the translation of those events into relevant business data.”

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eWeek: Virgin Atlantic Tries RFID on for Size

2005-10-11T10:27:00.000-07:00

October 10, 2005
By Renee Boucher Ferguson

Case Study: Virgin Airlines jumped into the RFID fray with its own pilot system, with help from consultants and technology from Oracle.

Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. prides itself on being different, forward-thinking and fun. But in its airline maintenance and engineering division, fun is the last adjective on the list.

Virgin Atlantic, based in London, has its parts supply chain and distribution center business processes down to a science. But with looming RFID (radio-frequency identification) technology deadlines from such heavyweight manufacturers as The Boeing Co. and Airbus S.A.S., Virgin decided to take a proactive approach with the untested technology, by implementing a pilot program. The goal was to test the technology and find potential efficiencies in the supply chain from its channel partners and suppliers.

"Suppliers said that clearly this was a technology we could work with, but we weren't exactly convinced of that," said Mark Butler, Virgin systems implementation manager. "We wanted to understand what we could use RFID for and to have it work in our environments. We also wanted to generate some questions—what we would need to ask suppliers and how it would integrate with other systems. This is very much a trial of technology rather than any business benefit."

Butler said he and his team had been aware of RFID technology for about 2.5 years, but they really started looking for specific information about a year ago.

"The reason for the pilot was due to the fact that we were aware of this new technology, this emerging technology," said Butler. "I'd seen a lot about it in the press, and we felt it was appropriate to get a better understanding of what it could do for us as a business. I've seen lots of information but not any answers of whether this was a technology we could use."

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Mantic to Market Air Passenger Tracking

2005-10-11T10:21:00.000-07:00

The company plans to offer a Rolls-Royce-developed system using passive RFID tags on boarding passes to help manage the flow of passengers through the airport.

Oct. 6, 2005—World-renowned engineering firm Rolls-Royce has handed over an RFID-based airline passenger management application it developed to U.K. software company Mantic Point Solutions. The application is called StreamThru. Rolls-Royce has also made available two patents used in the system.

The StreamThru system uses passive UHF EPC RFID tags attached to boarding passes to help manage the flow of airline passengers through the airport. It also uses cellular and bar code technology.

Mantic Point says it will market the StreamThru passenger-management system, which was built on Mantic's own Chaperone flow management application. The latter was developed with health-care and supply chain applications in mind.

Rolls-Royce has reportedly taken a 40 percent stake in Mantic, in return for turning over patents dealing with the concept of using RFID zones, or areas of RFID coverage, to track people—in this case, passengers—moving through a process. With StreamThru, passengers register their mobile phone numbers when purchasing their tickets and are given boarding passes with RFID tags attached. The goal is to create two-way communication between passengers and airline or airport operators, so as to improve the flow of passengers through the airport.

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OECD Urged to Study RFID

2005-10-11T10:18:00.000-07:00

Forum attendees expressed hope that the organization will work to establish privacy and security guidelines for using the technology.

By Jonathan Collins

Oct. 6, 2005—Governments, businesses and societies worldwide need to start a coordinated effort to develop security, privacy and technical frameworks for emerging RFID applications, according to attendees at this week's RFID Foresight Forum, held at the Paris headquarters of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Representatives from more than 20 governments attended the daylong event, discussing RFID technology and the OECD's potential role in its development, alongside numerous industry executives, leading academics and union representatives.

The OECD brings together 30 member countries and has active relationships with some 70 other nations and various non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Best known for its publications, and as a source of demographic, economic and social data, the OECD has provided key work in developing internationally agreed policies and recommendations regarding economic and social issues. These have ranged from macroeconomics and trade to education, development, science and innovation.

"Privacy and security are two sides of the same coin, and they have to be baked in from the start," says Dan Caprio, the U.S. Department of Commerce's deputy assistant secretary for technology policy and its chief privacy officer. He believes the OECD could provide a key forum for that work.

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Navy Tests RFID for Reverse Logistics

2005-10-11T10:15:00.000-07:00

The U.S. Navy has completed a pilot confirming the delivery of 99.6 percent of items—including broken parts being returned from Iraq for repairs.

By Mark Roberti

Oct. 7, 2005—Reverse logistics is a headache for many large organizations, and the U.S. Navy is no exception. Each year, the Naval Inventory Control Point (NAVICP) tracks more than 500,000 broken parts, worth a total of $25 billion, as they move from locations overseas to Advanced Traceability and Control (ATAC) facilities in Norfolk, Va., and San Diego, Calif., then either to warehouses run by the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) or to any one of more than 100 contractors enlisted to effect repairs. The Navy recently completed a major RFID field trial, which showed that radio frequency identification could increase the visibility of parts in transit and reduce the manual labor involved with reconciling shipments between ATAC and DLA facilties.

"We definitely found some items that we didn't have proof of delivery for, items that we would not have seen if we hadn't read the RFID tag on them," says Beverly Thomas, project supervisor for NAVICP. "This project also allowed us to know what we would have to do to use RFID across our entire pipeline."

The project began in January, when the Navy hired SAIC, an employee-owned research and engineering firm based in San Diego, to act as project contractor. SAIC did site inspections to determine the RF conditions in facilities that would be used for the trial. Tagging of parts began in March and lasted through the end of September.

The Navy tracked retrograde parts moving from Al Asad, Iraq, to the ATAC facility in Norfolk. Some parts were tracked as they moved to the Defense Depot Norfolk Virginia, a DLA facility, while others were sent to contractors for repair.

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ASEAN IT ministers mull use of common frequency for RFID

2005-10-10T11:58:00.000-07:00

First posted 10:33pm (Mla time) Oct 09, 2005
By Erwin Lemuel Oliva
INQ7.net

INFORMATION Technology ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian National (Asean) are looking at adopting a standard radio frequency band for radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, a Philippine IT official told INQ7.net on Friday.
Virgilio Pena, Commission on Information and Communications Technology chairman, said this was one of the highlights of the concluded Asean Telecommunications and IT Minister’s Meeting (Telmin) in Hanoi, Vietanam last month.

Pena said that the Asean IT ministers are pushing for the “standardization” of frequencies for RFID use in the region.

The CICT official said that this proposal has already been relayed to the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC).

RFID is a technology that will eventually replace bar codes. It is an automatic identification method, relying on storing and remotely retrieving data using devices called RFID tags or transponders.

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Spychips Sees an RFID Conspiracy

2005-10-10T11:56:00.000-07:00

Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,69068,00.html

02:00 AM Oct. 05, 2005 PT

A new book by privacy advocates makes the case that corporations and government agencies are in collusion to put tiny radio transmitters on nearly everything we buy. Companies say it's about providing thought leadership, not the Mark of the Beast.

Katherine Albrecht and Liz McIntyre hope to become the twin Erin Brockoviches of RFID, by revealing the threat posed by the radio tag replacements for barcode labels.

They may get their wish, if readers believe the conclusions of the privacy advocates' new book, Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with RFID.

Albrecht and McIntyre make a staggering accusation in Spychips: that Philips, Procter and Gamble, Gillette, NCR and IBM are conspiring with each other and the federal government to follow individual consumers everywhere, using embedded radio tags planted in their clothing and belongings.

The businesses, who form the center of the RFID industry, hope to wirelessly monitor the contents of consumers' refrigerators, medicine cabinets, basement workbenches -- even their garbage pails, the book claims.

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Ex-Ayala biz unit readies to seize RFID opportunities: Manila Bulletin

2005-08-20T21:39:00.000-07:00

8/20/2005

By melvin G. calimag

A former unit of local conglomerate Ayala Corp. is eyeing to become the country's top provider of RFID (radio frequency identification) solutions and wants to achieve that goal through a partnership with Sun Microsystems Philippines Inc. (SunPhil).

AC Corporation, a former machinery division of Ayala Corp. that is now controlled by the Valerio family, announced the partnership with the local subsidiary of Sun Microsystems in recent press conference where it also disclosed local contract implementations and plans.

The RFID market, according to AC Corp. vice president Mikael Valerio, is worth at least $8 billion in Southeast Asia alone. RFID applications can be installed on almost anything that needs contactless identification.

The company said it has been building up its capacity in the area of RFID in the last four years and is now ready to roll out its suite of products together with SunPhil, which will provide the platform for back-end requirements for RFID implementations.

Both firms refused to divulge their arrangement with regard to the split of revenues.

AC Corp. maintains a 12-member IT division at the Madrigal Business Park in Alabang, Muntinlupa although it is largely involved in the petroleum services business.

One its recent RFID implementations is a fleet management solution for the fuel requirements of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police. It has also installed a similar system at oil company Petron Corp.

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Integrated Solutions - HP's $150 Million RFID Venture

2005-08-13T16:42:00.000-07:00

Late last year, the big question about RFID in the CPG (consumer packaged goods) industry was whether Wal-Mart's top 100 suppliers would be able to meet the retailer's Jan. 1, 2005 compliance deadline. Problems such as rampant tag failures and inconsistent read rates plagued these early adopters. Analyst and press reports questioned the probability of the technology working itself out as the deadline loomed closer. But, against what some might call heavy odds, most companies made the deadline. As the stories of compliant RFID programs emerge, the new question about RFID is, "What next?"

For $80 billion Hewlett-Packard (HP), finding the answer to that question is the focus of its RFID programs. HP was one of the first eight suppliers to successfully ship RFID-tagged products to Wal-Mart. To the retailer, this RFID program is a success story. But for HP, it�s only the beginning. HP is investing more than $150 million to research the data that will come from its RFID solutions - and how it can use that data to better manage its supply chain.

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RFID Journal - H.K. Launches RFID Supply Chain Project

2005-06-10T08:06:00.000-07:00

The government of Hong Kong is backing a HK$14 million project that uses the EPCglobal Network to provide end-to-end supply chain visibility for companies manufacturing in China's Pearl River Delta.

By Mark Roberti

June 8, 2005: The Hong Kong government has put up HK$14 million (US$1.8 million) to develop the infrastructure needed to track goods manufactured in southern China's Pearl River Delta as they pass through the border checkpoint between Shenzhen and Hong Kong, onto ships at the port of Hong Kong and finally to their destination overseas. This will be one of the first large-scale deployments of the EPCglobal Network.

The ambitious project, which will take two years to complete, began in April 2005 when the government's Innovation and Technology Commission, set up to foster Hong Kong's move toward a 'knowledge-based economy,' chose to fund a project proposed by EPCglobal Hong Kong. 'We want to create visibility by connecting the stakeholders in the supply chain,' says Anna Lin, chief executive of EPCglobal Hong Kong, which was set up in 2004 under the auspices of GS1 Hong Kong. 'We will use the EPCglobal Network to share information.'

Hong Kong companies now have some 70,000 manufacturing plants, which employ 10 million workers in Southern China. Approximately 80 percent of the goods made in the region are exported via Hong Kong, which has become a services and logistics hub for China's manufacturing facilities. The Hong Kong government and the government of China's southern Guangdong province want closer cooperation between companies in China and their partners in Hong Kong, which is a special administrative region of China.

'We need tighter integration between Hong Kong, which is a service economy, and China, which has a strong manufacturing base," says Lin. "We believe that better supply chain efficiency hinges on better collaboration and information sharing, which is the strength of the EPCglobal Network. That's why we are pioneering the use of the network to facilitate better visibility, which will help companies be more responsive to market needs."

The E-Business Technology Institute (ETI), an applied research center set up under the University of Hong Kong with IBM as core sponsor and technology partner, will support EPCglobal Hong Kong in the technical development of the network infrastructure needed to track goods using Electronic Product Codes. Technology partners, including Intel, will provide technical expertise on the development of that infrastructure.

RFID Journal - H.K. Launches RFID Supply Chain Project

InformationWeek > Microsoft Takes On RFID Data Management

2005-06-09T09:50:00.000-07:00

Senior VP Flessner calls making RFID available inexpensively and plentifully from a Windows perspective a 'super-important play.'

By Aaron Ricadela
InformationWeek

Microsoft plans to ship the next version of its database and development tools in early November, and it's working on software to manage radio-frequency identification data that's due next year.

Senior VP Paul Flessner said Tuesday at Microsoft's TechEd conference in Orlando, Fla., that SQL Server 2005, Visual Studio 2005, and BizTalk Server 2006 will ship the week of Nov. 7. The company is also working on software for use with Windows and SQL Server it says could smooth out problems companies are having loading data from RFID tags into databases, and making that data available to workers.

'We're going to make sure RFID is available very inexpensively and plentifully from a Windows perspective,' said Flessner in a speech at the conference. RFID tags in manufacturing and remote data-scanning sensors used in science, shipping, and commercial construction are forecast to generate reams of new data in coming years. 'This is a super-important play for us,' he said.

In an interview, Flessner said companies are looking for database, development tools, and workflow software that can coordinate the functions of their applications to 'match the chaos of the real business world.' Mergers, acquisitions, and investments mean more systems need to be connected to one another.

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CRM News: British Airways Expresses Support for RFID

2005-06-09T09:46:00.000-07:00

By James Watson
VNUNet.com
06/07/05 3:36 PM PT

"RFID is the wave of the future. With full implementation we will improve baggage service and remove almost US$760 million in annual costs," Giovanni Bisignani, IATA's director general and chief executive said.

British Airways (BA) is putting its support behind the International Air Transport Association's (IATA) plans to implement smart tags to improve baggage handling and management.

Speaking over the weekend, BA chief executive said radio frequency identification (RFID) technology could help airlines deal with the problem of missing bags.

Observing Trials

A spokesman for the airline says the company is interested in the technology, but will continue to observe trials taking place in other airports before committing to any rollout in the UK.

'The airline welcomes ongoing IATA discussions on the subject and will continue to monitor trials of the new tracking system,' said the spokesman.

'It is however vital that a single system is developed for all airlines and airports globally to reduce complexity and ensure success.'
IATA has set a goal of having five RFID trials in place in airports across the globe by the end of this year, and is currently working to establish a standard for the technology.

Potential Savings

Giovanni Bisignani, IATA's director general and chief executive, says the technology has the potential to achieve massive savings across the airline industry.

'RFID is the wave of the future. With full implementation we will improve baggage service and remove almost US$760 million in annual costs,' he said.

IATA says each lost bag costs airlines an average of GBP55 ($101) -- a noticeable cost when the Association of European Airlines notes that 1.08 million bags were lost in Europe in the first three months of this year.

RFID trials are currently taking place in Hong Kong Airport and Tokyo's Narita airport.

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CRM News: How To Design a Cost-Effective Distribution Center

2005-06-02T15:59:00.000-07:00

By Perry A. Trunick
Logistics Today
06/02/05 5:00 AM PT

Information systems are vital to the larger Distribution Centers, and one requirement Mike Peters, first vice president with ProLogis sees is increased cabling to support them. The move to more data terminals in a DC and more access via radio frequency terminals (handheld and vehicle mounted) is only one aspect of the data revolution in DCs.

Warehouses and distribution centers are caught in a squeeze between customer service demands and cost drivers. Creating a network that can deliver on customer demands while keeping costs in line -- or lowering them -- is the number one challenge facing supply chain executives, according to a recent study by ProLogis Global Solutions.

Supply chain design projects were a huge undertaking until recently, says Mike Peters, first vice president with ProLogis, a provider of distribution facilities and services. But the tools have come down in price, the usability has gotten much easier and so more companies are going through the process every couple of years instead of every five to seven years, he points out. It's not that they are making wholesale changes, but they are checking to ensure their network is the most cost-efficient for the service level they want to provide.

Transportation, Loading & Routing
There is a relationship between the number of distribution points, transportation costs and customer service targets, says Mike Prince, director of supply chain consulting firm Tompkins Associates. Peters adds that network design has been driven by improvements in the transportation network. Carriers can provide better service over a larger service area.

Still, as Prince points out, any significant shift in the cost of energy affects operating costs and, especially, transportation costs. His recommendations for offsetting some of those costs include reviewing transportation arrangements.

Loading patterns should be reexamined to find ways to cube out containers and trailers. Review mode choices. Is it possible to consolidate shipments to move from parcel to less-than-truckload (LTL)? Can some current LTL shipments be combined to make greater use of truckload? Or, can more over-the-road shipments move by rail/intermodal?

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InkSure patents technology for chipless RFID tags

2005-06-02T15:56:00.000-07:00

02/06/2005 - InkSure Technologies announced yesterday it has been awarded two key US patents related to the company's ongoing development of chipless radio frequency tags that can be printed on a product, reports Ahmed ElAmin.

The company hopes to drive the cost of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags down to less than one cent by using a special ink, said the company's chief executive for US operations, James Assaf.

Analysts have blamed the current high cost of RFID tags as the main bottleneck preventing its wider use by industry.

While RFID technology provides product and logistic information, current RFID applications require that relatively expensive chips be imbedded in the ID tags, making item-level tagging impractical for most products, Assaf said.

'If silicon chips were cheaper, they would be ideal for use in RFID tags,' Assaf told FoodProductionDaily.com. 'They are versatile and robust, can be made in read-only or read-write versions, can store large amounts of information, can transfer data rapidly and can be designed to do independent processing. However, with relatively high production costs it has so far been impossible to produce chip-based RFID tags for less than 25 cents to 40 cents per tag, with the highest-functioning chips costing up to $10 per tag.'

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Postal service combats theft with RFID readers - vnunet.com

2005-05-26T12:41:00.000-07:00

Swedish postal service tracks valuable parcels

Daniel Thomas in Sweden, Computing 26 May 2005

The Swedish postal service Posten is using embedded radio frequency identification (RFID) technology in parcels to cut down on internal theft.

Posten, which has its headquarters in Stockholm, is testing the technology on high-value and confidential items such as mobile phones, computer equipment and government documents, as a way of detecting whether they have been tampered with.

Specially-designed cardboard packaging from Swedish technology firm Cypak contains a microscopic chip and embedded RFID circuits that can store information about the package's origin, contents and journey.

Posten uses RFID readers to enter data into the SecurePak parcel before dispatch, and then reads the data when the package has arrived at its destination to check for any suspicious activity.

Sensors detect when a package has been opened, allowing Posten to search back through supply chain data to see where the security breach has occurred.

'There are some people who are not so honest, who are opening packages and taking mobile phones or computers,' said Thord Axelsson, chief security officer at Posten.
'Using Cypak secure boxes or security tape, we can see when someone opens the package.

'There's a time stamp on a microchip which can detect whether a box has been opened or cut using a knife. This makes it much easier for our investigators to go back into the logistics chain and see where the box was at 10.50am.'

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Telecoms Korea - Korean Gov’t Sets Privacy Protection Guidelines for RFID

2005-05-25T13:19:00.000-07:00

The Ministry of Information and Communication of Korea is working on Privacy Protection Guidelines for RFID to prepare for full-fledged use of RFID.

The guidelines ban storing personal information on RFID tag against related laws or without clear statement of consent from the person in question. Furthermore, RFID-tagged products should be indicated with proper mark accompanied by methods of removing the tag. To install a RFID reader, you have to inform shoppers or customers of the fact.

Implanting RFID tags in human body or attaching them to any goods without users' notice is prohibited, unless otherwise stated by specific provisions of the law.

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InformationWeek > Acquisition Gives Alien Access To RFID In Airports

2005-05-24T18:22:00.000-07:00

Alien Technology, a vendor of radio-frequency identification technology, says it has acquired Quatrotec, a technology provider and systems integrator for commercial aviation and other transportation markets.

By Laurie Sullivan
InformationWeek

Alien Technology Corp., a vendor of radio-frequency identification technology, reported Monday that it has acquired Quatrotec, a technology provider and systems integrator for commercial aviation and other transportation markets. Financial details of the deal weren't disclosed.

Quatrotec will provide Alien with a clearer path into the aviation market. Alien, for example, makes industry-specific hardware, patent pending, for tracking baggage using RFID. Heading the newly formed, wholly owned subsidiary is Robert McKinley, VP of business development for transportation markets, who joined Alien in January.

At San Francisco International Airport, Quatrotec is working with the Transportation Security Administration on a $1 million project to integrate RFID readers into about 60 computerized scanners that can detect explosives in checked baggage. 'Once the system has been certified, the TSA will make it available for use at any location that has similar security requirements,' including other airports, McKinley says. 'We believe there will be a significant requirement in the future as other airports automate baggage-inspection systems.'

By 2008, the RFID hardware market is expected to hit $5.9 billion, with systems for air transportation and airports accounting for $236.4 million, according to research firm Venture Data. Explosive-detection projects under way at airports in Dallas/Fort Worth, Atlanta, and Los Angeles could eventually lead to RFID deployments, McKinley says.

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RFID Journal - Calif. Senate Approves RFID Bill

2005-05-21T11:53:00.000-07:00

The bill, now headed for the state assembly, would ban the use of RFID in identification documents issued by the state or local governments.

By Mary Catherine O'Connor

May 17, 2004: California's Identity Information Protection Act, a bill introduced into the state senate in February by California Senator Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto), has been approved in a vote of 29 to 7. Eight Republicans and 21 Democrats voted for the bill, which is now headed for the state assembly, while all seven senators who voted against it were Republicans. Four Democrats did not vote due to absence.

If passed into law, the act would prohibit California state-, county- or municipality-issued ID cards from containing radio frequency identification (or any contactless integrated circuit). Tollway transponders would be exempt from the law, as would RFID devices used to track inmates and patients in mental institutions and children in hospitals operated by the state or by a county or municipal government. Senator Simitian says further exceptions or changes might be made to the bill as it moves through the assembly, but he is happy about its movement through the state senate.

'I was pleased by the bipartisan support for the bill,' says Senator Simitian, who explains that the bill is intended to address the privacy, personal safety and financial security of individuals. He adds that the vote incited a lot of good discussion on the senate floor, showing 'a general acknowledgement about the issues to be addressed. While it is clear that RFID is an extraordinary utility, there are places were its use is not appropriate, and one of those places is in government IDs.'

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CNet News.com - VeriSign buys RFID consulting boutique

2005-05-19T11:05:00.000-07:00

By Alorie Gilbert
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

VeriSign has purchased technology consulting firm R4 Global Solutions for $15 million, expanding its presence in the emerging radio-frequency identification market.

The company completed the all-cash deal on Wednesday. It expects the transaction to be neutral to its earnings per share for the year.

R4 Global Solutions has 26 employees with headquarters in San Francisco. It specializes in helping businesses use RFID technology to monitor their supplies and prevent inventory snags. Its clients include Levi Strauss, McKesson and Land O'Lakes.

Major retailers, including Wal-Mart Stores, have given RFID technology a substantial boost recently, requiring suppliers to outfit merchandise with RFID gear.

VeriSign became more involved in the market last year when an RFID standards organization, EPCglobal, selected the company to run its global network directory. The directory is designed to let participating companies look up and update merchandise data on the Internet using codes stored on RFID chips--a system that could someday replace the barcode.

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Wired News: Lawmaker Rips RFID Passport Plans

2005-05-17T04:17:00.000-07:00

By Kim Zetter
02:00 AM May. 04, 2005 PT

A key U.S. congressman who led post-Sept. 11 passport reforms told European diplomats last week that there was no need for European countries to put RFID chips in their passports and that Congress never required them to do so.

Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, expressed dismay that EU countries were planning to employ a technology that was still unproven for use in travel documents that would add costs and delays to rolling out new, more secure passports.

Sensenbrenner said the countries were planning to use RFID chips even though the United States had not required them to do so and there were other, more proven technologies available that would allow countries to meet an Oct. 26, 2005, deadline Congress set for issuing new passports. He made the comments during an April 27 breakfast meeting with EU ambassadors at the Luxembourg Embassy in Washington.

Sensenbrenner authored the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2002, which stipulates new biometric passport requirements for the 27 so-called visa-waiver countries whose citizens don't need visas to enter the United States if they come for 90 days or less. According to Section 303 of the act, new passports must be machine-readable and conform to standards issued by the International Civil Aviation Organization, or ICAO, a United Nations agency that was tasked with developing standards for travel documents.

"The Border Security Act stipulated only that biometric identifiers and documents meet ICAO standards, and that the passport be 'machine-readable,'" Sensenbrenner said. "(T)hat the EU should choose an elaborate and expensive path to meet the requirement has led to consequences that are regrettable, but not insurmountable."

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RFID tags: 200 billion a year until 2015 - silicon.com

2005-05-17T04:15:00.000-07:00

May 04 2005
by Jo Best

And other predictions on the future of IT from AT&T's CIO

Hossein Eslambolchi, AT&T's CIO, CTO and president of global networking technology services, told delegates at the Networld + Interop show today that the current buzzword technologies - IP, RFID and the virtual office - will be unavoidable in a few years' time.

'Beneath the jargon, I believe something major and fundamental is happening in our business... it will change the life of every individual on the planet in 10 to 20 years,' he said.

With analysts predicting an RFID market that will reach $2.8bn by 2009, Eslambolchi said the wireless tagging technology is set to experience an explosion: 'RFID will take off dramatically - we will be generating 100 billion to 200 billion RFID tags every year for the next 10 years,' he said.

As well as causing a major upheaval in the supply chain of most retailers, it seems the RFID boom could give CIOs a compliance headache.

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Outsourcing Pipeline | Department Of Defense RFID Contracts Accelerate

2005-05-17T04:12:00.000-07:00

By Laurie Sullivan Courtesy of InformationWeek

The Department of Defense has been busy this past week awarding contracts to radio-frequency identification technology vendors. Several have been granted 'approved' status, meaning buyers can now purchase specific products mentioned in the contract from these equipment makers to support the government's RFID supply-chain and asset-tracking efforts. The Army Contracting Agency Information Technology E-Commerce and Commercial Contracting Center grants the approved-vendor status.

Alien Technology Corp. and ADT Security Systems Inc. are the latest to receive approvals. Defense Department buyers can now purchase Sensormatic Agile 2 readers, Sensormatic Omnipoint antennas, and GlobeRanger's iMotion RFID software, which are being resold through ADT Security Systems.

Alien made the list for its electronic-product-code RFID readers, too. Department of Defense buyers now have the authority to purchase the Alien ALR-9770 series of multiprotocol readers. This is Alien's second time to receive approved status this year, as each vendor product must receive separate approval. In March, the Defense Department also granted permission for buyers to purchase Alien RFID EPC-1 tags.

The awards are part of a government project to build an integrated supply chain that consistently identifies, tracks, locates, and monitors Department of Defense assets and commodities, using passive RFID EPC Class 1 technology.

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CRM News: 'Organic' RFID Tags Attract Investment, Research Dollars

2005-05-17T04:09:00.000-07:00

By Gene J. Koprowski
CRM Buyer
05/16/05 5:00 AM PT

The deal with International Paper brings the RFID industry "one step closer to developing a tag that will one day be incorporated into packages much more easily and efficiently than silicon tags," said Klaus Dimmler, co-founder and president and CEO of OrganicID. "This will open the door for cost-efficient, item-level tracking."

A number of companies -- start-ups and established firms alike -- are eying the organic RFID tags market. Venture capital firms, like ITU Ventures, are placing seed investment bets on developers with patented prototypes. But despite the hype, the goal of a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag that costs a penny or less is as elusive as ever, experts said.

"There are a lot of pilot projects going on now -- and the driving force is cheaper tags," said Rebecca Wettemann, vice president of research at Nucleus Research, an IT analysis firm, based in Wellesley, Mass. "They don't just want to tag a pallet, they want to tag a head of lettuce with a sell-by date."

Some of the biggest names in American business , and the newest names, are involved in the great RFID organic tag race. At NCR (NYSE: NCR) , researchers are producing inlaid RFID tags on a roll of paper, Ellen Boerger, director of RFID for the Dayton, Ohio-based company said.

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RFID strategy will boost future ROI

2005-05-17T04:08:00.000-07:00

by Arif Mohamed
Tuesday 17 May 2005

Nigel Montgomery, director of European research at analyst firm AMR, has welcomed the arrival of RFID integration software from Oracle and Sybase.

He said the offerings had come early for many companies. Most organisations have not begun to evaluate RFID, but the developments show that 'RFID is not a flash in the pan'.

'The work that Oracle is doing is not for this phase of RFID adoption. In some ways they have the main course, whereas we are still on the salad course,' he said.

'However, if you are going to get your return on investment from RFID, the amount of data coming through will be substantial, and you will need to use the data accurately. Oracle will take that data feed and enable companies to build business intelligence models to improve performance.'

'Today you probably do not need it, as the number of people doing work with RFID is still on the small side. But you do not want a nasty surprise later on, and that is why Microsoft, SAP and Oracle are building software to deal with the data.'

He said firms need an RFID strategy. 'You need to know what you are going to do, even if you are not going to adopt RFID for two years. Otherwise it might cost you more later, because suppliers are looking for reference sites, and will cut deals now.'

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RFID Journal - Is RFID Losing Momentum?

2005-05-09T09:52:00.000-07:00

No new RFID mandates have been issued and at least one company has pulled out of the market.

By Mark Roberti

May 9, 2005—It's been nearly seven months since Best Buy announced plans to require the use of RFID tags on shipments from its suppliers, starting in January 2006 (see Best Buy to Deploy RFID). In that time, not a single retailer, manufacturer or government entity has announced an RFID mandate. And at least one RFID software provider, GenuOne, is withdrawing from the RFID market (see GenuOne Pulls Out of RFID Market). So the question has to be asked: Is RFID losing momentum?

I don’t think it is, though it might appear to be. That’s because the excitement about RFID’s potential is being superseded by the hard work involved with deploying the technology in a way that delivers measurable business value. We are entering what Gartner calls the 'trough of disillusionment'—the period in the evolution of a new technology when hype gives way to reality. I sensed this at our executive conference last month (see Reality Sets In).

But a little reality is not a bad thing. In fact, it’s a sign of progress that companies are coming to grip with many of the issues that have to be overcome before RFID can deliver a return on investment. At our event, there was less discussion about the physics of RFID than about data integration and changing business processes. These are much tougher nuts to crack than simply getting a tag to read. But leading early adopters seem no less determined to take on these issues. They are developing new systems and evolving new business practices. Progress is slow, but steady.

I also sense that most large companies now feel that RFID is not something that;s going to go away. A year ago, large suppliers were suggesting that Wal-Mart would eventually back off its RFID requirements. I don't hear that any more. There is still a sizeable group of manufacturers that simply want to meet tagging requirements and are not looking at the potential internal benefits, but that will change. Once the infrastructure is in place, companies will find ways to use it to their advantage.

Even companies that are not facing mandates are now taking a serious look at RFID. I've spoken with several manufacturers of high-end products over the past couple of months who are aggressively learning about RFID and its potential benefits. And many hospitals are now launching pilots and looking for ways to improve their operations and enhance patient safety.

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RFID, Biometrics to Push Auto-ID Market to $29B - Circuits Assembly

2005-05-04T20:00:00.000-07:00

By Robin Norvell
Wednesday, 04 May 2005

NORWALK, CT -- The global auto-ID market, worth approx. $13.9 billion in 2005, is expected to grow at an AAGR (average annual growth rate) of 15.8% to reach $28.9 billion by 2010, according to a new report.

Research from The Business Communication Company shows that the high growth rate of the market can be attributed to a higher demand for strong security solutions in different market verticals, such as government installations, financial services and mobile telephony. The need to automate business processes to minimize costs is another reason for the growth in the automobiles, aviation, retail and transportation sectors.

Some primary technologies in the market include smart cards, optical cards, RFID, barcodes and biometrics. The smart cards market is developing rapidly to accommodate the demands of immigration control. In the near future, biometric identification is expected to be used as the primary tool of identification.

BCC suggests that since it is intimately connected to the semiconductor industry, developments in areas such as high-density memory will boost growth in the auto-ID industry. The decrease in chip size and increase in processing power have led to the development of more complex applications. Therefore, auto-ID players have to keep up with new technologies to stay competitive.

Some older auto-ID technologies, such as barcodes, are expected to lose their market share to new technologies, such as RFID (which boasts greater storage capacity and more efficient data-capturing ability). Biometric identification may be integrated with smart cards in the form of passports and visas. Biometrics will also be used as a standalone application to provide security solutions to government installations and other sensitive locations.

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Computerworld Malaysia - CBS, Public Packages to market RFID-embedded boxes

2005-05-04T19:58:00.000-07:00

Updated: May 04, 2005 04:37 PM

CBS Technology (CBS) has signed a memorandum of understanding with Public Packages Holdings (PPH) to jointly develop and market cartons and boxes embedded with CBS’ RFID technology solution, Solmate. The first of its kind in Malaysia, the smart boxes and cartons will be targeted initially at companies in the manufacturing, FMCGs and IT industries.

“We are pleased with this strategic alliance with PPH as it enables both companies to offer a new and value enhanced product that is cost efficient, reliable and labour saving,” said CBS CEO Sun Chee Kong at the company’s annual general meeting.

The Solmate RFID solution will be implanted in PPH’s boxes and cartons to track and minimise errors, losses and pilfering in transit, thus allowing better accuracy in inventory control and supply chain management.

“One of the biggest benefits of RFID is its application versatility. We can fix our tags to individual or multiple items, and the tags can be read through most materials. RFID readers can read multiple items at one time, making them superior to traditional, single-function bar code scanners. The tags can also contain information that can be updated in real time which is pertinent to stock control and management,” Sun explained.

The Solmate suite of products includes Warehouse Management System, Weapon Asset Management System, Radio Frequency Evidence Management System and Document Tracking Management System.

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GenuOne exits RFID, for now - Computer Business Review

2005-05-04T19:57:00.000-07:00

Software maker GenuOne announced yesterday its RFID software business will be on hiatus until the nascent RFID market matures.

4 May 2005, 09:37 GMT -
The privately held Boston, Massachusetts-based company launched in 1999 as a supply-chain security software maker and got into the RFID market in late 2003 as an RFID software provider. It has raised more than $20m in venture capital to date.

Now, the company will again focus on its more profitable supply-chain security software and no longer sell or develop any of its RFID software, CEO Jeffrey Unger said.

GenuOne's RFID business had driven about 10% to 15% of its revenues, he said.

However, its exit from the RFID market is temporary, Unger said. 'We feel the market is still going through a lot of ebbs and flows, and will take time to mature into a growth marketplace for enterprise applications,' he said.

Unger said, while growth opportunity for inexpensive RFID middleware will continue for the next couple of years, it will take three years to five years before demand for RFID applications, such as GenuOne's, pick up and the company re-enters the RFID market.

'Once RFID infrastructure problems are resolved, during the next few years, then RFID applications can be built out,' he said. 'We have analyzed the market for over a year now, and did not feel we could have true visibility into the tipping point in the marketplace. It's really a matter of time. We're not any less bullish on RFID.'

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RFID tags: 200 billion a year until 2015 - silicon.com

2005-05-04T19:54:00.000-07:00

EETimes.com - Cisco combines RFID location tools with Wi-Fi

2005-05-04T19:46:00.000-07:00

Loring Wirbel
EE Times
(05/04/2005 11:00 AM EDT)

LAS VEGAS: Cisco Systems Inc. showed off the first fruits of its recent Airespace Inc. acquisition at the Interop show here, and the company opted for a more clever integration of tools than a simple rebranding.

The Wireless Location Appliance 2700 is a $14,995 1U box that integrates RFID tagging with 802.11 access points, providing ways for central managers to locate and control assets.

Cisco is initially targeting health-care networks to use the locator system to monitor hospital and clinic equipment. Ann Sun, senior manager of wireless and mobility solutions, said she anticipates growing interest from manufacturers along with public-safety applications and similar markets where asset tracking is important.

The system can be used in conjunction with voice-over-IP infrastructure, but works best when VoIP has been extended to a voice-over-Wi-Fi environment.

One location system is used for each central enterprise site where aggregation and network policy enforcement is required. Wi-Fi access points gather received signal strength indicators (RSSI) from 802.11 devices and tags, and Cisco Lightweight Access Point Protocol (LWAPP) controllers serve to aggregate RSSI information.

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ComputerWeekly: Plan for high-speed RFID, says Gartner

2005-04-18T20:04:00.000-07:00

by Antony Savvas
Tuesday 19 April 2005

With the availability of improved RFID technology, companies should be thinking more strategically about how they invest in RFID systems, according to analyst firm Gartner.

At the beginning of the month, retailer Metro Group and technology companies Philips and Internec jointly announced that they had produced and tested engineering samples of an RFID chip that complies with the improved G2 RFID high-speed processing standard. The news was followed by an announcement from Impinj that it had developed similar G2 technology.

Gartner said, 'These announcements of the availability of G2 equipment - which Gartner believes will be followed shortly by many more - represent a positive development for enterprises seeking to adopt this advanced UHF RFID technology.

'The market is now moving toward true globally unified standards for UHF RFID. G2 tech- nology offers incrementally improved performance in all areas.'
Gartner warned that the substantial technical differences from G1 technology will radically change the market positions of RFID suppliers, as some of them may fail to make the transition to G2 technology.

Gartner said any RFID equipment bought today will probably not be upgradeable to the new standard. Companies wanting G2-based equipment should start looking for it from the third quarter of this year.

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Line56.com: Sun's RFID Update

2005-04-18T20:02:00.000-07:00

Sun Java System RFID Software 2.0 addresses complexity at the network and infrastructure level

by Demir Barlas, Line56
Monday, April 18, 2005

Sun has released the 2.0 version of its Java System RFID [radio frequency identification] Software.

The middleware product complements Sun's infrastructure offerings, particularly Java Enterprise System and the Solaris operating system. The goal is to take RFID data from the edge of the enterprise (a warehouse, say) to the applications relevant to business users.

Sam Liu, director of RFID product management for Sun, explains some of what's new in Java System RFID 2.0. 'There's centralized device monitoring and management capability through the browser. The software also takes advantage of Gen 2 features.'

One of these is ALE, or Application Level Events, an EPC Global specification that addresses the business applications side of RFID. Before ALE, applications received RFID events over the network, a complicated function for the application that 'saturated the network with RFID data,' Liu points out. 'Now the bulk of data processing and collection happens at the warehouse level, at the middleware level, and the information over the network to the app is summary.' Java System RFID 2.0's accommodation of this feature is designed to reduce network consumption and simplify the overall data architecture.

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RFID in SD Cards : SecureID News

2005-04-04T13:19:00.000-07:00

A Calgary, Alberta, Canada company has offered up new technology that will allow smartphones and personal digital assistants to serve as RFID readers/writers. The new card will also offer Near Field Communication (NFC) compatibility. It is, the company claims, the first RFID reader/writer SD (secure digital) card in the industry

According to Wireless Dynamics' March announcement, its SDiD card will allow smartphones and PDAs to double as portable RFID terminals. The card integrates RFID functionality into the existing computing power and connectivity of PDAs and smartphones. RFID tag information can be communicated in real-time through WiFi, CDMA, GSM or Bluetooth connections.

Ambrose Tam, Wireless Dynamics' CEO, is so confident in the prospects for the SDiD card that he believes it 'will jumpstart' the NFC and portable RFID reader application market. "We are excited about the added functionality this first of its kind SD card can provide users of PDAs and smartphones," added Mr. Tam. 'It is our goal to offer rapid deployment of technology solutions associated with RFID and NFC technology.'

He said Wireless Dynamics is targeting three market areas for its new card. 'The first is the enterprise market which includes data security, customer relationship management, asset and document tracking, airlines and transportation,' he said.

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dBusinessNews :: Philips Announces Industry's First RFID Chip Solution to Support Next-Generation EPCglobal Specification

2005-04-04T13:18:00.000-07:00

SAN JOSE-- Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE:PHG)(AEX:PHI) today announced that it has produced, supplied and -- in cooperation with its industry partners -- tested first engineering samples of an RFID chip compliant with EPCglobal's Ultra High Frequency (UHF) Electronic Product Code (EPC) Class 1 Generation 2 (G2) standard. With an increasing number of mandates from major retailers and organizations such as the Department of Defense, consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies and other suppliers around the world are moving towards implementing RFID technology in their supply chains. Philips' UCODE EPC G2 chip features better performance characteristics than any other solution to date and provides regulatory compliance to simplify worldwide implementations of RFID.

With the availability of Class 1 G2 solutions, both prior UHF technology solutions (Class 0 and Class 1 Generation 1) standardized by EPCglobal can now be replaced. Mandating organizations, such as major retailers and their suppliers, can now install readers and use tag solutions that support this worldwide standard. EPC G2 also addresses the differing regional regulatory environments for the UHF bands allocated for RFID, allowing UHF to be used worldwide enabling these organizations to deploy a unified RFID supply chain infrastructure throughout the world.

In order to reduce the time to market of solutions based on the EPC G2 specification, Philips has created a taskforce of companies to develop an end-to-end solution. The companies taking part in this initiative are ASK, Checkpoint, Deister Electronic, Feig, Intermec, Omron, SAMSys, Thingmagic, UPM Rafsec and X-Ident. These organizations have committed to develop labels, hardware and solutions based on Philips' EPC G2 product during Q2 2005, aiming for availability of the first components in the following quarter. In addition, retailers such as METRO Group have committed to participate in the EPC G2 task force to evaluate the technology as soon as it is available.

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Kansas City Star | Passports to get high-tech makeover

2005-04-04T12:48:00.000-07:00

Some think change could bring more harm than good

By SARA KEHAULANI GOO The Washington Post

WASHINGTON: A government plan to embed U.S. passports with radio frequency chips starting this summer is being met by resistance from travel and privacy groups. They say the technology is untested and could create a security risk for travelers.

The embedded chips are designed to make passports work more like employee ID cards that can be passed over an electronic reader to gain access to a building. State Department officials said the new technology, commonly known as radio frequency identification, (RFID), would allow customs agents to quickly process passengers at airports and borders. The passports are to be issued to diplomats starting in August, and then the program would expand to applicants for new passports over the next year.

State Department officials said the chips are part of a global effort to prevent passport fraud. Each chip would contain a digital record of all information printed on the passport, including the holder's name and document number. The chip would also contain the passport holder's photograph, enhanced by facial-recognition technology.

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Frontline - Sun Microsystems, and Busan University Open Korean RFID Test Center

2005-03-28T08:14:00.000-08:00

March 28, 2005 -- Busan National University is working with Sun Microsystems to jointly establish the first radio frequency identification (RFID) test center in Korea.

The Busan RFID Test Center is designed to provide a controlled environment that simulates the varying conditions of an actual distribution center or warehouse. It will help Korean companies with RFID compliance and product testing and also provide RFID-related educational services and resources. Sun is providing the University with its Sun Java System RFID Software and IT expertise, and will also work with the university on a RFID pilot project.

Upon its completion, the Busan facility will be approximately 130% larger than the Sun test center in Dallas. In addition, the Busan RFID Test Center will also include an adjacent outdoor area for testing RFID technology on shipping containers. Because of its proximity to the Port of Busan, the center is expected to help facilitate collaboration across education and business sectors in Korea.

'One of Sun's key objectives for our RFID practices is to establish RFID test centers in key locations around the world and customize these centers to meet the needs of companies in that region,' said Sam Liu, director of RFID product management at Sun. 'We are pleased to be the technology provider for the Busan RFID Test Center and the technical adviser to Busan National University. We believe the Busan RFID Test Center will help Korean companies deploy RFID technology more easily and effectively.'

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CIOL : News : SSA Global rolls out RFID solns

2005-03-19T16:34:00.000-08:00

The company has partnered with IBM and Intermec for a complete RFID solution.
Saturday, March 19, 2005

NEW DELHI: SSA Global, supplier of extended enterprise solutions and services, is introducing SSA RFID to the Asia Pacific, Japan marketplace via a series of half-day seminars. According to the press release, SSA RFID helps manufacturers, distributors and retailers achieve compliance and capture value throughout the supply chain.

Partnering with IBM and Intermec, SSA Global is now providing a comprehensive RFID solution consisting of hardware, software, middleware and deployment services. SSA RFID is a component of SSA Global's comprehensive supply chain management portfolio. SSA RFID is deployable on the IBM eServer iSeries platform.

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BPM Today: - SAP, Intel Join Forces on RFID

2005-03-12T13:21:00.000-08:00

By Jay Wrolstad
BPM Today
March 10, 2005 12:03PM

RFID technology is gaining momentum, enabling businesses to track assets and view supply-chain information from data transmitted via radio waves from antennas on chips affixed to pallets and cartons of packaged food, pharmaceuticals or equipment.

Business software specialist SAP Latest News about SAP hopes to take RFID technology to the next level through a partnership with chip Latest News about Chip giant Intel. The partnership combines the expertise of each company to streamline the deployments of emerging wireless Latest News about wireless tracking systems.

The collaboration will help companies integrate RFID data directly into backend systems through Intel-based servers, desktop machines, notebooks and RFID readers. Intel also will supply technology enabling RFID device management via the SAP NetWeaver platform.

Middleware Plus Hardware

SAP has a strong selection of supply-chain offerings and a product strategy in the RFID middleware Latest News about middleware arena, but the ERP Latest News about enterprise resource planning software giant has yet to define a business intelligence RFID strategy clearly. SAP, for the most part, remains focused on operational processes.

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EE Times -South Korea rolls out RFID for cargo port

2005-03-08T08:20:00.000-08:00

By Mike Clendenin
Silicon Strategies
March 08, 2005 (2:25 AM EST)

TAIPEI, Taiwan — South Korea is rolling out a system of radio frequency identification (RFID) to track cargo at one of Asia's largest ports, making the project one of the biggest RFID implementations in the region.

Savi Technology is leading the effort in South Korea's southern city of Busan, which is the third largest port in the world. Aside from gaining greater efficiency from detailed tracking, the government-funded project is intended to improve security of containers en route to the west coast of America.

The project uses several of Savi's active RFIDs, including an electronic bolt seal known as the Savi Tag ST-645 and an RFID-enabled sensor seal, called the Savi Sentinel.

As the containers pass through the supply chain, the tags will track information ranging from location and security status to changes in light, temperature and humidity inside a container. The information will be collected in real-time and uploaded to a monitoring network accessible via the Internet.

RFID projects have gained traction in Asia recently, with the Airport Authority of Hong Kong spending $3.5 million last year to implement RFID technology into its baggage handling system. China is also increasingly interested in RFID as Wal-Mart, one of its biggest purchasers, begins to roll out RFID technology throughout its supply chain.

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PhysOrg: Philips announces major RFID project in its semiconductor supply chain

2005-03-04T20:42:00.000-08:00

Use of RFID-tagged products improves efficiency of its internal supply chain in Asia with IBM as solutions partner

Royal Philips Electronics announced that its Semiconductor division has deployed a major implementation of radio frequency identification (RFID) in its supply chain in Asia - the first major rollout in the semiconductor industry. As the global leader in contactless chips with over a billion ICs sold to the market, the project was developed in close collaboration with solutions partner IBM using Philips' RFID ICs. The project demonstrates how RFID can be swiftly integrated with legacy systems and operational practices to enhance productivity and efficiency.

Philips Asian RFID project covers the tagging and tracing of wafer cases and carton packages for flows of goods between its manufacturing facility in Kaoshiung, Taiwan and its Asia Pacific distribution center in Hong Kong. As a result of improving the business processes within the manufacturing and distribution supply chain, the successful implementation provides increased inventory turns, improved stacked lead time, enhanced delivery reliability, warehouse efficiency and improved customer service.

"Manufacturers and distributors worldwide are looking for proven business cases for RFID. Our decision to use RFID is based on evidence that the technology generates a positive business case for our supply chain," said Mathieu Clerkx, CIO and senior vice president, Supply Chain Management, Philips Semiconductors. "It also demonstrates Philips' commitment to invest in advanced technology to facilitate continuous improvements of its integral supply chain."

"I have studied several projects where RFID solutions are being implemented. Philips is clearly a leading innovator," said Professor Hau Lee of Stanford University, a leading academic in the field of supply chain management. "The scale of Philips' operation using RFID dwarfs that of many other projects, which are very limited in volume. It will act as an ideal reference case for the industry as a whole at a time when it is looking for proof that an RFID business case which matches their complexity and reach can be delivered today," he added.

Philips is considering implementing the RFID solution throughout its Semiconductor division on a global scale across its five semiconductor manufacturing facilities and three distribution centers in Asia Pacific, Europe and the United States. The company also plans to support customer integration of RFID in their supply chain management processes.

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RFID Journal - EU RFID Spending to Near $1.9 Billion

2005-03-03T19:51:00.000-08:00

The western European RFID market will approach $1.9 billion by 2009, up from $464 million in 2004, according to a report.

By Jonathan Collins

Mar. 3, 2005—The western European RFID market will approach $1.9 billion by 2009, up from $464 million in 2004, according to a report from Juniper Research.

'We are talking about a market with around 30 percent year-on-year growth, and that's a significant growth rate and a serious market,' says Susan Griffin, a consultant at Juniper Research, which is based in Basingstoke, England. Griffin cowrote the report, RFID Opportunities: Markets and Technologies in Western Europe.

According to Juniper, the bulk of spending on RFID in western Europe will come from supply chain deployments—a sector that already represents the largest market and will continue to do so through 2009. The bulk of the uptake of RFID will be in the supply chain and logistics sector, where RFID will be used to drive increased efficiencies from producer to retailer. Other RFID markets set to use RFID will include pharmaceuticals and mass transportation, as well as niche applications such as in libraries.

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Sun launches RFID toolkit for manufacturers

2005-03-03T07:02:00.000-08:00

3/2/2005 - Sun Microsystems has launched an RFID solution designed to specifically address the business challenges of the packaged goods industry and help firms fully leverage the power of RFID, writes Anthony Fletcher.

The company’s RFID Industry Solution Architecture (ISA) for Manufacturing simplifies and accelerates the process of designing and integrating an RFID solution. Consumer packaged goods manufacturers are increasingly looking beyond immediate RFID mandate compliance deadlines, such as those from Wal-Mart and Metro and are looking at integrating RFID into their business processes to increase efficiencies, reduce costs and accelerate business decisions.

The RFID ISA for Manufacturing provides the essential guidelines to help these customers deploy RFID to improve warehouse management and automate advance shipment notification processes.

'Customers are continuing to look at how to achieve business benefits from RFID and how they can apply RFID to specific scenarios within their industry verticals,” said Stephen Murphy, vice president of industry sales for manufacturing, Sun Microsystems.

“While there are various players in the market who are claiming RFID expertise, with the RFID Industry Solution Architectures Sun has brought together our proven RFID and vertical industry experience to create unique, targeted solutions to address these challenges.'

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InformationWeek > Philips Semiconductors Tracks Supply Chain With Own RFID Tags

2005-03-03T06:54:00.000-08:00

Despite some unique challenges--the boxes tracked contained some metal content--Philips said the RFID pilot has increased visibility into the supply chain, enabled better inventory management, enhanced shipped-order reliability, and reduced by one day the time it takes for a chip to get from finished product to the customer.

By Laurie Sullivan
InformationWeek

Philips Semiconductors reported Wednesday it has deployed radio-frequency identification technology in its supply chain. The tags are used to track boxes of semiconductor wafers from the company's manufacturing and packaging facility in Kaoshiung, Taiwan, to its Asia-Pacific distribution center in Hong Kong.

The integrated circuit maker is using its own RFID chips and is considering using the technology for other manufacturing facilities and distribution centers within its own supply chain.

The project has been under development for a year and a half, and the trial began in early 2004 with completion in November. Philips decided it would demonstrate that its technology actually works in the supply chain, so it devised a project using its own product--13.56-MHz tags with its own I-Code SLI integrated circuit. The read distance is 1 to 1.5 meters. It works perfectly in a semiconductor fabrication environment, says Dirk Morgenroth, RFID marketing manager for Philips.

There were challenges. 'With boxes filled with semiconductors, metal is involved because the reel has a metal core or the semiconductor packages have metal content,' Morgenroth says. 'This scenario is unique when compared to some others.'

The benefits have come in inventory management and a one-day, or 50%, reduction in the time it takes for the chip to get from finished product to the customer. Philips benefits from increased inventory turns, improved stack lead time, enhanced shipped-order reliability, and warehouse efficiency in material handling, freeing up time for further improved customer service.

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Wired News: DHS Fills Out Privacy Panel

2005-02-25T20:08:00.000-08:00

By Ryan Singel
02:00 AM Feb. 24, 2005 PT

The Department of Homeland Security has convened a high-powered coterie of privacy activists, corporate privacy officers, former government officials, academics and security officials to oversee and guide its privacy and information-sharing policies.

The 20 members of the Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee, announced Wednesday, will be charged with reviewing and advising the department about issues like data sharing, data mining and biometric identity documents, and taking a close look at specific projects such as the ongoing upgrade to border-control technology known as US-Visit.

Since the panel is governed by federal advisory committee rules, all meetings have to be announced and open to the public unless confidential material is being discussed.

Members, who serve for staggered terms of two to four years, include Joseph Alhadeff and Richard Purcell, current and former chief privacy officers for Oracle and Microsoft respectively; James Sheehan, general counsel for the Milton Hershey boarding school; and Paul Rosenzweig and James Harper, privacy experts from the conservative Heritage Foundation and libertarian think tank the Cato Institute, respectively.

Also serving are Howard Beales, who recently stepped down from his role overseeing consumer protection at the Federal Trade Commission; Tara Lemmey, the former president of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a member of the influential Markle Foundation Task Force on National Security in the Information Age; David Alfred Hoffman, Intel's privacy director; and John O. Marsh, a former secretary of the Army who recently served on a panel reviewing data-mining issues for the Pentagon.

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Wired News: No Encryption for E-Passports

2005-02-25T20:06:00.000-08:00

By Ryan Singel
02:00 AM Feb. 24, 2005 PT

Despite widespread criticism from security experts that a proposed high-tech upgrade to Americans' passports actually introduces new security risks, the government is declining to encrypt data on new high-tech e-passports, according to proposed new rules published last week.

In response to this outside criticism and some public questioning by one of its own contractors, the State Department delayed its rollout of the chip-equipped passports and hired additional companies to provide prototypes.

Other countries are also wrangling with the issue, as the United States is requiring all 27 countries whose citizens do not need visas to visit America to begin issuing e-passports by October.

So far only Belgium has started production, and it is likely the deadline, which was originally October 2004, will be pushed back another year.

The new passports will include a radio frequency identification tag, a chip that will store all the information on the data page of the passport, including name, date and place of birth, and a digitized version of the photo passport, according to the proposal in the Federal Register.

RFID chips are widely used in automatic toll-payment systems such as FasTrak, or identification chips implanted in the necks of pets.

The chips are activated by a reader using certain radio frequency waves, which the chips use as an energy source to send back the encoded information.

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RFID tags could slash airlines' $1bn lost luggage bill - silicon.com

2005-02-25T20:03:00.000-08:00

February 23 2005
by Andy McCue

But tags are still too expensive say airports and airlines

Ditching bar-coded bag tags for RFID tracking chips could slash the annual $1bn bill for lost passenger baggage, according to airline industry IT body SITA.

A SITA report into the use of RFID by airports claims the use of the tiny tracking chips instead of bar-coded bag tags would reduce errors by baggage handlers from 15 per cent to less than five per cent.
The number of mishandled bags in the US alone rose by more than 10 per cent last year, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

To date, however, there are very few deployments of luggage-tracking RFID tags by airports with the most high-profile trial taking place at Hong Kong International Airport.

British Airways (BA) currently has no plans to ditch the bar-coded bag tags but a spokesman said it is watching the Hong Kong trial closely with the potential use of the RFID tags at the new Terminal Five at Heathrow in mind.

'In the future we think airlines will move towards radio frequency tags, which are easier and quicker to track and can be placed anywhere on a bag. On the rare occasions where bags don't make a flight with a customer, this sort of technology should allow us to tell a customer earlier in the process and keep them better informed about when their bags will arrive,' he said.

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Royal Mail to spend £2m on RFID - silicon.com

2005-02-25T20:01:00.000-08:00

February 25 2005

by Jo Best

The Royal Mail is to implement RFID in its supply chain.

Following a recent review of its quality of service targets by mail watchdog Postwatch, the Royal Mail hinted that it would be looking at the technology to better track items in its supply chain in its response to the regulator.

'Royal Mail is currently considering the use of... RFID as part of end-to-end measurement surveys,' the report says. However, speculation has grown that the Royal Mail has moved from considering a rollout to planning to implement the technology.
BT will be partnering the Royal Mail in the rollout, silicon.com has learned.

Haydn Britton, general manager of BT Retail, said that the Post Office parent will be spending £2-3m on the technology to ensure it improves its mail services and thereby manages to avoid a �70m fine from Postwatch for missing efficiency targets.

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RFID Journal - Worley Plans RFID Warehouse Pilot

2005-02-23T22:52:00.000-08:00

The third-party logistics provider will deploy RFID readers on forklift trucks to test the technology and develop new services.

By Jonathan Collins

Feb. 21, 2005—Third-party logistics company Worley is planning a pilot program to develop and test the implementation of radio frequency identification technology within its warehouse operations.

The initial test deployment will see the RFID readers deployed on six of the more than 100 forklift trucks at the one of its four warehouses in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. At the 175,000-square-foot warehouse where RFID will first be trialed, a number of the 20 or so dock doors in the warehouse will also be equipped with RFID readers, but the exact quantity has yet to be determined. Worley says that planning for its RFID trial is already underway and that deployment is expected to take place during the first quarter of 2005. The company expects to complete the first analysis of its RFID system by July.

Worley, which has provided logistics services to Fortune 500 companies for more than 25 years, has turned to RFID systems provider Intermec Technologies to design, supply equipment, deploy and support the trial RFID system.

Intermec has an engineering and marketing office close to Worley's Cedar Rapids warehouses, and Intermec also hopes to benefit from the experience of deploying RFID at Worley. "We hope to use Worley as both a test bed for some products and services and a showcase to a variety of different customers," says Brian Schulte, retail industry marketing director at Intermec Technologies, which is based in Everett, Wash.

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Global RFID market to top $7bn by 2008 - IT Week

2005-02-22T19:59:00.000-08:00

Over 15 billion pallets to be tracked by 2008

Robert Jaques, vnunet.com 22 Feb 2005

The worldwide radio frequency ID market will top $7bn by 2008, research has predicted. Independent analyst IDTechEx said that global sales of RFID equipment are growing steadily as technical problems are slowly overcome.

Some 6.8 billion tags will be sold in 2008 for applications including medicines, luggage, animals, books and tickets. In addition some 15.3 billion tags are expected to be added to pallets and cases.

The IDTechEx report predicts that, by 2010, almost half of RFID tags will be sold in East Asia, followed by 32 per cent in the US.

In 2010, some 15 per cent of all tags are expected to be chip-less, such as printed thin-film transistor circuits and surface acoustic wave devices, rising to 55 per cent in 2013 as tags costing less than five cents become ubiquitous.

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Computerworld | EU offers privacy guidelines for RFID

2005-02-22T19:57:00.000-08:00

Laura Rohde, IDG News Service

23/02/2005 07:51:08

The European Union (E.U.) has expressed concern that the use of RFID (radio frequency identification) technology by businesses and governments could violate human dignity as well as data protection rights and has published guidelines for businesses and agencies intending to use the technology.

The E.U.'s executive body, the European Commission, tapped its advisory body on data protection and privacy, known as the Article 29 Working Party, to conduct its first assessment of data protection issues related to RFID. The technology is a method for storing, receiving and transmitting data via antennas on tags that respond to radio frequency queries.

'The ability to surreptitiously collect a variety of data all related to the same person; track individuals as they walk in public places (airports, train stations, stores); enhance profiles through the monitoring of consumer behavior in stores; read the details of clothes and accessories worn and medicines carried by customers are all examples of uses of RFID technology that give rise to privacy concerns,' the group wrote in its report, published Jan. 19.

The resulting guidelines include gaining unambiguous consent from individuals where RFID is used and providing clear information to the so-called data subjects including the presence and location of RFID tags and trackers, what sort of data is being collected and how it is being processed. The E.U. also wants individuals to be made fully aware that they have the right to gain complete access to any personal data being collected and stored on them as well as the right to check on the accuracy of the data.

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Pharmaceutical, Health Care Firms Launch RFID Projects - Computerworld

2005-02-22T19:51:00.000-08:00

News Story by Heather Havenstein

FEBRUARY 21, 2005 (COMPUTERWORLD) - Dallas

Radio frequency identification technology is generating interest from pharmaceutical companies as a way to deter illegal drug trafficking and from health care executives who are trying to keep tabs on medical equipment.

Late last year, Stamford Conn.-based Purdue Pharma LP announced plans to become one of the first pharmaceutical companies to integrate RFID into packaging at the manufacturing level to prevent counterfeiting. And last week at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society's conference here, Purdue and Symbol Technologies Inc. said they plan to use Symbol's RFID mobile computers to further that effort.

'We have to identify counterfeit drugs before they penetrate our supply chain, and identify vulnerabilities in our supply chain,' said Aaron Graham, vice president and chief security officer at Purdue. 'While there may not be an ROI in dollars, how do you put a price on patient safety?'

The Symbol MC9000-G computers, which combine RFID and bar-code reading with imaging and wireless connectivity, will be provided without charge to state and federal law enforcement agencies for use in efforts to stop illegal drug trafficking, Graham said.

The Food and Drug Administration has recommended RFID as the best way to thwart illegal drug trafficking, and several states, including Florida and California, have passed laws requiring pharmaceutical companies to track drug shipments as they move through the supply chain.

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AXCESS Introduces Portable RFID Reader for Automatic Identification and Inventory

2005-02-21T09:49:00.000-08:00

DALLAS, Feb. 17 -- AXCESS International Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: AXSI.OB), a leading provider of Active Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) systems, announced today the addition of a portable RFID reader to its ActiveTag(TM) product line. The reader interrogates battery powered "active" tags, providing walk-around automatic electronic inventory of assets, personnel, patients, and vehicles. Creative Healthcare, Inc., a provider of technologically advanced information system solutions for community hospitals, will be the first to introduce automatic patient identification using active RFID. Using the ActiveTag patient tag in conjunction with the portable reader, Creative Healthcare can better ensure patients are properly identified for treatments and medications.

AXCESS' portable reader brings convenience and efficiency to inventorying multiple items, such as desktop computers, printers, and other IT assets, as well as high-value items such as pharmaceuticals, vehicles, trucks and trailers. Automatic reads of personnel, students, prisoners, or patients can also be obtained when combined with the ActiveTag credential or wristband tag.

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Microsoft's RFID 'Momentum' Includes Middleware Platform, Apps

2005-02-20T13:36:00.000-08:00

By Renee Boucher Ferguson
February 17, 2005

Nearly a year after Microsoft Corp. formed an RFID Council to look at its options for building out radio-frequency identification software, the company on Thursday plans to announce continued momentum on its RFID strategy, including a Windows-based RFID middleware platform, the RFID-enablement of three out of four of its enterprise resource planning suites, and a healthy mix of partners that are developing related software on Microsoft's nascent RFID platform.

While Microsoft, of Redmond, Wash., is not discussing the details of its middleware platform, company officials said that it is focusing on building a platform for the "development, implementation and scalability" of RFID software and hardware. Functionality will focus initially on device abstraction, data modification and data transformation.

"We have 110 people looking under the hood [of the RFID development platform] and have given them a very detailed view of all the modules, how they can interface with the product that will give them an ecosystem," said Javed Sikander, group program manager for RFID strategy at Microsoft. "But we're not allowed to talk about the unusual capabilities we are building today."

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Tech News on ZDNet | Elementary school nixes electronic IDs

2005-02-20T13:34:00.000-08:00

By Alorie Gilbert, CNET News.com
Published on ZDNet News: February 17, 2005, 2:14 PM PT

An elementary school in the rural town of Sutter, Calif., has pulled the plug on a new student surveillance system after the technology came under fire by parents and privacy groups.

Brittan Elementary School, located about 40 miles north of state capital Sacramento, is shutting off the high-tech student-tracking system because the company supplying it backed out of the deal, the school said Tuesday.

The company, called InCom, put a kibosh on the project after some parents and a representative of the American Civil Liberties Union aired complaints at a school board meeting last week. Their protests became the subject of numerous media reports.
Parents and privacy advocates were concerned that student badges containing tiny radio devices would infringe on kids' privacy--and that the radio waves could pose a health risk.

'Monitoring children with radio frequency identification (RFID) tags is a very bad idea,' Cedric Laurant, policy counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said in a statement.

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InformationWeek > Marks & Spencer Prepares To Expand Item-Level RFID Tagging

2005-02-20T13:32:00.000-08:00

The retailer next year plans to add more items and stores to its radio-frequency identification test program.

By Laurie Sullivan
InformationWeek

Marks & Spencer Group plc next year will expand its test of putting radio-frequency identification on individual items to include clothes with complex sizes such as bras, women's suites and pants, and men's suites and pants. In spring 2006, the British retailer plans to tag individual items in six clothing departments across 53 stores, up from one department in nine stores today.

At the National Retail Federation conference in New York in January, James Stafford, head of RFID at Marks & Spencer, told attendees that for every man's suite there are 40 size variations and for every bra there are 68 size variations. 'It's difficult to keep count and inventory up to date with 100% accuracy,' he says. 'The reality is our system always fails to be 100% accurate. RFID has enabled us to correct any errors in keeping track of the correct inventory rather than what the system says we have.'

Marks & Spencer uses RFID tagging to track goods through its supply chain and in stores, since it lets employees quickly pass a handheld scanner past a rack of clothes to check inventory. The information on the RFID chip is unique to each product, while the bar code only relays what the product type is. Clerks will scan the bar code, not the RFID tag, at the register, to allay any customer concerns that the RFID information on unique items will be connected to the individual buyer, Marks & Spencer says. Customers will be given the option to remove the tag when the item is bought and before they leave the store.

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InformationWeek - Microsoft's ERP Delays Could Affect Its RFID Efforts

2005-02-16T00:56:00.000-08:00

As Microsoft Business Solutions attempts to fix problems that have slowed delivery of its next-generation ERP software, it could lose ground in the RFID and enterprise-software markets.

By Laurie Sullivan
InformationWeek

A consortium of resellers for Axapta, Navision, Great Plains, and Solomon gathered Tuesday to meet with Microsoft executives to discuss integration and timeline issues surrounding the well-publicized delays of Microsoft's next-generation ERP software. The delays could undercut Microsoft's efforts in the radio-frequency identification market.

Microsoft Business Solutions has said its release of Axapta 4.0, originally due out the first half of this year, has been postponed until October, when a test version be released. Widespread commercial availability isn't expected until spring 2006. The reason for the delay is posted in a notice on the company's Web site: "We've decided to include functionality and improvements beyond the enhancements originally planned."

Microsoft in January conceded problems integrating features into its ERP products and said it had poorly executed the marketing and distribution channels of its Microsoft Business Solutions division, which reported second-quarter revenue of $211 million, compared with $210 million in the year-ago quarter.

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CIOL: Railways to deploy RFID for parcel mgmt

2005-02-15T13:31:00.000-08:00

In addition to computerization of parcel management system to book and track the consignments, railways have planed to use technologies like Bar coding and RFID to track the parcels.

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

NEW DELHI: Indian Railways has initiated a computerization of parcel management system covering booking, loading, tracking, tracing, delivery and Internet-based inquiry. The new system is expected to improve management of parcel traffic, which has annual earnings of about Rs 500 crore.

A pilot project covering the high density New Delhi-Howrah-Guwahati section, covering about 10 locations, is under implementation at an estimated cost of Rs two crore. The Railways has planned to cover 50 parcel booking locations in the next five years at an estimated cost of Rs seven crore.

In addition, use of technologies like Bar-Coding and Radio Frequency Identification Device (RFID) has also been planned to track the parcels.

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Modern Materials Handling Online - Psion Teklogix and GlobeRanger Announce New Partnership

2005-02-15T00:28:00.000-08:00

Psion Teklogix (LSE:PON), a global provider of solutions for mobile computing, wireless data collection and RFID and GlobeRanger, the leading provider of RFID, mobility and sensor-based software, today announced a partnership in which Psion Teklogix will resell GlobeRanger's iMotion Edgeware platform. The partners plan to focus on solutions supporting the Government and Department of Defense (DoD) RFID initiatives, and this agreement will make it possible for government agencies to purchase GlobeRanger software from Psion Teklogix' General Services Administration (GSA) schedule.

Psion Teklogix is known in the government sector for providing high-quality, reliable and fully integrated mobile computing solutions. As the company extends its RFID offerings, Psion Teklogix is establishing relationships with key technology partners to accelerate product and service innovations.

'Government agencies and the Department of Defense have some of the harshest and most demanding mobile computing requirements in the business,' said Susan King, vice president, Government Solutions Group, Psion Teklogix.

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ICE World - Cisco sees technology future in RFID, utility computing and IP networks

2005-02-15T00:26:00.000-08:00

IN CONVERSATION WITH/ Brad Boston, senior vp and Chief information officer, Cisco

Sathya Mithra Ashok / Bangalore February 15, 2005

Since joining Cisco in 2001, Brad Boston, senior VP and chief information officer of the networking leader has advocated security as one of the principle factors his counterparts should pay attention to worldwide.

...

Excerpts:

What do you think will be the next big disruptive technology of our times and how do you see Cisco evolving with the technology?

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a technology that holds ramifications we have not even thought of . The amount of data it can generate and the things that you can do with it is huge.

Cisco will provide network elements, like routers and switches, which are optimised to run RFID applications.

Utility computing with its capacity to add or detract capacity easily is another big thing of the future. Cisco will help in identifying whether the need for additional capacity is genuine. For it so happens that most of the spikes in demand are not valid and in fact can be caused by viruses too.

IP networks are another big growth area of the future. Cisco will launch a product this summer that integrates web, audio and video conferencing over a single IP line

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RFID Advances on Two Fronts - eWeek

2005-02-15T00:20:00.000-08:00

By Renee Boucher Ferguson
February 14, 2005

With the discussion around RFID moving past the initial stages of compliance�for a few suppliers, at least�some of the bigger software and hardware vendors are looking for more of a presence in the industry.

Siemens Corp., for example, is looking to close two gaps in its radio-frequency identification middleware, software, hardware and services offerings with new technology. At the same time, iAnywhere Solutions Inc., a subsidiary of Sybase Inc., announced this week a new middleware platform for developing and deploying RFID applications.

Siemens, the U.S. division of Siemens AG, is planning under its 2005 RFID road map to release a 900MHz-enabled tag and a reader that comply with EPCglobal Inc.'s Gen 2 tag standard. The reader, in beta now with about a dozen customers, will close a hole in Siemens' RFID offerings, according to Joe Dunlap, senior business development manager for RFID at Siemens.

At the same time, the New York company will look to RFID-enable two major application suites, Warehouse Control System and Material Flow Control System, with intuitive process-oriented capabilities.

'It's one thing to have RFID middleware that can pass data,' said Dunlap. 'The real value is in having process automation.'

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iAnywhere Speeds RFID Deployment - ebizQ

2005-02-15T00:18:00.000-08:00

iAnywhere Solutions, Inc., a subsidiary of Sybase, Inc. (NYSE: SY), today announced RFID Anywhere(a platform that helps enterprises plan, develop, deploy and manage radio frequency identification network solutions).

iAnywhere said that with an advanced service-oriented architecture, RFID Anywhere speeds the deployment of RFID solutions through easy integration with existing applications and processes - even those that are highly distributed. In addition, the software directly manages RFID and other data collection and control devices, such as barcode readers and printers, so that developers and integrators are insulated from low-level interfaces and can focus on business logic.

'Challenges faced by customers implementing RFID solutions are similar to those found in mobile and remote applications, such as the need for always available access to information, integration of a variety of data sources and managing data and devices remotely. With more than a decade of experience in solving these issues, iAnywhere is well positioned to help customers solve their RFID challenges,' said Steve Robb, senior director of marketing, iAnywhere.

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Metro reports 99% RFID implementation success rate

2005-01-21T09:38:00.000-08:00

RFID pioneer Metro, the world's third-largest retailer, has announced the successful implementation of RFID readers and tags at its biggest German distribution centre.

by Antony Savvas
Friday 21 January 2005

Located in Unna, the distribution centre is equipped with Intermec IF5 Intelligent RFID readers and RFID Intermec tags.
Metro has so far 'read' 50,000 pallets of goods and is experiencing 99% successful tag read-rates, while complying with the industry's ETSI-based European radio standard.

Gerd Wolfram, executive project manager of Metro's Group Future Store Initiative, said, 'With the strong read rates and system performance we've seen from our Intermec system, Metro is proving the efficiency and accuracy that RFID promises for retailers.'
Metro began its commercial RFID roll-out last November.

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RFID Journal - Ford Deploys RFID-Enabled Chargers

2005-01-19T20:36:00.000-08:00

At its North American plants, the automaker is rolling out a battery-charging system for its electric forklifts that uses RFID to transmit data about the forklifts and their batteries.

By Claire Swedberg

Jan. 19, 2005: Ford Motor Co. has begun rolling out a battery-charging system for electric forklift trucks that will use radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to transmit data about the vehicles and their batteries. The plan, according to the charging system's manufacturer, AeroVironment, will be more environmentally conscious and could also streamline transmission of data about the battery-powered vehicles throughout the company's 42 manufacturing plants.

To add RFID-based data management capabilities to the charging system, AeroVironment, of Monrovia, Calif., partnered with I.D. Systems, a wireless asset-tracking company based in Hackensack, N.J. The initial order includes 500 RFID-based data monitoring devices, according Gregory Smith, the director of marketing at ID Systems.

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Tesco pushes on with full-scale RFID rollout - vnunet.com

2005-01-19T20:33:00.000-08:00

Tesco has started the full scale roll-out of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology across its stores and warehouses.

The supermarket giant is implementing what it terms 'radio barcode' as part of its project to upgrade and secure supply chain delivery systems.

Tesco wants to complete the first phase of the radio barcode project by the end of the year. This covers equipment being fitted at loading and unloading bays, and at merchandise receipt points at its 1,300 stores and 35 distribution centres.

The company has placed an order for 4,000 RFID readers and 16,000 antennae with vendor ADT, following the successful completion of pilot projects.

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InfoWorld: Sun announces Java RFID product, architectures

2005-01-19T20:26:00.000-08:00

By Grant Gross
January 18, 2005

Sun Microsystems (Profile, Products, Articles) on Monday announced a Java-based product designed to make it easy for suppliers to switch from tagging their products with traditional bar codes to RFID (radio frequency identification) technology.

Sun, which announced its Java RFID software in July, unveiled its Sun Java System RFID Tag and Ship product, an entry-level RFID product targeted at suppliers looking to switch to RFID tagging to comply with RFID mandates from retailers including Wal-Mart Stores and Target and the U.S. Department of Defense.

Tag and Ship allows companies to quickly convert bar code tags to RFID tags, said Vijay Sarathy, director of RFID product marketing and strategy at Sun. The product allows companies to comply with RFID mandates without major investments in new RFID systems. Sun will announce the price of Tag and Ship shortly, and the product will be available this quarter.

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Impinj and Texas Instruments Announce RFID Cooperation Agreement

2005-01-18T00:21:00.000-08:00

Distribution Source : Market Wire
Date : Monday - January 17, 2005

SEATTLE, WA -- (Market Wire - Jan 17, 2005) -- Impinj, Inc., the fabless semiconductor company whose patented Self-Adaptive Silicon� technology enables its high-performance radio frequency identification (RFID) products, and Texas Instruments (TI) (NYSE: TXN), the world leader in digital signal processing, analog, and RFID technologies, today announced their agreement to cooperate in development of products that are compliant with the Class 1, Generation 2 (Gen 2) standard recently ratified by EPCglobal Inc.(TM) This cooperation will ensure interoperability among Gen 2 products offered by the two companies, while enabling both companies to improve time-to-market for their Gen 2 offerings.

The newest and most advanced of the EPCglobal RFID specifications for the UHF band centered around 900 MHz, EPC Gen 2 overcomes limitations of EPCglobal's older Class 0 and Class 1 specifications, providing enhanced features and improved performance such as robust operation in high-density reader environments, compliance with global spectrum regulations, superior tag throughput, field rewritability and enhanced security, privacy and robustness.

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Cisco Systems and European RFID Centre Drive European Business Roll out of IP Enabled RFID Devices

2005-01-18T00:20:00.000-08:00

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 17, 2005--Cisco Systems (Nasdaq:CSCO) and the European RFID Centre today announced that Cisco will join the European RFID Centre to collaborate with European businesses in developing their RFID strategies. The RFID Centre, which officially opens on January 25th 2005, provides a showcase of RFID applications for European business delivering value through live demonstrations, educational services, networking events, and impartial advice.

The RFID Centre is based in Bracknell close to Heathrow airport and is backed by a range of technology partners including Microsoft, Intel and Cable & Wireless and has government support from the UK's Department of Trade and Industry.

'2004 was hailed as the year of the RFID pilot but many of these to date have been small scale, lacked the complexity of involving multiple stakeholders and have mainly focused on in-store applications. Cisco believes that in order to develop understanding, accurately measure and create a long-term RFID strategy, it is essential to use a converged IP network which is scalable to accommodate future complexity and volume of traffic,' said Kaan Terzioglu, Managing Director, Technology Marketing Organisation, Cisco Systems EMEA. 'RFID is the ultimate networked data application and its success and speed of deployment will depend on a scalable intelligent network architecture.'

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HP to Unveil RFID 'Noisy Lab,' Microsoft Deal

2005-01-18T00:18:00.000-08:00

By Jacqueline Emigh
January 17, 2005

With more than eight months of Wal-Mart RFID experience at the pallet, case and individual packaging levels, Hewlett-Packard Co. is getting set to launch an RFID 'Noisy Lab' that will enact real world RFID deployment conditions for customers.

HP plans to introduce the upcoming lab in Omaha, Neb., Monday at the National Retail Federation Convention & Expo in New York. In a separate announcement at the NRF show, HP will unveil a deal with Microsoft Corp. to install Windows Embedded for Point of Service (POS) on HP cash registers, for 'plug-and-play' operability with scanners and other peripherals used in stores.

HP hopes to open the RFID 'Noisy Lab' by the end of February, said Salil Pradhan, chief technology officer for HP's RFID Program, in a prebriefing for eWEEK.com.

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HoustonChronicle.com - Wal-Mart says radio frequency ID works

2005-01-18T00:17:00.000-08:00

Wal-Mart Stores declared radio frequency identification a success Monday and announced plans to expand the pilot program to 600 stores and a dozen distribution centers by fall.

RFID technology is used in tags with a computer chip and an antenna that emits a radio signal. The tags are expected to replace the bar code.
The tags are attached to a product or a box and provide product information that can be read by a scanner, similar to how bar codes are read. The tags eliminate the need for an employee to scan each item by hand.

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Grasping Product Movement, Tighter Collaboration with RFID

2005-01-18T00:15:00.000-08:00

By Renee Boucher Ferguson
January 17, 2005

With radio-frequency identification doyen Wal-Mart Stores Inc. midway to a January deadline to have its top 100 suppliers RFID-enable inventory, questions are looming regarding the efficacy of the effort.

Wal-Mart's RFID initiative requires its top 100 suppliers (along with 37 volunteers) to deliver goods to three of its distribution centers with RFID tags that carry electronic bar codes�an undertaking that can require significant infrastructure development on the suppliers' part. Because Wal-Mart is essentially the RFID test case in retail, the effort comes with some major trial and error.

For top-tier suppliers such as Bayer Corp. and The Gillette Co., a return on investment comes not in RFID implementation, per se, but in the ability to collaborate with partners on the resulting data.

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Sun Offers Nailed-Down RFID For Retail

2005-01-18T00:14:00.000-08:00

By Susan Kuchinskas

Sun Microsystems said it has figured out the hard part of RFID (define) for customers.

At the National Retail Federation Convention in New York Monday, Sun unveiled a reference architecture that can act as a guide for customers who want to integrate RFID data with back-end enterprise systems.

Officials said Sun RFID Reference Architecture has been designed, tested, tuned, and documented. It includes Sun and third-party hardware and software that can be used to design the infrastructure and plan for the system's demands.

Vijay Sarathy, director, RFID product marketing and strategy, Sun Microsystems, said it was the first blueprint for putting together an RFID system that lays out the 'nuts and bolts.' The reference architecture tells customers, for example, how many readers or servers it will need for a specific level of data.

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Retail CIOs Demo RFID Prototypes

2005-01-18T00:04:00.000-08:00

By Evan Schuman
January 17, 2005

NEW YORK: Speaking to an overflow crowd at the National Retail Federation's Redefining Retail show Monday, Metro Group CIO Zygmunt Mierdorf beamed in live footage of the company's prototype RFID-enabled stores from Germany, showing interactive changing rooms that make clothing recommendations and have clerks bring additional pieces, a cashier shelf that instantly scans items (so the cashier doesn't have to) and a privacy system that literally leaves the chip in the store.

Mierdorf also demonstrated smart shelves that display the clothing sizes on them so that customers need not rummage through clothing piles.

The customer in the dressing room can interact with a touch screen. If the clothing selected is not the right size 'or if the customer accepts a computer-recommended accompanying piece of clothing' an attendant is automatically alerted and brings the items to the customer in the dressing room. This is helpful when customers may not want to go through the bother of getting dressed, go into the sales area to pick up the replacement items, and then return to the dressing area and repeat the dressing process, Mierdorf said.

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Psion Teklogix Launches WORKABOUT PRO S

2005-01-16T18:43:00.000-08:00

Psion Teklogix, (LSE: PON), a global provider of solutions for mobile computing, wireless data collection and RFID, today unveiled the WORKABOUT PRO S, a Microsoft Windows CE .NET based handheld computer that delivers the flexibility and performance of the recently launched WORKABOUT PRO, in a smaller, lightweight form factor. Adding the WORKABOUT PRO S to the Psion Teklogix Windows CE .NET product family ensures the ability to meet exact data collection needs of customers across a broad range of markets.

An evolution of the WORKABOUT PRO, the WORKABOUT PRO S delivers the same customization capabilities, expansion, task-specific ergonomics, and radio and data input options in a more compact form factor. With its colour touch-screen and scanner options, the WORKABOUT PRO S is ideally suited for signature-capture and barcode scanning in direct-to-store delivery, transportation and logistics, retail, field service and other mobile applications.

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CIO Today - RFID : ID'ing the Players

2005-01-13T22:50:00.000-08:00

By Pam Baker
NewsFactor Network
January 10, 2005 1:34PM

RFID is an unproven, unstandardized technology for supply chain usage. EPC Global (Electronic Product Code), a spin-off of the UCC (Uniform Code Council), recently ratified a standard for tags, but everything else is still in a state of emerging chaos.

RFID will continue to be in hot demand -- and hotly contested -- for the next five years, say analysts.

From the ensuing push-pull friction between big industry with mandates on the one side, manufacturers on the other, and consumer privacy groups stuck somewhere in the middle: here are the latest emerging trends and a score sheet for the players.

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Wal-Mart Gives Suppliers RFID Holiday Gift

2004-12-23T09:26:00.000-08:00

By Evan Schuman
December 22, 2004

Spreading holiday joy among its suppliers, the nation's largest retailer has softened its RFID compliance deadline.

In a briefing with analysts, Wal-Mart CIO Linda Dillman said that its top 100 suppliers plus 37 'volunteer' suppliers will start shipping cases and pallets by February to three Wal-Mart distribution centers. The original deadline was Jan. 1.

Wal-Mart officials have softened the rollout to phase in through 'early February,' said Christine Spivey Overby, an RFID analyst with Forrester Research. According to Overby, one Wal-Mart executive said that some suppliers waited too long to place orders for tags, which means the tags won't ship until late January or even early February.

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InformationWeek > RFID Spec approved

2004-12-20T14:53:00.000-08:00

EPCglobal's next-generation standard boosts read rate of RFID tags

By Laurie Sullivan

EPCglobal Inc. gave a much-anticipated holiday gift last week when it approved the UHF Generation 2 RFID standard. The nonprofit organization chartered to drive standards for radio-frequency identification technology completed feasibility testing of the standard earlier this month.

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Yahoo! News - Nokia Offers Mobile Workforce Tools

2004-12-20T14:46:00.000-08:00

Mon Dec 20, 2:03 PM ET Business - NewsFactor

Jay Wrolstad, wireless.newsfactor.com

Nokia (news - web sites) (NYSE: NOK - news) is providing a set of tools based on RFID technology to help businesses get the most from their workers in the field. The Nokia field force offering is targeted at the security, services, utilities and health care industries, as well as government agencies.

It enables real-time, two-way interaction between the J2EE client software -- Nokia Local Interactions Server -- and back-office systems, such as work scheduling, task management or information databases. Applications include repair, maintenance, meter reading and work order reporting.

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Wireless: NewsFactor Network - IBM Integrates RFID with WebSphere

2004-12-20T14:40:00.000-08:00

By Jay Wrolstad
Wireless NewsFactor
December 17, 2004 1:01PM

IBM has added radio-frequency identification (RFID) capabilities to the latest version of its WebSphere software. The new features will deliver more efficient supply chain management to retailers, distributors and manufacturers, IBM says.

IBM is rolling out a new version of WebSphere software, using radio frequency identification (RFID) technology and middleware targeting retail operations.

The primary objective is to deliver on-demand asset management, as well as more efficient supply chain management, at remote sites, such as a retail stores, distribution and manufacturing centers, by providing closer ties to the enterprise headquarters.
Closer to the Edge

'This is all about extending I.T. capabilities to the edge of the enterprise,' said Ann Breidenbach, director of strategy, IBM sensor and actuator solutions. That is accomplished through three new products: a WebSphere remote server, a premises server, and an embedded-device application, she told NewsFactor.

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Wal-Mart RFID Deadline Won't Be Met

2004-12-04T11:37:00.000-08:00

Wal-Mart may be big, but its influence isn't the end-all, be-all for RFID.

According to a recent report from ABI Research, while much has been made of the looming Jan. 1, 2005 deadline for RFID implementation by Wal-Mart's top 100 suppliers, the majority of them simply won't get there in time.

But, says Erik Michielsen, ABI Research's director of RFID and ubiquitous technologies, the fact that only around 30 percent of the Wal-Mart's top 100 suppliers will have done full-scale RFID implementations by January 1 isn't the issue. What the lagging 70 percent do over the course of 2005 and why they have been so halfhearted in their compliance efforts so far, is what's important.

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Computer is RFID-enabled and EPC-compliant. - LXE Inc.

2004-12-04T11:35:00.000-08:00

LXE's RFID-Enabled, EPC-Compliant Rugged Handheld Computer Now Shipping

MX3-RFID Wireless Computer Capable of Reading Both Barcodes & Class 0 & Class 1 EPC RFID Tags

ATLANTA, Nov. 29 -- LXE Inc., a leading manufacturer of rugged wireless computing solutions that improve the performance of supply- chain execution applications, and an EPCglobal member, today announced that the 'RFID-enabled' rugged handheld computer, the MX3-RFID, is now shipping. The innovative MX3-RFID is based on LXE's highly successful and field-proven MX3 horizontal half-screen wireless computer.

The mobile handheld unit is capable of reading both barcodes and EPC- compliant RFID tags. It gives you the flexibility to use one unit for both traditional bar code-based data collection applications and RFID applications. With the MX3-RFID, support and training costs are minimized, because system administrators have to support only one computer type, and operators have to learn only one device.

The unit includes an EPC-compliant, class 0 (read only) and class 1 (write once, read many) tag reader. The unit's firmware is also Gen 2 field upgradeable so you won't have to buy new hardware or even take the units out of the field when you upgrade to the new standard.

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RFID Journal - SeeBeyond Plans RFID Pilot Service

2004-11-24T01:22:00.000-08:00

The enterprise application integration specialist says it will soon launch an RFID deployment service to quickly show a company how RFID can cut its costs.

By Jonathan Collins

Nov. 24, 2004: Following the general release last week of its first RFID-enabled product, enterprise application integration specialist SeeBeyond Technology Corp. already has plans to follow up before the end of the year with a service dubbed the ROI Pilot that designs, installs and manages an RFID trial deployment to quickly show a business how and where RFID technology can cut its operating costs.

'Our ROI Pilot offering will move companies past just RFID compliance. Compliance pilots have been about physics and read rates, but our focus is data and interface management and that is what will enable companies to get value out of RFID. Readers and tags alone will never do it,' says Chris England, product marketing manager at SeeBeyond, which is based in Monrovia, Calif.

SeeBeyond's ROI Pilot will bundle software from SeeBeyond and its partners, as well as the services needed to develop and deploy the test application.

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InformationWeek > Government RFID Adoption > Policy Gaps Impeding RFID Government Adoption

2004-11-24T01:20:00.000-08:00

While government IT execs see RFID's potential, insufficient funding and lack of guidelines on privacy and security are delaying implementation.

By Laurie Sullivan

The lack of guidance on policies concerning IT standards, security, and privacy is causing delays in the adoption and deployment of leading-edge IT, including radio-frequency identification technology, according to a survey of government IT executives. The survey, conducted by consulting firm BearingPoint, also found that insufficient funding for governmentwide adoption of IT and coordination between departments for IT projects are adding to the delays.

Government technology executives see IT innovation, including RFID, as key to achieving their goals. Asset visibility, business-process and productivity improvements, and homeland security are viewed as key applications for RFID technologies. But while most survey respondents say RFID would help improve organizational processes, few government agencies have deployed the technology because they lack guidance from the government leaders and the IT industry.

The 172 government IT executives participating in the online survey revealed that 31% of their annual IT budgets are directed toward IT innovation, including new initiatives such as RFID adoption, with the rest spent on purchasing commodity IT products and managing and maintaining existing systems. The survey was conducted between September and October to discover the drivers and barriers for government adoption of RFID and identify the applications that offer the greatest potential benefits and return on investment.

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Philips Semiconductors completes major RFID rollout

2004-11-21T09:38:00.000-08:00

By James Watson
Friday, November 19, 2004

Chipmaker Philips Semiconductors has completed a major RFID rollout in Asia, which it is using as a trial to determine whether or not to roll the technology out across its entire global supply chain.

The company hoped to reduce the amount of time it takes to turn around its stock of inventory and gain near real-time visibility of its supply chain - both goals that it believes it has achieved.

The trial was centred on a manufacturing site in Taiwan's Kaohsiung area, which shipped inventory to the company's distribution centre in Hong Kong.

Saleem Miyan, head of global strategic alliances and programmes at the company, says these benefits have been achieved, although it has come at a price.

'We wanted to put RFID into the business and gain some efficiencies in various operations. It costs a lot of money at the moment, it's certainly not cheap, but it actually works, which is the main thing we were seeking to establish,' said Miyan.

The project involved tagging all boxes and cartons sent from the site in Taiwan to the centre in Hong Kong, and then on to all further destinations across the globe - an average volume of about 100,000 items every two months.

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Airbus is all set for RFID take-off

2004-11-21T09:37:00.000-08:00

By James Watson
Friday, November 19, 2004

Airbus plans to start tracking various aeroplane components using RFID smart tags once it receives regulatory approval from the US Federal Aviation Authority (FAA), which it believes will come through soon.

Jens Heitmann, senior manager for systems and equipment standardisation at Airbus, is confident that after years of testing, the FAA will give sign off on the technology by the end of the year.

'Once that is approved, we will aim to roll it out pretty quickly, tagging removable parts and the cabin area of planes,' he said.
'Obviously, we like to know what's installed on an aircraft, so we see an application there for RFID.'

'There's also many other uses for it, such as passenger identification, baggage handling and so on. They're not all useful within Airbus, but will be for our customers across the world,' he said.

The European airline manufacturer has been working with RFID for a while, initially by tagging the thousands of specialised tools that it loans out to its customers for the repair and maintenance of their aircraft.

Introduced in 2000, that programme alone delivered savings of a EUR100,000 in a single year, according to Heitmann.

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InformationWeek > RFID Vendor Puts RFID To Work

2004-11-21T09:34:00.000-08:00

Intermec will use RFID technology in its own manufacturing processes and will aggressively pursue RFID business in 2005.

By Laurie Sullivan

Intermec Technologies Corp. is ready to reap what it sows, and it plans to embed radio-frequency identification technology into its manufacturing and business processes in 2005.

For the past year, Intermec, known for its bar-code and RFID tag and reader technology, has been shipping its mobile industrial handheld computers with embedded RFID tags. The reason? To better manage any service requests that may come in on these products. The tag will let the company access the machine's history if a customer needs to ship a unit in for repair, Intermec president Tom Miller explains. 'We haven't turned on the project from the services perspective, but we're ready if and when a product comes in for service,' he says.

RFID will also be used to track internal fixed assets, such as computers and servers, as well as products as they move through the manufacturing process in Intermec's facilities. As more companies adopt RFID, Intermec will expand its RFID initiative beyond its four walls, to suppliers and customers.

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Line56.com: Wal-Mart RFID Mandate Lag

2004-11-21T09:32:00.000-08:00

Many suppliers won't be ready by January 1, 2005, but that doesn't obscure Wal-Mart's general progress, notes analyst

by Demir Barlas, Line56
Friday, November 19, 2004

January 1, 2005, has been the most important date in the radio frequency identification (RFID) world since Wal-Mart picked that date as the deadline for its RFID mandate. The idea was to get the company's top 100 suppliers using the technology by then, creating efficiencies in Wal-Mart distributor centers and other supply chain nodes.

Wal-Mart's own projection is that 65 percent of incoming pallets from top 100 pallets will be tagged by then, although as of June, 2004, the scope of the project was limited to eight major Wal-Mart suppliers tagging 21 products.

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In Texas, 28,000 Students Test an Electronic Eye

2004-11-18T21:50:00.000-08:00

By MATT RICHTEL

PRING, Tex. - In front of her gated apartment complex, Courtney Payne, a 9-year-old fourth grader with dark hair pulled tightly into a ponytail, exits a yellow school bus. Moments later, her movement is observed by Alan Bragg, the local police chief, standing in a windowless control room more than a mile away.

Chief Bragg is not using video surveillance. Rather, he watches an icon on a computer screen. The icon marks the spot on a map where Courtney got off the bus, and, on a larger level, it represents the latest in the convergence of technology and student security.

Hoping to prevent the loss of a child through kidnapping or more innocent circumstances, a few schools have begun monitoring student arrivals and departures using technology similar to that used to track livestock and pallets of retail shipments.

Here in a growing middle- and working-class suburb just north of Houston, the effort is undergoing its most ambitious test. The Spring Independent School District is equipping 28,000 students with ID badges containing computer chips that are read when the students get on and off school buses. The information is fed automatically by wireless phone to the police and school administrators.
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FDA Clears Way for RFID Tagging

2004-11-15T23:41:00.000-08:00

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration lifts some labeling requirements and gains support from two major pharmaceutical manufacturers.

By Jonathan Collins

Nov. 15, 2004—In a move to spur the testing and deployment of RFID in the United States pharmaceutical supply chain, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration has lifted a range of labeling and manufacturing practice regulations that it believes had been hampering RFID trials.

“Today we are issuing a compliance program that makes clear to the [pharmaceutical] industry that studies involving the use of RFID tags, chips and antennae on drug containers can be conducted without special request for FDA authorization,” Dr. Lester M. Crawford, acting FDA commissioner, said during a conference call with reporters.

According to the FDA, the primary goal of its action is to boost adoption of RFID technology, which it believes will help reverse a rise in recent years of counterfeit drugs entering the supply chain. “The goal of this policy is to enable industry to gain experience in this new technology to ensure the long-term safety and integrity of the U.S. drug supply,” said Crawford.

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RFID: Four Initials That Carry Huge Promise

2004-11-15T23:38:00.000-08:00

By Scott H. Cytron, ABC

What is RFID and why should the accounting community care?

RFID may not be the most well-known technology, but it’s going to be very important – and very well-known – in the short-term future. Short for Radio Frequency Identification, RFID is similar to today’s very popular bar codes. According to Webopedia, the “electromagnetic or electrostatic coupling in the RF portion of the electromagnetic spectrum is used to transmit signals.” An RFID system consists of an antenna and a transceiver that read the radio frequency, transferring the information to a processing device and a transpoder or tag – also known as an integrated circuit containing the RF circuitry and information to be transmitted.

In layman’s terms, RFID coding uniquely identifies a particular object, and that object can be much more than something that sits on a shelf or inventory in a warehouse, and could even be something that is living and breathing. In December 2003, two companies in Australia began using RFID tags and readers to work with major beef-producing nations that instituted national electronic livestock ID systems.

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