A longish piece from Slate on our old friends RFIDs — Radio Frequency Identification Devices — which are feared and admired for their ability to hold all sorts of data about what you’re doing, buying, washing or eating. Earlier this month Hitachi announced the release of a tiny wireless ID chip that can be “easily … Read more
In case you haven’t had enough of RFID tags — tiny devices to track everything from car tires to clothing — here’s a long, positive piece from CNET. RFID, they say, “is changing how retail businesses work and could generate billions of dollars in revenue for software makers.” RFID tags could also create “huge … Read more
I love this idea. The New York Times reports that James Patten, a graduate student in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab, has come up with a digital tool that can scan the bar code printed on nearly any product, and indicate whether its corporate pedigree is blemished. The Corporate Fallout Detector “combines a … Read more
From the This Sounds Like A Good Thing, Or Are We Being Luddites? Dept comes news that privacy protests against the trial of RFID tags by Gillette at a Tesco store in Cambridge have prodded Gillette to abandon their trial, according to Indynews. RFID (Radio Frequency ID) tags are small tags containing a microchip which … Read more
It’s interesting to see how RFID — the technology behind product tagging that I’ve banged on about here before — enflames passions. News on ZDNET that chipmaker Texas Instruments has announced a wireless identity chip for clothing which can survive the dry cleaning process has unleashed dozens of comments, most of them about the potential … Read more