From the Classy Use of Technology Dept comes news of a handheld gadget actually doing something useful at a classical concert. AP reports (and thanks to Gizmodo for pointing it out) of the Concert Companion, designed by former Kansas City Symphony executive Roland Valliere, which displays “a sort of musical road map during a performance, cuing… 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 »
Further to my column a few weeks back about RFID, the little tags on merchandise that can tell retailers and others an awful lot of information about you, here’s a story from WIRED about how food companies are trying to get the technology declared ‘antiterrorist’. “Facing increasing resistance and concerns about privacy,” WIRED’s… Read More »
Sony, as usual, is developing its own version of something we thought everyone else had agreed on. This time it’s Bluetooth. The New Scientist says that Sony’s Interaction Laboratory in Tokyo is working on “point-and-connect” technology, a camera-based system that lets users instantly transfer data from a laptop or handheld computer to a device in… Read More »
Further to my column in today’s FEER (subscription required) about the possibilities and pitfalls of Radio Frequency Identification, or RFID, here’s the full text of answers from Alan Melling, Symbol Technology’s Senior Director, of EPC Solutions. What are the real benefits of this technology? Without a doubt, the ability to achieve 100 percent real-time… Read More »