Hospitals and Tires

Today's issue of RFID Update resonated with me more than many. The Editor's Note discusses a hospital focused RTLS. Hospitals have been a hot area for RTLS, and for good reason. The trial hospital for the system under discussion was able to avoid "ordering 50 new IV pumps at a cost of $10,000 each," a savings of $500,000.

The feature story addresses tire counterfeiting. I knew this was a significant issue for fleet vehicles. There are stories of trucks leaving the yard with new tires and returning with retreads, the new tires having slipped into the black market. What I have not heard before is this statement by Dan Finch, CEO of Advanced ID:

We think maybe one out of five tires is counterfeit or came from the gray market, and is not manufactured to the standards of the world's top manufacturers.

That's a pretty scary number if it's true!

What I like about these stories, and so many like them that are out there now, is the demonstration of real value, real dollars saved and real buisness issues addressed. They show the technology moving from "Ghee Whiz" to another tool in the toolbox.

Accelerated access and search

Cool news form the PBwiki team!

Tonight we’ve deployed the results of some kung-fu from last night, a new feature for premium wikis (like RFID Soup). All of your wiki’s pages are stored in memory, ready for display to you and to search through. ... The result: Pages on premium wikis load 10-40% faster depending on size, and searches are up to 10 times faster. We’re pretty happy with the new speed boost, and think you will be too.

Forget RFID. GPS Is The New Tech Bogeyman

Chris Murphy has authored a post on John Soat's CIO Uncensored blog (Information Week) advising those looking to implement GPS in new and different ways to learn the lessons of early RFID experiments:

Be ready for distrust, and combat it with absolute transparency. We all know what happened when companies starting experimenting with RFID more widely, in a few cases doing so in stores without telling customers. People assume the worst and envision capabilities for the technology far beyond the realm of possible.

So let's be clear. If you are thinking of using GPS to track employees in any way, shape, or form without informing them and helping them understand the technology, may a thousand Storm worms descend upon your home computer. You're making life harder for anyone trying to do this right.

Via RFID Update

RFID Privacy Issues

Mark Roberti writes an opinion piece entitled A Sharper Focus on RFID Privacy Issues:

So much nonsense is written about the privacy issues related to radio frequency identification, it's enough to drive supporters of the technology crazy. But things might be starting to change. The European Parliament's Scientific Technology Options Assessment (STOA) committee has issued a report stating what I've been saying for years—that RFID has had no negative impact on privacy. ...

AIM recently launched a new effort to educate legislators, journalists and the public at large about privacy issues and the many benefits RFID can bring to consumers individually (better service, more product information, faster payments and so on) and society as a whole (including improved recycling, food safety and border security).

Reflection on CMoG

The family and I drove down to Corning, NY to visit the Corning Museum of Glass (CMoG) yesterday. It was a good day, and the museum is definitely worth the visit if you have the opportunity.

As we were touring the museum, a couple applications of RFID and related technology occurred to me. (I am sure this also happens to at least one or two other visitors per year.) The first had to do with the optional audio tour. For a few bucks (US dollars) you can rent a hand held device similar to a cell phone. As you view the exhibits, you can key a number from the exhibit and hear a narrative about specific objects on display. The application of NFC is obvious. You could just tap an NFC-enabled hand held to an area near the exhibit to begin the narrative rather than fumbling with the key pad.

The other application occurred to me when my eight-year-old son asked to see the museum map. By this time we had toured exhibits showing the development of glass technology and applications from its discovery some 3,000 years ago through the Renaissance, and I am pretty sure he wanted to see how much more he had to put up with before we got to the "good stuff" at the end. If the map were made of electronic paper and an RFID system was used to feed location information, the map could show a dynamic "you are here" arrow. It could also show where you have been and bookmark exhibits you might want to return to. This data (excluding any personally identifying information) could even be downloaded as patrons exit the museum to provide the curators with data on how often individual exhibits are visited and how long individuals spend viewing them.

Why I Love PBwiki

PBwiki Wall Computer


I can so see my roommates and I doing something like this back in the day at RIT.

... Nathan, Brian, and I put together a computer that is attached to our wall with thumbtacks, displays hundreds of silly cats, and makes a sound whenever interesting things happen at PBwiki ...

Universal Controller

1983 Motorola DynaTAC 8000x:
The First Commercial Cellular Phone
Image Credit: Motorola
Used by permission

Do you remember the first cell phones from back in the eighties? By today's strandards, they were big, heavy and ridicoulously expensive. Also, the only thing you could do with them was, well, make phone calls.

Over the past twenty some years, cell phones have become small, light, and affordable for the masses. They have also integrated functions previously relegated to separate devices such as cameras, PDAs and MP3 players. As more and more items become radio enabled, it is not hard to imagine the cell phone of the future being able to unlock you car, open your garage door, control your home theater system, and adjust the thermostat in your home. Such a multi-function device is known as a universal controller.

Touch blog discusses the universal controller, asking questions such as:

If mobile phones start to do a lot more than voice calling and text messaging, how should the mobile interface change? What does a universal controller look like, and how does it function? Should the form factor change along with the function?

For a spoof of the soon-to-be-released Apple iPhone as a universal controller, check out this YouTube video. LOL