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Wal-Mart Cancels RFID Trial
EABird writes "CNet is reporting that Wal-mart has announced that they have canceled the RFID trial they were planning. Unfortunately, it looks like they are canceling it to focus on the use of the same technology in the warehouses and distribution centers instead, and waiting for the cost to come down before using the RFIDs in the stores."
Why is it "Unfortunate" that they're using a new tool for their warehousing? It sounds like you want them to abandon RFIDs altogether. Why the fear? Hell, they would never need to TELL you they're using them. How would you know? At least they're talking about it, eh?
"In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, 'Make us your slaves, but feed us.'" -Dostoevsky
I don't have a problem with them using RFID for their internal inventory tracking. Sure, we'll be facing this same argument all over again when the price does drop enough to deploy in stores, but it can wait until then.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
What's wrong with this?
I can't say that I don't give a fuck. I've just run out of fuck to give.
Didn't they start censoring their video games and pulling magazines because customers complained? How is that not listening?
No, but they might listen to a few million fundamentalist Christians concerned about the mark of the beast.
Geeks don't have a monopoly on privacy concerns. Perhaps if you'd not decided that the rest of society was "trash" and paid some attention, you'd know this...
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
Complain and fret all you want but that's the way it is. The benefits are too great for retailers to ignore:
- easy to inventory...no more midnight teams counting stock and taping notes to the shelves
- no more scanning trouble (dirty scan window or munged barcode)
- meta information can help keep stock fresh...embed an expiration date and have the product tell you when it's expired
- reduce loss from fraudulent returns - stores could tell if a product was purchased at that chain.
Those are just a few simple examples of the usefulness of tags. I do have some questions though...
- What's the range of scanners? What if I buy a candy bar in one store, stick it in my pocket, then go to another store. Will the scanner pick up what's in my pocket?
- People seem to be worried about being tracked. What will washing do to the tags?
I'm not sure why this is a "rights" issue. Is there a right to privacy written somewhere?
Look at grocery store membership cards. They've been out for almost a decade now. Privacy pundits decried that the stores would know WAY TOO MUCH sensitive information by correlating users to their groceries.
I think I've received two mailings in the last four years that said: "Mr. Miller! Here are some wonderful coupons that are tailored to your unique shopping needs!"
Both times the results were laughable. Not a single coupon was for somethind I used, or wanted to use, or might have been persuaded to use, based on the data they've 'gathered'.
For the tinfoil hats out there, if my experience in Government is any indication, Big Brother doesn't have the resources or money or true knowledge to abuse this information the way you think they will.
When was the last time cookies were used to betray your privacy? They were a big hot nasty item in the near recient past too.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
They pulled a couple of 'men's magazines', Maxim and Stuff because a few people complained.
They sell (unmarked) censored versions of music because the company find them morally wrong.
Consequently, I can't buy music there, since everything I buy has a 'parent advisory' on it.
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
In other RFID news today, Wired is reporting that the EU may implant RFID tags into the Euro, basically eliminating the anonymous cash transaction.
To stop counterfeit bills, not to stop anonymous cash transactions. You honestly think someone is going to setup a database and link all of the bills against your CITIZEN.USER_PK1 unique ID number just to make sure you can't be anonymous?
Sometimes I just get utterly confused as to what you people expect. Why do you guys even leave the house? I got a news flash for you -- you still don't have anonymous cash transactions because people still see you! Yeah, you better go saw your face off as it's a way of identifying you.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
To be completely honest, they've been doing a good job of tracking us anyway over the past decade. Of course, this is a bad thing, so it's nice to know that we won't have an electronic bulls' eye stuck on our package of Sam's Peanut Butter Cups for the time being.
Still, keep in mind that everything we buy with that special discount card from your local grocery store is linked to your name, address, telephone number, date of birth, annual salary, previous purchases, purchase trends, purchase times, and favorite cashiers. I would mind heavily if they didn't pay me for mine - of course, that's because I work at Meijer for mine, and I now have an associates' degree, so the tracking can be more easily rectified by finding a new job and leaving the 10% discount behind.
I would recommend finding tinfoil bags for your groceries soon, however.
Nicholas Eckert
vidstudent
Wired is reporting that the EU may implant RFID tags into the Euro, basically eliminating the anonymous cash transaction.
How exactly does that "eliminate the anonymous cash transaction?" Newsflash: CURRENCY ALREADY HAS SERIAL NUMBERS ON IT. The fact that the bill has a number is useless unless they know the details of every transaction in which it was ever exchanged. If you lend me $20 and I spend it at Subway and get $10 back in change... how on earth would they ever track any of that? How would the Sub-lady know that it was me who bought that sub?
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
I think the writer meant that it was unfortunate for the RFID industry that Walmart is backing down from the more ambitious plan; it's not exactly great PR any time a client downgrades their plans. Walmart was supposedly the main power behind UPC barcodes and hence their every move is watched...and if they're backing down and going for a less-ambitious implementation, it might be interpreted as a sort of warning flag to the business world that maybe RFID isn't quite ready for primetime.
It's not a terribly surprising move, and is pretty intelligent, honestly; this is sort of the retail equivalent of the "staging" concept in IT. Walmart's forging new ground, so they're taking it one step at a time. Warehousing operations are more centralized, there's fewer units of equipment than for a POS system change, and so on. It's also a little easier to keep it transparent to end users.
Please help metamoderate.
(Disclaimer: I am affiliated with the MIT Auto-ID Center.)
All these privacy concerns people bring up, about people tracking you down are really overrrated.
Why?
The stores (walmart and others) have the same concerns. They preferably just want their own scanners to recognize their own products. Why? If an average joe can create a reader that identifies the actual product, what's to stop their competitor from parking a van outside their store with a powerful reader? The last thing a store wants to do is let anyone else knows their inventory levels. They're practically on the same boat.
and why won't they have the incentive to kill the tags when you leave the store? If you're talking about Walmart, people that buy clothes from walmart most likely will go BACK to walmart at some point in the future wearing those clothes. The last thing they need is a line of 100 house-wifes lining up at the customer service center wondering why they were accused of stealing.
(just in case someone catches my userid, yes, I'm not in the service now, now I'm in sales.)
I've been selling manufacturing equipment for boxes for about 6 years.
RFID tags have many, many uses in warehousing. The idea that an RFID will somehow automatically lead to an invasion of privacy is silly.
Sometimes RFID tags are used so the forklift operator knows what's on a pallet they're moving. The traditional way is to hang a piece of paper from the load. However, paper can and does fall off, get ripped, etc.
RFID can also be used on physical portals to measure traffic. A huge amount of savings can be made in a warehouse by knowing where the physical bottlenecks are. The most cost-effective and reliable way to do this is a system of non-invasive sensing and automatic data collection. Ever been in warehousing operations? There's a LOT going on and it's easy to lose stuff. I've had trouble finding a shipment at a customs depot that was only garage-sized. Everything is a different size, shape, and appearance.
Will the FUD never stop?
Ever buy something like a power tool, CD, or memory strip from a retailer? There's an inventory control strip in there, right? Duh.
Beyond that, do some investigation to the problems of bar codes. Betcha didn't know there's a very limited number of options there which are basically exhausted. Ever consider the sensing difference between barcodes and RFID? Hmm...maybe you could know what something is and what's INSIDE without having to physically touch the box.
Yes, I know there are barcode readers that work at a distance. They don't work THROUGH other boxes. How do you know what's inside a mixed pallet of boxes which is sealed with plastic wrap? How better to detect a discrepancy between shipping documents and the actual items than by non-invasively knowing AND COUNTING what's inside such a mixed pallet?
RFID and other non-invasive knowledge technologies don't automatically mean you are being spied on. It's far more likely a way to increase efficiency and lower costs. We DO live in a price-competitive society, don't we?
As far as the reply about tracking what you buy. Uh...ever hear of credit cards and so-called discount cards at retailers?
Use a unique identifier RFID on piece of clothes-X to broadcast that number when exiting and entering the store...
It would be TRIVIAL to attach that Unique ID Number to the Credit Card Number or Bank Account Number of the person that bought the article of clothing. Cross reference that with all the other RFID tags on that same person and a VERY logical deduction could be made that the person in the store is you, the one that bought all that stuff...
Then, you nonchalantly walk about picking up this and picking up that and before you know it*, as you walk through the stores ads for all the items you "know and love" will start appearing on the screens that are right in front of you beamed cheerfully at you by the Wal-Mart TV Network... In time, those same ads could be calling out your name to entice you further...
The technology to do all of that exists today. The only thing keeping it from happening is that everyone is afraid to give it a go... Once one company does it and nobody complains... Another will do it, then another and another until it is everywhere. There wouldn't be any stopping it because there aren't any laws against it today and if you think that the average citizen will be able to lobby Congress against such a thing when nearly EVERY corporation benefits from such technology...
Well, you are living in a dreamworld.
(* The Before you Know it, is a flash-forward ten or so years...)
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?