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RFID Coming To A Cell Phone Near You
Roland Piquepaille writes "In "RFID Goes Mobile", Red Herring reports that Nokia has quietly launched last month the first RFID-enabled cell phone. The Mobile RFID Kit will be available later this year and only for the 5140 model. This accessory allows the user to easily launch services and conveniently access phone functions simply by touching the phone to an RFID tag. The phone accesses the RFID tag data when an RFID reader emits a short-range radio signal that powers a microchip on the tag, allowing the ID information and other stored data to be read. Nokia doesn't intend to sell this kit to ordinary consumers like you and me. Instead, the RFID kit is designed to extend the mobility of workforce already on the move, such as security guards or maintenance people. This overview contains other details and references about the kit."
This would actually be handy for consumers like the bar-code scanner thingy... When you're in the store, just scan the barcode (or RFID chip) and get price comparisons from other stores. Or reviews and user opinions, etc.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Finally, an RFID tool that is on our side. If we can't stop the spread of them, at least now we should be able to see what their purpose is. In theory, you could look up any tag you come across, and find out, via some databse some where, why it is installed, and what it wants to learn about you.
For a minute, I thought maybe it was an article about RFID tags in phones, which is just as inevitable.
-Patrick
"They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
how come nokia's web site for this phone mentions absolutely nothing about RFID?
well, it started...I'm quite possitive that RFIDs on the phones, on the PDAs and every mobile device won't be much of a success, due to the fact that most of the people resent on having someone scanning their phones/devices and tracking them down. OTOH, as i have previously mentioned in an older post, i used to participate in a reasearch at my uni for a major mobile phone company for the implementation of fingerprint recognition on cell phones and other mobile devices (PDAs,notebooks,etc). Personally i preffer the fingerprint sollution rather than the RFID one because the phone's security is up to you and not as "hollow" as RFID can be by the use of reverse engineering. It's simple, if your phone is stolen the perp needs to have your thumb or else the phone is just another piece of garbage. You cannot reverse engineer a fingerprint simply because you cannot have a clue on how the actual fingerpint is shaped, while the scanning software is something very ubiquitous and tough to be "hacked" by someone who hasn't got a clue of the scanning algorithms. Now with RFID, whack it off the phone/device and you have an ordinary device to play with .
Roses are red, violets are blue, most poems rhyme, but this one doesn't...
Features like this have lots of potential to cut down on paperwork by enhancing automation of routine tasks. For example, you might now need to fill out forms to signal that you have done a particular task. Instead, with this RFID reader in the phone, touch some tag and the information in the tag will be automatically sent to some remote database over wireless.
This could lead to opening up new ways to improve a company's operational processes, cutting out steps where digital data is ofen has to be retyped into a different system.
Moreover, vendors are now positioning smartphones more and more as "enterprise" productivity solution. Microsoft has also recently come out with a Location Based Services connector for Excahneg server that enables companies to monitor the location of thei service staff and route them efficiently by sending emails or test messages.
I came across a similar proposal a few years ago.
Rather than using RFID, the said idea was to inversely uses RF smartcard chips. For example, maintanence staff are required to carry a mobile smartcard reader with a built in database, and the smartcard chips are installed at specific locations on where they are supposed to do their maintanence duties. Whenever they are at their supposed locations, they'd need to use the reader on the chips before going on to their next location.
This adds some security and ensures the maintanence crew to actually go on site.
However no one in the company took the idea to execution; perhaps it was'nt sexy enough..?
I wonder how's this RFID thingie gonna be accepted in the real world.
The company that does security for us (and probably for Nokia - I work about two km from their headquarters) uses little barcode readers. As the guard does her rounds, she swipes a little bar-code in each room. Presumably the security company logs that info and thereby knows exactly when each room in the building was checked.
I bet somebody at Nokia saw their security guards doing the same thing and got a bright idea...
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
When you walk near my RFID tag that I leave at the mall, does it cause your phone to automatically dial my 1-900 number at $20/min?
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Of course, once the planet is littered with RFID tags in everything (after all, isn't 94.6% of everything in the world purchased at a Wal-Mart now?), we geeks will need a way to find out what data each contains.
The big corp monopolies won't be giving up their data, so it'll be up to us to collect, organize, and disseminate the data in these tags. Bu then, you have to wonder if even reading those tags won't be some kind of violation of the DMCA or other IP protection laws. Damn laws.