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RFID: The Next Internet?
An anonymous reader writes "RFID Journal has an artricle about how an open source foundation is creating a new Internet based on RFID tags. 'The founders [RadioActive Foundation] liken the EPCglobal Network as a whole to the Internet, with RFID tags acting as URLs, and the tags' associated data being the Web site for that tag . The software the foundation develops, Michael Mealling adds, will act similarly to an Internet search engine. With Discovery Service software, for example, companies will be able to search for an RFID tag without requiring connected links between each point of the tag's travels.' Pretty neat concept, probably decades away."
Good name, 'cause from what I'm getting, it sounds like something that I don't want to touch with a ten foot pole.
Could someone explain exactly what they mean by, "[C]ompanies will be able to search for an RFID tag without requiring connected links between each point of the tag's travels." That sounds ludicrously ominous to me. Are we talking about tracking items with RFID tags, and are talking about being able to track them once they've left the store?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Seems to me that the the two most obvious uses for this would be for blind people and for in-store product information.
If your vision-impared, it would be an amazing thing to carry around a talking box that can read signs and maps to you.
For product "tool tips", you could walk around your local best buy with a small device that could scan CD's and DVD's and hot-link to IMDB reviews or short trailors and song samples.
:::: the insomniac's digest
"companies will be able to search for an RFID tag without requiring connected links between each point of the tag's travels. "
How do you make sure you connect to the RIGHT RFID tag? Just because a tag has a certain ID does not make it the right one. They need to really address this right now imo.
Will it be a new internet:
rfid:127.0.0.1
a new protocol:
rfid://127.0.0.1
or another flavor of what already exists?
http://rfid.slashdot.org
Don't they mean, A New Website on a private network, that uses Cuecat/AOL "keyword" links? Wouldn't they have been better off just making a nice web page and have the rfid code load up the revelant web data?
This sounds like the work of.. Marketing!
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
In warehousing it's useful for keeping track of inventory movement. Databases are only as good as the people that use them, and people occasionally make mistakes. So while your database might tell you that you have 10,000 of product X, someone might have accidently overshipped, so you really only have 9,975. With RFID you can do a quick cycle count. Another problem in warehouses is when an employee records that s/he put the product in bin A, but actually put it in bin D. When you can have thousands of rack locations it can be next to impossible to find mistakes like that without doing a physical inventory. A time consuming process. From my experience in retail many, many years ago, I can see some benefit for finding 'lost' product there too. Retail stores have gremlins that move product randomly around the store. Because that Black & Decker cordless drill is supposed to be in lingerie.
I doubt that very many product handling facilities care about tracking product once it leaves their domain. So you really have to wonder who interest it is to keep RFID active once it leaves a retailer.
It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit. -- Harry Truman
After reading the not-so-very-detailed article (not surprising since it's little more than concept phase right now), they're only 'likening' this technology to the Internet.
My interpretation has this being most useful on an INTRAnet where a company can call up an RFID that may have various category tags that would allow them to see that there are only 18 on the shelf, 42 on order, and 235 other products that meet the same criteria that are readily available.
I know a guy who works in IBM's Global Services (consulting) group...they're pushing RFID like it's the second coming. In many ways I think it can be seen as the next barcode, only better.
Because we've been dealing with barcodes for years and years, we can now right some wrongs that manufacturers and their customers may feel exist in the simple barcode...they can go a long way towards getting the job done right the first time (or at least 'right' as far as today's standards are concerned).
The accessibility thing for vision impared customers at a store is a clever idea too - however I don't think this product is going to be end-consumer driven at first.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but there is no point in creating a 'New Internet' if it's just as easy to give each damn RFID tag an IP address. I shouldn't have to waste time translating between networks, if I ping an IP it should reply be it a server, an RFID tag, a mobile phone, a watch...
Remember URLs? Ever heard of the concept of URIs? A 'name' could be given to a tag which resolves just like a domain name.
Come on people, we don't need new networks. We need IPv6 on the one we've got, and hook more devices onto that.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
I read that under the US Army's Total Information Awareness program, every airplane, tank, bomb, missile would have it's own IP address (although it is going to be an encrypted network).
RFID tags, at the lowest level emit a pre-programmed number when activated by RF energy (the resonate, if you will).
The most basic ones, yes. Other RFID tags have a bit more capability, including a small amount of read/write storage. Also often confused with RFID tags are contactless smart card chips which are tiny computers roughly as powerful as 1980 microcomputer.
RFID can't "displace" or become "the next internet" anymore than barcodes can. RFID tags have no computation ability, no networking capabilities...
It's certainly possible to implement a TCP/IP stack on the most powerful of the current smart card chips, but I can't see how you could build any sort of network out of such passively-powered, short range RF devices. And those devices aren't properly called RFID tags, either.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Maybe I'm missing something here, but if I were Big Brother, I wouldn't be very happy with RFID as a means of tracking. As a personal user of RFID as a means of access to my work location, it's tracking ability seems limited. The range on the devices is pathetic (on the order of inches or centimeters, not feet or meters), so the number of readers required to effectively 'track' someone would be astounding, even for government.
Now, if they could just create an RFID tag readable by satellite, that would be something I could get excited about!