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The End of the Bar Code
valdean writes "The University of Wisconsin RFID Lab, principally funded by a dozen Wal-mart suppliers including 3M, Kraft Foods, and S.C. Johnson & Son, believes that RFID could spell the end of the ubiquitous bar code. The big draw? Speeding up supply-chain management. Wal-mart's warehouse conveyor belts presently move products at 600 feet per minute... but they want to be faster. And better informed."
Things like this are fun to experiment with, and in some applications they're very useful and make people's lives better. But what do we really have to gain by developing RFID in our personal lives? So we don't have to "deal with" the cashiers at a store? We're eliminating the need for human contact .
"... but they want to be faster
" Why do they want to be faster? So they can continue to work a 40-hour week and rush home to...to what? The internet?
Sorry, but my life is too fast-paced as it is, the last thing I need is another thing to expedite my trip through life.
"And better informed."
I went to apply for a walmart credit card whan I was 18 - they already had my information and SSN - I was shocked.
They know too much already!
Did anyone else see that commercial a while back that had this guy in a long trenchcoat walking through a supermarket, stuffing things into his coat. He take a whole bunch of stuff and sticks in inside his coat and then walks out, and as he walking out a employee stops him and hands him his receipt for all the stuff he just bought.
"I have great faith in fools: Self confidence my friends call it." ~Edgar Allan Poe
This technology isn't going to replace barcodes. Many companies (like UPS or FedEx) would have a difficult time adapting their systems because of the large amounts of accidental "scanning" of RFID tags. If companies can use it effectively, that's great, but for many companies, barcodes are a more ideal solution.
The fact it took barcodes 50 years to be ubiquitous doesn't mean that it will take 50 years for RFID to be ubiquitous too. In fact, if you estimate the time it will take RFID to be adopted based on barcode history, RFID usage will be universal in 10 years. Why? Because during the 20th century (1901-2000) mankind made 20 years progress in terms of the rate of progress for the year 2000. So on average, 50 years of progress in the 20th century leading to the adoption of the barcode will equate to 10 years today.
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
I dont know about you, but over here ( Estonia ) we can for example purchase movie theatre tickets online and print them anywhere. The very same barcode-carrying tickets lets you in through the gates in cinema. How's RFID going to replace so simple and cheap system ?
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slashdot.org Errors found while checking this document as HTML5!
Will we be taping the chip to the form instead of the bar code?
Siemens Dematic was working on a conveyor belt so fast that the air resistance was lifting the parts, and I'm certain it was faster than this.
Here in Japan I have been surprised by massification in the use of bar-codes that can be read by the cell phones( Services in phones by docomo). They put this codes basically everywhere ( posters , web pages , products ) , and people can recover information from them with their cell phones . For example, in a poster from a cinema they put a web adress in this codes and people makes use of the camera in the phone to retrieve the web adress of the cinema from it and check for the schedules of the cinema. Some telephones as well have the capabilitiy to create bar codes , that can be displayed on the LCD of the phone and read by other phones. But, as I say , here is Japan and japanese people sometimes has trends that dont leave the island.
"We all know Linux is great...it does infinite loops in 5 seconds." -- Linus
With RFID, there is the possibly of doing entire cart checkouts. Roll the cart into the scanning area, it gets all the RFID info, gives a total and you pay for your items. No need to remove everything from the cart.
Of course, this means that you likely want to bag the items as you shop instead of afterwards.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
When the post office first started using letter sorters, there were those times when the system glitched and a letter clogged the sorter path. After a few hundred letters piled onto the stack, the sorter stopped.
Now consider a conveyer moving at 1200 feet per minute. If one package redirector misses, the system will have to stop for manual intervention. So how fast can the conveyer be stopped to avoid slipping and pile-up of other packages. Then how long will it take to un-pile those items that were moving at 1200 fpm and get the conveyer started again. It's like taking a trip. If you have to stop for gas and rest-room, the average trip speed is greatly reduced.
How does Wal-mart plan to get packages onto the conveyer at that rate? It will take twice as many people and twice the number of conveyer entry points and exit points. Then they will have to double the number of people doing the final stocking to shelves or taking to trucks. Also the number of trucks entering and leaving the warehouse will have to double and the roads will have to handle the increased traffic.
RFID speeds things all along the route and will allow much faster distribution, especially perishables like fruit and vegetables, and that also translates to less refridgeration time and lower cost in keeping environments cool or hot or in special gasses to control ripening rate.
Now consider what happens at the high speed checkout when one of the items registers as alcohol and the buyer is less than proper age. The line manager will be over helping at the cashierless line since the stupid system stops because the weight is not what it expected, and if you think Wal-mart is going to add another line manager just so you can get through faster...!
One of my fears is that with the new handling speed the bananas will be too green to eat and I will have to buy them two days early.
I'm a programmer for a company that develops supply-chain software. We are currently working on interfaces to support RFID, because many of our customers are suppliers for Wal-Mart. From our observations, it is true that the technology is not perfected, and the failure rate is unacceptable for industries such as pharmaceutacals.
I don't see anywhere in the article where the "death of the barcode" is prophecied -- although there is one sentence saying that it "could one day replace barcodes".
As far as Wal-Mart and their use of RFID, this for supply-chain management only. We are not talking about the trenchcoat guy in the aforementioned commercial. RFID is nowhere near being used in the retail sector. We are talking about loading boxes on and off trucks -- not an individual apple or bra. The items will still need barcodes for use inside the retail outlets.
As far as the privacy concerns, we are talking about a technology that is only readable from a few feet away. The Men In Black will not be able to drive past your house and see whats in the fridge. You're worried about chips being in your underwear when you leave wal-mart? Guess what -- Every time you leave wal-mart you walk between these two sensors that sound an alarm if you're carrying stolen goods. Thats because a little tag on the products alerts the sensors...how is this different from RFID?