This is primarily being taken up by the material handling industry as a means of stock/inventory movement and control. Its primary purpose is finished once the tyre is installed in your car. (Return visits to the manufacturer or an agent not withstanding).
Any usage whilst the product is attached to your car is just a bonus (or a problem depending upon your point of view).
In the next few years you should expect to see RFID chips in anything that currently displays a barcode including clothes, shoes underwear etc etc. Gillette has ordered half a million of these chips - if it's cheap enough to slap on a razor, it's cheap enough to slap on just about anything.
As another thought, one of the primary VCs of "Alien Technology" (I'm too lazy to track down the URL) - the firm that's leading the pack here and incidentally the firm used by Gillette - is one of the worlds largest barcoding and labeling companies.
Food for thought.
(Hey, even those annoying individual stickers on apples could have a chip in them - that really is food for thought)
Another funny Airbus story I've heard was as follows:
(Apologies if I'm propergating yet another urban myth).
In the 90's in India or Sri Lanka (can't remember which), an airbus was being pushed across the tarmac by the usual towtruck.
It had it's engines engaged and warmed up as ususal. Air trafic control instructed the pilot to stop as another another plane would soon be passing behind.
The pilot attempted to call the tow-truck driver, but there was no answer. So the pilot applied the brakes.
Both the plane and the tow-truck stopped. But now it becomes interesting. The tow-truck driver revs his engine and pushes harder.
The plane begins to move backwards. The pilot (rather annoyed by now I imagine) applies the brakes as had as possible.
The plane stops. The tow-truck drive repeats his trick, but this time there is no way that the plane wil budge.
Instead the weight was taken off the front wheel. The Airbus software noted that there
was no pressure on the front wheel - so clearly the plane was airborne, but after checking the
flightspeed (zero) the computer decided that the situation was unacceptable, and quickly
applied full power to all the engines.
The plane broke free and thumped into the hanger before the pilot could shut everything down.
No-one was hurt and the damage was harldy spectacular - but this is what can happen when you send in a machine to to do a
human's job.
My same source summed up the design philosophies of Boeing and Airbus as follows:
Boeing: Provide every possible instrument and computer to assist the pilot.
Airbus: Provide every possible instrument and computer to replace the pilot.
When I lived in the UK (mid to late 90s), there were plenty of free ISPs (including the national carrier). All worked on the same premise - the ISP get's a cut of the telephone call charge.
Note that back in the old dart, local calls are timed, otherwise this would not work.
I live in a country that requires a high speed rail link between between two of it's major cities. At around 500km this would be a decent bit 'o track. Additionally the entire population here is crowded into just 10 large cities. This is ideal for a poin-to-point link such as a train since it will be able to compete in the lion's share of the inter-city market. Unfortunately I believe that cost killed the project - we're going to get the equivilent of a German ICE train or French VFT. I guess it takes a government with nerves of steel to be the world's first to use it's taxpayer's dollars on a new type of transport.
(Apologies to any existing slow maglevs or similar small sub-30km systems. These just aren't in the same league)
I'd sure be sore if the only benificary was some corporation at the end of the line. These tracks are hideously expensive to build where there's a perfectly servicable steel-rail track already in place that could be brought up to spec with some WD40.:)
During the US Lunar program, one of the last missions included retreiving a piece of previous unmanned craft that had already been sitting on the moon's surface for seven years (this is all from my leaky memory but the big picture is still correct).
A piece was snipped off with bolt-cutters and returned to Earth.
Upon examination, bacteria were found on the piece of moon-junk. Apparently a techo had sneezed on it during fabrication.
Anyway, the bacteria was placed on an agar-dish and dutifully went forth and happly multiplied. Even though they had spent years in a vacuum and a high radiation environment, these organisms were still viable. So we must indeed be carefull not to spread our filthiness around.
Slashdot Mirror
This is primarily being taken up by the material handling industry as a means of stock/inventory movement and control. Its primary purpose is finished once the tyre is installed in your car. (Return visits to the manufacturer or an agent not withstanding). Any usage whilst the product is attached to your car is just a bonus (or a problem depending upon your point of view). In the next few years you should expect to see RFID chips in anything that currently displays a barcode including clothes, shoes underwear etc etc. Gillette has ordered half a million of these chips - if it's cheap enough to slap on a razor, it's cheap enough to slap on just about anything. As another thought, one of the primary VCs of "Alien Technology" (I'm too lazy to track down the URL) - the firm that's leading the pack here and incidentally the firm used by Gillette - is one of the worlds largest barcoding and labeling companies. Food for thought. (Hey, even those annoying individual stickers on apples could have a chip in them - that really is food for thought)
Another funny Airbus story I've heard was as follows: (Apologies if I'm propergating yet another urban myth). In the 90's in India or Sri Lanka (can't remember which), an airbus was being pushed across the tarmac by the usual towtruck. It had it's engines engaged and warmed up as ususal. Air trafic control instructed the pilot to stop as another another plane would soon be passing behind. The pilot attempted to call the tow-truck driver, but there was no answer. So the pilot applied the brakes. Both the plane and the tow-truck stopped. But now it becomes interesting. The tow-truck driver revs his engine and pushes harder. The plane begins to move backwards. The pilot (rather annoyed by now I imagine) applies the brakes as had as possible. The plane stops. The tow-truck drive repeats his trick, but this time there is no way that the plane wil budge. Instead the weight was taken off the front wheel. The Airbus software noted that there was no pressure on the front wheel - so clearly the plane was airborne, but after checking the flightspeed (zero) the computer decided that the situation was unacceptable, and quickly applied full power to all the engines. The plane broke free and thumped into the hanger before the pilot could shut everything down. No-one was hurt and the damage was harldy spectacular - but this is what can happen when you send in a machine to to do a human's job. My same source summed up the design philosophies of Boeing and Airbus as follows: Boeing: Provide every possible instrument and computer to assist the pilot. Airbus: Provide every possible instrument and computer to replace the pilot.
When I lived in the UK (mid to late 90s), there were plenty of free ISPs (including the national carrier). All worked on the same premise - the ISP get's a cut of the telephone call charge. Note that back in the old dart, local calls are timed, otherwise this would not work.
I live in a country that requires a high speed rail link between between two of it's major cities. At around 500km this would be a decent bit 'o track. Additionally the entire population here is crowded into just 10 large cities. This is ideal for a poin-to-point link such as a train since it will be able to compete in the lion's share of the inter-city market. Unfortunately I believe that cost killed the project - we're going to get the equivilent of a German ICE train or French VFT. I guess it takes a government with nerves of steel to be the world's first to use it's taxpayer's dollars on a new type of transport. (Apologies to any existing slow maglevs or similar small sub-30km systems. These just aren't in the same league) I'd sure be sore if the only benificary was some corporation at the end of the line. These tracks are hideously expensive to build where there's a perfectly servicable steel-rail track already in place that could be brought up to spec with some WD40. :)
During the US Lunar program, one of the last missions included retreiving a piece of previous unmanned craft that had already been sitting on the moon's surface for seven years (this is all from my leaky memory but the big picture is still correct). A piece was snipped off with bolt-cutters and returned to Earth. Upon examination, bacteria were found on the piece of moon-junk. Apparently a techo had sneezed on it during fabrication. Anyway, the bacteria was placed on an agar-dish and dutifully went forth and happly multiplied. Even though they had spent years in a vacuum and a high radiation environment, these organisms were still viable. So we must indeed be carefull not to spread our filthiness around.