I have been researching RFIDs for about 6 months and published all my results on my RFID Resource Site - www.rfidexchange.com. That may be a good resource for anyone who wants to find out what these things can really do. The reality is that there is a great deal of overselling of capability in terms of the accuracy of the readers in capturing all the tags, the range over which the tags can be read (stated to be 10-15 feet, more likely to be 5-10 feet with large 2 ft x 2 ft antennas, and perhaps 6-12 inches with a hand held device such as the one in the original article).
There are also some massive data management issues in handling all the data that tagging individual items will generate - there is an interesting debate on that here - http://www.rfidexchange.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ ID=56 .
At the end of the day, the tags will be used to track pallets and cases between the manufacturer and the store, but I think it will be many years before it gets down to the item level in any real way.
Steve
Slashdot Mirror
I have been researching RFIDs for about 6 months and published all my results on my RFID Resource Site - www.rfidexchange.com. That may be a good resource for anyone who wants to find out what these things can really do. The reality is that there is a great deal of overselling of capability in terms of the accuracy of the readers in capturing all the tags, the range over which the tags can be read (stated to be 10-15 feet, more likely to be 5-10 feet with large 2 ft x 2 ft antennas, and perhaps 6-12 inches with a hand held device such as the one in the original article). There are also some massive data management issues in handling all the data that tagging individual items will generate - there is an interesting debate on that here - http://www.rfidexchange.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ ID=56 .
At the end of the day, the tags will be used to track pallets and cases between the manufacturer and the store, but I think it will be many years before it gets down to the item level in any real way.
Steve