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On RFID trends, society and commentary |
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Amanda Hallet
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By Amanda Hallet on
11/10/2006 11:34 AM
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In my role, I am very lucky to be exposed to ideas in their infancy. Lots of ideas. Working for SkyeTek, where we are focused on the embedded reader market, the ideas about how RFID will change the world go way beyond tracking goods. I sit with customers every week who tell me about their visions. Some simply want to improve existing products by adding RFID as a feature to do the same thing they’ve always done – but better. Others are integrating RFID with sensors, controls, wireless networks, and other technologies to create new and unique products. If even a small percentage of these ideas succeed, we stand to see a revolution in retail marketing, life-changing advances in medical treatment, a change in what we carry in our pockets, and countless other improvements in the way we move through our day. We might even have more fun on our vacations. (I’m still a consultant at heart, so I love automation and streamlined processes).
There has been much press in the last few months about sec ...
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Of Frequency Wars and More Interesting Topics |
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Sean Loving
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By seanloving on
4/19/2006 11:09 AM
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It appears as though some are taking sides in the RFID Frequency War. Most agree the *war* is between 900MHz UHF and 13.56MHz HF as the better solution for item level RFID tagging. Last month at the RFID World Conference in
Dallas, Texas several people asked me "what frequency is going to win the war for item level tagging"? Then in just the past couple of weeks there
have been several noteworthy op ed, articles and events that continue to explore this question.
There was that report from Odinabout
UHF versus HF for Pharma SCM and ePedigree. One important note is how the
conclusions were based on their comparison of E-field UHF with H-field HF.
And there have been several other
recent op eds and articles [pdf]
that further explain some of the issue ...
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Embedded Reader Technology |
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Sean Loving
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By seanloving on
3/27/2006 12:05 PM
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While the buzz is squarely on Supply Chain Management (SCM), I happen to believe that SCM is the least interesting part of the RFID market. Frankly, SCM is downright dull when you start to understand enabled reader technology.
At SkyeTek, we divide the embedded reader market into two primary segments: dedicated and enabled.
Dedicated readers look and smell like RFID readers - things like dock-door readers, handheld scanners, label printers, etc.
Enabled readers are far more interesting, because most of the time you wouldn’t know or expect RFID to be in there - things like medical devices, exercise equipment, and consumer electronics to name just a few of the places we have embedded enabled readers.
Though it gets somewhat scant industry attention, I expect the mega opportunity in RFID will have almost nothing to do with SCM. While analysts have not covered embedded RFID readers (especially the enabled portion) and thus there ar ...
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RFID Implants for Humans |
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Sean Loving
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By seanloving on
3/23/2006 12:03 PM
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Now there’s a bad idea. When I first heard about the Baja Beach Club application I loved it, but I thought “Oh boy, this is going to freak out lots of people”. Then the Mexican judges started chipping themselves, then came the FDA approval for VeriChip, and recently the chipping of some US officials. I say go ahead and chip yourself if you want - but don’t even think about mandating implants on me, because I promise to take up arms against that kind of nonsense. In my opinion the worst thing about implanting humans with RFID is how it gives fearful people something more to worry about. Indeed, using RFID to track humans really touches a nerve, doesn’t it? For example I recently heard that RFID helped prevent an infant from being abducted from ...
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Hello World |
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Sean Loving
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By seanloving on
3/16/2006 2:00 AM
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For a long time my colleagues, advisors, and customers have encouraged me to launch some type of forum from where I can share my RFID expertise and express my opinions and perspectives from 10+ years in devotion to the technology and the industry. After considering several options, I have decided to launch an RFID blog whose initial focus will be on the dynamic impact RFID is having on the world of business and society-at-large.
But first, here is a little more RFID background on me and SkyeTek, starting from when I first learned about RFID while experimenting with barcode technology at Southern Illinois Universty, BSEE 1993. My career began at RFID startup company ID Technologies; in Boulder, Colorado (1994-1996) where we developed some of the world's first programmable transponder ICs, and readers too.
Then I joined ...
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