From the RFID in Japan blog:
Light Bulb Says “I died”
Another application of the Fujitsu’s technology (the one used for notifying about lost children) is smart light bulbs.
It doesn’t even need a QR code. Some signal is engraved in a contact part of a light bulb. When a light bulb dies, it can then send out [...]
The editor in chief of Ziff-Davis’s Baseline magazine, Tom Steinert-Threlkeld, uses a British union’s Chicken Little response to RFID tags in warehouses to illustrate the weakness of the hysterics’ arguments. (Link)
The stated fear is they’ll be tracked every time they take a break or head for the rest room. The unstated fear: Every movement becomes [...]
My first experience with fixing an electromechanical device, and perhaps an explanation for my entire career, came when a friend and I broke the punch card reader at school. We felt obliged to fix it, since it was 3 AM and we weren’t supposed to be in the computer lab in the first place. So [...]
With so many recent stories about RFID being “the mark of the beast” I thought it might be worthwhile to highlight a non-sinister use of RFID for people.
VeriChip Corporation…a leading provider of security and identification technology, announced today that its “Hugs” RFID infant protection system has prevented the abduction of a baby at Presbyterian Hospital [...]
OK, I know I’ve been accused of a Pollyannish level of optimism regarding the tech-driven economy, but now I’ve got serious company: Forrester Research.
In a research report published at the end of June Christopher Mines and his collaborators say that the fourth wave of the tech economy (after mainframes, PCs, and networked computing as waves [...]
Man, I love a good paranoiac, which is just what John Dvorak has become. In the early days of personal computers he was a widely read and widely respected columnist. His insights were good, and his cynicism was generally low. But recently he has jumped the shark. (Of course, it may be me who has [...]
A couple of years ago I found myself with an open afternoon in London; I visited the London Science Museum and happened into a lecture on a variety of topics given by Kevin Warwick. I spoke to him for some time after the lecture and bought his book, which detailed his experiments, including implanting an [...]
From today’s Wall Street Journal:
Microsoft Corp. said it plans to offer consumers a “computer health” service this year as it seeks to protect its customers from an onslaught of computer viruses and other attacks…
Microsoft intends to charge an annual subscription fee for the service, which is designed to provide home-computer users with an easy way [...]
Lest you think that I’m a total Apple apologist, I have a complaint about the new version of the Mac OS. Yes, Tiger’s gorgeous, yes it’s fast, yes the new features are terrific, but in one area Apple has taken a step backwards.
Mac OS X was one of the first PC operating systems to recognize [...]
Following recent events in the news about the US State Department rethinking its mandate for RFID chips in passports comes word that the California legislature is moving forward with a bill which would limit RFID use by California government agencies.
The bill…would prohibit the use of radio-frequency identification, or RFID, chips in state identity documents such [...]