NEWS
Children:
Japanese authorities decided to start chipping schoolchildren in one primary school in Osaka a couple of years ago. The kids' clothes and bags were fitted with RFID tags with readers installed in school gates and other key locations to track the minors' movements.
Legoland also introduced a similar scheme to stop children going astray by issuing RFID bracelets for the tots.
Want more photos?
Click here to browse the full archive of our photo stories.
Pub tables:
Thirsty students can escape the busy bar and still get a pint thanks to RFID tables that deliver orders remotely.
Fulham Football Club:
Fulham FC has started issuing RFID-enabled smartcards to fans to cut queues at the turnstiles and increase safety around the stadium.
Around 20,000 of the smartcards have been issued to mainly season ticket holders and club members and contain data on matches each cardholder has paid for. See shots of the technology around the stadium here.
Air passengers:
It was also suggested by boffins at University College London that air passengers should be RFID-tagged as they mingle in the departure lounge to improve airport security.
silicon.com's audience called the idea, amongst other things, Orwellian, intrusive and detrimental to airport security. Click here to see the Best of Reader Comments on the story.
Tanks:
RFID has also made an appearance in the army to try and reduce casualties from 'friendly fire' incidents.
Last year Nato's Operation Urgent Quest exercise tested the potential of a number of combat identity systems under battlefield conditions. See photos of RFID in action here.
Hospital in-patients:In an effort to trim clinical errors, hospitals in New York and Germany have been tagging their patients. Visitors to the hospitals are given RFID-chipped wristbands to wear which are scanned by medical personnel to bring up their records and make sure the patients are given the correct dosages of drugs.
Blood:
The same clinic which tags its patients is also tagging blood. No vampire-pleasing effort this, rather the Klinikum Saarbruecken is using the tags to make sure the right blood reaches the right patient. Nurses will be able to scan the tags using reader-equipped PDAs or tablet PCs and check that the blood data matches the information held on an RFID-tagged bracelet worn by the patient.
The National Patient Safety Agency in the UK is also considering a similar move.
Suits:
Marks and Spencer has long been associated with being at the forefront of flogging ladies' undies. It's also now at the forefront of item-level tagging, having chipped some of its men's clothes. The retailer has avoided questions of privacy protection by attaching the tag to a label on the suit that can be cut off.
M&S has now extended the trials nationwide.
Passports:
One of the more controversial applications is soon-to-be mandatory use of RFID in passports. The US is leading the way in deployments and the UK isn't far behind.
As well as the obvious privacy fears that surround such rollouts, experts have questioned how secure the passports are with some claiming to have cracked and cloned them already.
Books:
The first item-level rollout in Europe has already taken place in Dutch book store BGN. Each of the books in BGN's Almere store is chipped and a second store, in Maastricht, will soon go the same way, allowing the retailer to track each book from its central warehouse to the shop floor.
Comments
There are 8 comments. Join the discussion
1. Mike W
School games kit should be RFID tagged, so we can see what happened to that new pair of football socks we bought to replace the ones that went missing at the start of term .... some parents, it seems, can't read sewn-in name tags, especially if they have someone else's name on.
2. Andrew
The Sock Monster Strikes Again!.
We have a serious issue with socks in our house. I have bought 15 new pairs in the last 4 months and like theur predecessors have dissapeared witthout trace! RFID tagging would help to resolve one of life's enigmas.
There should be enough data collated through RFID to bring agents of the SLF (Sock Liberation Front) to trial on charges of theft, causing misery and making millions late for work throughout the world!
3. Michael
Anybody who's been in Legoland, Denmark (whether as a tourist from another country or just visiting) during 'main-season' knows what it's like to be in Legoland: lots of people, lots of 'opportunities' to get away from the people you're with (friends, family and yes: even your kids).
Introducing the RFID-bracelet (you actually get to *pay* for the service...) is a brilliant idea to keep track of the 1-x children you bring along to the place.
I have been visiting the LEGO 'country' 2-5 times each season with my son (he's now 7, we started to go there when he was 3), and sometimes he asks a friend to join, or he's going with a friend and his family.
During those 20+ visits, I lost track of him *once* for approx. 10 minutes, and believe me: it was not a nice experience...
Of course, now he knows the place extremely well, and he also understands that if a situation where we're seperated should ever occur again, we have a certain place we'll meet.
I cannot figure out if the article thinks it's a bad idea to have your children tagged in a place like Legoland.
The place is growing bigger every year (there's actually room for it) and since I visited it as a kid for the first time 30-something years ago, it has at least grown four times bigger.
For the first-time visitor and/or tourist, the RFID-bracelet is a good idea.
I don't care if Legoland is using the RFID-data to keep track of what rides are the most popular, where people spend time etc.etc.
I'm sure they somehow knows that already - RFID or not.
4. Michael Curnutt
Can we start chipping puzzle peices so that when you are missing that ONE peice you can just do a scan of your house? That would rule.
5. Dilbert McClintock
There's an RFID tag on the base of my bottle of gin that I bought at the local store. Is there a satelite overhead tracking my liquor cabinet? Will someone email me when it's empty and time to feed my habit again?
6. anonymous
You should add aircraft. Which have been "tagged" with transponders for years (since WWII).
Seems to work well.
7. Christina Elliott
I love it, I love it, I love it,....keep 'em coming!!!
8. Ya mama
Fool! Those "lost" socks are sacrifices to the goddess of laundry, Miele. It is the price we all must pay for clean undies...