“Before considering the issues raised by this technology, it is helpful to understand the basics of its operation. An RFID system is composed of readers and tags. Readers generate signals that are dual purpose: they provide power for a tag, and they create an interrogation signal. A tag captures the energy it receives from a […]

The FDA report on counterfeit drugs has only been out for seven months and already at least one group has stepped forward to show that a “track and trace” method of tracking drugs is feasible. On Sept. 28, a group managed by Accenture released its first report on utilizing EPC and RFID technologies across the […]

Intermec Technologies Corporation of Everett, Washington is a part of UNOVA, a $1.1 billion industrial and data services company. Founded in 1966, the company invented the first hand-held order-entry terminal in 1969, and two years later the first portable bar code scanner. Over the next few years the company rolled out the first commercially available […]

2004 may prove to be the year of the shakedown for the RFID industry. Matrics, a leading developer of EPC systems, has consistently placed itself at the center of the controversy as the target of two lawsuits and a monumental buyout. The buyer, beleaguered giant Symbol, is in the midst of a corporate awakening that […]

< ? $key="0430"; ?> As the summer of 2004 concludes, the RFID industry finds itself in a struggle over intellectual property. China, itself responsible for a large portion of consumer good manufacturing, considers developing alternate RFID standards to step outside the fray while companies like Matrics, Symbol, Intermec and Nanopower are making bold moves to […]

By Jie Weng, co-founder of ChinaRFID.org In the past two years, RFID has been pushed to the forefront of emerging technologies. IDC predicts that RFID related spending for the U.S. Retail Supply Chain in 2005 will approach $800 million dollars. A key impetus to the widespread adoption of RFID is the standardization efforts originally pushed […]

< ? $key="5729"; ?> The promise of RFID rests on two technologies: the physical recognition provided by tags and the network infrastructure necessary to make automatic identification worthwhile. EPCglobal has chosen a familiar but controversial company to develop the underlying EPC Network technology, Internet titan VeriSign. This second issue of RFID News details the organization […]

EPCglobal’s adoption of tag specifications is paralleled by the construction of a vast item tracking infrastructure. The EPC Network is designed to allow RFID users to share information about the condition and transit of goods as they move through the supply chain. The system allows trading partners to share some or all data gathered by […]

If you want standards, go to the body that has one of the best track records at developing them. Thirty years ago the Uniform Code Council (UCC) created standards around the barcode for consumer products. Now, it’s beginning to have the same impact on RFID standards through EPCglobal. Created just last year (September, 2003), EPCglobal, […]

The field deployment of RFID tags has been accelerated by last September’s EPC standards announcement by EPCglobal and Wal-Mart’s tagging mandates. But the EPC is important beyond its use in RFID tags: the “Internet of Things” can and should include intangible things. And the information architecture intended to make an RFID tagging scheme practical will […]