Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Automated Feeder Monitoring, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Interesting use of RFID

"RFID tags have all kinds of uses—many people tag their pets in case they get lost, new passports use them to store your identity and even your picture, and shipping companies use them to keep track of where merchandise is on its way to you. All it takes is a tiny, battery-free tag and a larger tag reader and antenna. The reader bounces a signal off the tag and gets a unique ID number back in response." - Read more here Automated Feeder Monitoring, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Pittsburgh Researchers Develop Implantable RFID for Orthopedic Device - RFID Journal

Great story about another use of RFID in the medical field.

Pittsburgh Researchers Develop Implantable RFID for Orthopedic Device - RFID Journal

Genting Poker launches first RFID poker table

Here is a cool story about an RFID Poker table.

LIVERPOOL, England -- (PRESS RELEASE) -- Genting Poker has today announced that it is testing its first RFID poker table at the Circus Casino Liverpool ahead of the live streaming of the Genting Poker Players Championship 2011.

On the surface it looks like a regular poker table. But hidden inside the table is a system of hi-tech RFID electronics that tracks the movement of playing cards, and superimposes that information on to a live video feed. The cutting edge technology, identifies exactly what cards have been dealt and replaces any need for hole cameras.

The feature table will be streamed on a 15 minute delay at www.gentingpoker.com throughout the tournament, showing viewers the hole cards and the flop, along with the percentage chance of winning the hand. Just like late night poker TV!

To launch the new RFID table, GentingPoker.com has today launched a unique ‘refund freeroll’ worth a guaranteed £10,000, at the Circus Casino, Liverpool at the end of this month.

Gentings innovative ‘refund’ freeroll tournament plays out from 30th June to 3rd July 2011 paying the top twenty players. Places are strictly limited to the first 600 entrants and to secure a place players simply register online at GentingPoker.com. A £10 + £0 buy-in secures a seat, but that deposit is fully refundable to every starting player.

There are 3 starting days, with flights capped at 200 runners per day. Players receive a full refund of their deposit, £5 on the day they play at the club and £5 to their online account after the tournament finishes.

The only way to register for this tournament is online, at Circus Poker or Genting Poker. This is a sensational freeroll, and the tournament can be found in the gentingpoker.com ‘Exclusive Live Events lobby’. Registration closes at 7:30pm on the day.

Find yourself playing on the feature table and the online world will be watching your every move. No pressure!

Read more

Genting Poker launches first RFID poker table

Saturday, June 02, 2007

RFID at the Airport For Security

After the foiled plan that had been planned to blow up the fuel supply at JFK airport it got me thinking about how improvements can be made using RFID for access to off limit areas at the airport.

They could have truned off the ID card of the suspected bomber within a few minutes of the planned attack at JFK Airport.

Saturday, March 31, 2007

Explaning RFID Is Not An Easy Task

There is no easy way to explain RFID but this is the easiest way I can think of in easy to understand for the common person that has no clue what RFID is.

RFID technology is used frequently today, but not many people know about, or even know what it is never mind understand it. RFID stands for Radio Frequency Identification and is used to store and retrieve information. This information is stored and retrieved using RFID tags or transponders. These tags are small and can be incorporated into many products. The tags have antennas that allow them to receive and respond to radio-frequency queries from an RFID transceiver.

The RFID industry is currently undergoing speedy growth and orgasmic changes. Market research firms forecast the market for products and services will intensity to the $7 billion range by 2008. With mandates from both distinguished retailers and government entities, many more companies are ready to infuse on the RFID technology journey.

How Does It Work

RFID works off of a system that relies on tags, tag readers, tag programming stations, sorting equipment, circulation readers, and tag inventory wands. RFID is generally used in security, because security gates are programmed to read the RFID tags and then either open or close accordingly. The system helps the information be easily transmitted via an RFID device. Systems have evolved over the years along with Generation 2 chips. The hope is that it will one day be available to everyone (meaning consumers) because it will be more efficient and cost effective to implement RFID processes.

There are two types of RFID tags:

*Passive tags do not have their own power supply, but rather receive their power from a tiny electrical current present in the antenna that is induced by an incoming radio frequency scan. These tags are good for a short distance tracking solution.

*Active RFID tags have a power source and therefore are much stronger and can be used over larger distances and are therefore more highly effective. Active tags also have the ability to store more information than their passive counterparts. Some active tags have a battery life of up to ten years.

Where is RFID Used?

RFID can be found almost everywhere. It can even be found in your local Wal-Mart or other big brand retailers. The little alarm that sounds if an item has not been scanned is made possible by a chip. These chips are also found on car alarms,and even animal tags. One other use of this solution is to track and detect motion. This could be very useful in the coming years in terms of prisons. This technology will be employed in many states in the coming years.

Who knew that this technology was so simple to learn.

Saturday, March 17, 2007

A video on RFID

There is so much information out there on RFID that is so wrong. This little video will answer most questions on what RFID can do.

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Amber Alerts and RFID

I was just reading all about the Amber alert down in Lubbock Texas for Mychael Darthard-Dawodu and it got my mind thinking. First I am glad that the baby was found alive in New Mexico but is there any way that the abduction could have been prevented in the first place.

If you are not familiar with this particular Amber alert the baby was taken from the mother in a Texas hospital by someone posing as a nurse. The infant was kidnapped early Saturday from a woman who walked out of Covenant Lakeside Hospital with the 5 pound baby hidden in her purse.

This woman allegedy said she needed to take this days old baby to get some test done. Any mother in this situation would hand over their baby to someone that had hospital clothes on. It has been said that the woman actually came in the room a few times posing as a nurse. I am sure the mother felt comfortable hat this was a hospital employee.

Sure a hospital is busy place and this lady was seen on a security camera exiting the building but what could be done to stop this from happening in the first place is what I am thinking about. I would never want to think about the feelings that poor mother had when they told her about what happened.

I believe that we could and should use some sort of RFID tag device, maybe a label in a wrist strap on each baby that would be hard to remove. They already tag the baby with it's name so they don't get all the babies mixed up. It would be easy to make that wristband RFID capable. That's another thing that could be tracked also using something like I am thinking about. Maybe a tag on the inside of the diaper where it would not be seen. I know the wetness part is a tricky issue but the label can be placed high enough on the waistband that it could avoid getting wet.

Each hospital could place a RFID reader at each elevator entrance and staircase on the maternity floor. When the tag goes through it a big read flashing light could go off and security could have stopped this from happening before the suspect was caught 100 miles away.

Once again I am sure the people that are against using RFID for anything will say that it violates the babies privacy rights but that is something that I bet every parent that reads about this story will just laugh at.

I am sure that there is already a RFID product on the market that would be able to handle this already. I just can't focus on one as I keep thinking about what those poor parents must have been going through at the time.

With the cost of Generation 2 tags on the decline and the important issue at hand many hospitals should look into some sort of RFID enabled device or something else to keep this from happening.

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Wal-mart is still on board with RFID

I was just reading the finacial times and they had a large article talking about RFID and what companies are using this and if they are expanding or not.

It seems that since the price of generation 2 tags have come into play there is more and more merchants getting on the RFID bandwagon. They mentioned a few companies like Wal-mart, and Proctor and Gamble that have seen an increase in inventory tracking and planning on expanding.

The guy in charge of implementing RFID with Wal-mart was explaining how much better they got their shipments into their customers hands during the holiday season. With better tracking on their end in the warehouses they know when to order more items from their suppliers so their stores and order shipping can have the items in stock.