RFID: The Next Internet? 121
An anonymous reader writes "RFID Journal has an artricle about how an open source foundation is creating a new Internet based on RFID tags. 'The founders [RadioActive Foundation] liken the EPCglobal Network as a whole to the Internet, with RFID tags acting as URLs, and the tags' associated data being the Web site for that tag . The software the foundation develops, Michael Mealling adds, will act similarly to an Internet search engine. With Discovery Service software, for example, companies will be able to search for an RFID tag without requiring connected links between each point of the tag's travels.' Pretty neat concept, probably decades away."
Another CueCat? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Another CueCat? (Score:2)
I hope "The Next Internet" created by RFID works out better than "The Next Internet" created by CueCat. They'll never beat the one created by Al Gore...
Re:Another CueCat? (Score:2)
Make yourself a nice barcode reader out of it, or something else that is actually useful.
Re:Another CueCat? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Another CueCat? (Score:1)
Re:Another CueCat? (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, but according to CueCat's official website [digitalconvergence.com], we should hang on to our devices:
If you have a Cue Cat, save it. The patents and technology created by DigitalConvergence will again be available for business and consumer use.
As I'm certain they're not talking about the evil open source drivers that came along and ruined their attempts to spy on all those scans. Perhaps it has something to do with these Digital Convergence patents lying out there in wait:
Don't forget...
The dream was to connect items in the physical world to the Internet, automatically.
In January that dream hit a bump in the road and the servers were taken offline.
They will scan again...
2000 is calling (Score:3, Funny)
It's So Easy To Use (Score:2, Funny)
Re:It's So Easy To Use (Score:2, Funny)
OH NOES!!! (Score:3, Funny)
Anyone got millions of miles of tinfoil I could borrow? Getting the first one wrapped is going to take a while.
RFID is not the next Internet (Score:1)
RFID is the next XML. XML is a technology (do I ever hate that word) with limited but useful business applicability. It is format for bu
Great for shipping, but not necessary? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Great for shipping, but not necessary? (Score:5, Interesting)
I doubt that very many product handling facilities care about tracking product once it leaves their domain. So you really have to wonder who interest it is to keep RFID active once it leaves a retailer.
Re:Great for shipping, but not necessary? (Score:1)
They care. (Score:1)
(1) Proof of delivery: in the same way that RFID makes 'cycle count' so much easier, it makes proof of delivery a snap. Instead of arguing over whether 38 or 40 boxes arrived, you know which boxes arrived.
(2) Reverse logistics. If you need to recall something, or if you want to validate that a return is on its way, you can tell where it is in the downstream supply chain, and validate that it's coming back.
Re:They care. (Score:2)
How will it make proof of delivery a snap? Are you going to have the customer scan the boxes? They won't scan the 'missing' boxes. Is there going to be some magical, all seeing RFID network? UPS and Yellow Freight aren't going to keep track of your RFIDs. Their data networks are built to handle their own tracking/PRO numbers. They could care less about yours. Here is how you will determine whether your customer got the complete shipment:
UPS: track 40 tracking numbers and check delive
Re:Great for shipping, but not necessary? (Score:2)
Kinky.
Re:Great for shipping, but not necessary? (Score:1, Insightful)
lamp->turn_on()
lamp->turn_off()
No need to press user-unfriendly switches and buttons anymore!
Was I the only one... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Was I the only one... (Score:1)
"With our patented new CueTick(TM) Technology, you too can surf the internet with your dirty laundry!"
Yes, but... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Yes, but... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Yes, but... (Score:1)
Missing socks: an easy problem (Score:2)
Woo! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Woo?? (Score:2, Funny)
"Your keys are at the safeway on Main street"
Re:Woo! (Score:1)
Or maybe instead you could google for Bruce Sterling's lecture on spimes at Max Weber's, where he made that same joke last December?
archived at iconic-turn [iconic-turn.de]
here you go (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Woo! (Score:1)
At Last (Score:3, Funny)
Cool.
Re:At Last (Score:1, Interesting)
RadioActive (Score:5, Interesting)
Could someone explain exactly what they mean by, "[C]ompanies will be able to search for an RFID tag without requiring connected links between each point of the tag's travels." That sounds ludicrously ominous to me. Are we talking about tracking items with RFID tags, and are talking about being able to track them once they've left the store?
Re:RadioActive (Score:5, Informative)
Unless you have a scanner in your home and connect it to their network, I don't see why it would.
Basically, this is a new level of inventory and shipment tracking. The company is overhyping it with their analogy to the internet, and it seems to be impressing people in the opposite direction from the intended.
Re:RadioActive (Score:1)
Unless you have a scanner in your home and connect it to their network, I don't see why it would.
The year is 2015. Every citizen carries a Personal Identification Document with an RFID embedded. Every streetcorner in every city has an RFID reader. So does every airport and every highway.
Big Brother can find out where Citizen X is/was by searching the Citizen Locator datab
Re:RadioActive (Score:2)
You won't even have to have an ID card. The government can track you by the RFID tags in your clothing, put there by retailers. Plus, by detecting which tags are near your tags they know who you hang around with and where. Th
Re:RadioActive (Score:1)
I was talking about 2015.
Re:RadioActive (Score:1)
You can detect the tag anywhere, providing you have a reader. What I would need to know if you were looking to discover what you had bought from a store would be the link with its EPC code and from their the info on the product.
Re:RadioActive (Score:3, Informative)
From what I read we are talking about tracking them during the supply chain. However it appears to me that is the design goal. There doesn't seem to be a problem with putting a 'reader device' elseware. And with the technology based on Internet standards, as long as there is a CAT5 jack nearby you could store the info.
Here are some excerpts from the security section of the white paper:
" When EPC tags
Re:RadioActive (Score:2)
Re:RadioActive (Score:1)
508 and product tool tips (Score:5, Interesting)
If your vision-impared, it would be an amazing thing to carry around a talking box that can read signs and maps to you.
For product "tool tips", you could walk around your local best buy with a small device that could scan CD's and DVD's and hot-link to IMDB reviews or short trailors and song samples.
Re:508 and product tool tips (Score:2)
Signs, maybe, but please tell me how to "read a map" to a blind person.
Re:508 and product tool tips (Score:2, Funny)
security concerns (Score:3, Interesting)
How do you make sure you connect to the RIGHT RFID tag? Just because a tag has a certain ID does not make it the right one. They need to really address this right now imo.
Re:security concerns (Score:1)
New internet??? (Score:3, Interesting)
rfid:127.0.0.1
a new protocol:
rfid://127.0.0.1
or another flavor of what already exists?
http://rfid.slashdot.org
Re:New internet??? (Score:1)
urn:epc:id:sgtin:40070.345.5497498
Re:New internet??? (Score:1)
Hmm... I wonder what horrid color scheme that will use.
What's Happening? (Score:2, Funny)
The article contained no solid information!
How would this work? Would workers travel from computer to computer with RFID tags full of data?
I suggest someone give these people a bag of clues and a link to the documention on sending TCP/IP via carrier pigeons.
grammargh! (Score:1)
A New Internet? (Score:4, Interesting)
This sounds like the work of.. Marketing!
Re:A New Internet? (Score:1)
You'll have to forgive the reporters. They haven't read the technical specs on this stuff so the translations don't capture things like this.
The submitter got it wrong I think... (Score:5, Informative)
RFID tags, at the lowest level emit a pre-programmed number when activated by RF energy (the resonate, if you will).
There is a Dummies Guide on RFID - I expect it to be a big seller among the tin foil hat crowd
Re:The submitter got it wrong I think... (Score:3, Funny)
Now they're going to replace it with RFID tags, and they'll be able to track you a lot better. Hope this helps.
Re:The submitter got it wrong I think... (Score:2, Interesting)
Now, if they could just create an RFID tag readable by satellite, that would be
Re:The submitter got it wrong I think... (Score:2)
Think before you post.
Then exactly how does the Express Pass on my car window manage to be interrogated by the toll booth scanner? I do not drive by the toll booth an inch away. Or how about those shoplifting scanners that detect tags on items leaving the store? Just because your particular security ca
Re:The submitter got it wrong I think... (Score:1)
Shoplifiting scanners that detect tags leaving the store technically aren't RFID tags (thus of course, the reason they've been around so long). In this case, the signal
Re:The submitter got it wrong I think... (Score:1)
The Express Pass monitors single tags through a controlled point... To monitor the movements of "everybody everywhere" (the seemingly obvious goal of "effectively 'track' someone") would require a simply staggering number of readers.
Shoplifting scanners are the same, the monitor tags through a controlled area (the doorway)... And they don't *identify* "who" is going through the doorway, they let you know that at least one tag passing through the doorway is still active.
RFID i
Re:The submitter got it wrong I think... (Score:2)
Not at all. Put scanners at airport checkins and you can't travel anywhere without the government knowing about it.
Put one at a few major intersections, or on every bridge, and you can't drive without being tracked.
Put one at the entrance (or carry one through) a politcal r
Re:The submitter got it wrong I think... (Score:1)
as in "the cabbage patch doll will be the next hula hoop".
Re:The submitter got it wrong I think... (Score:1)
Re:The submitter got it wrong I think... (Score:3, Interesting)
RFID tags, at the lowest level emit a pre-programmed number when activated by RF energy (the resonate, if you will).
The most basic ones, yes. Other RFID tags have a bit more capability, including a small amount of read/write storage. Also often confused with RFID tags are contactless smart card chips which are tiny computers roughly as powerful as 1980 microcomputer.
RFID can't "displace" or become "the next internet" anymore than barcodes can. RFID tags have no computation ability, no networking
Sweet! (Score:1)
Internet != Web (Score:2)
Since when does having addressable content mean something's gonna be the next Internet? It sounds more like a networked hash to me.
I agree (Score:5, Insightful)
The world is becoming a scary place full of people who know just enough words to be dangerous.
Re:I agree (Score:1)
It seems to be a building problem in our modern society. People don't want to be 'left behind' technologically. So they use words (or worse phrases) when they don't know what they mean. Maybe this is a replacement for the Business Buzz Words of the 90s: See the Bullsh [dack.com]
Marketing Hype (Score:4, Funny)
This sounds like a press release from the .com glory days . . . mindless banter that uses some fancy buzzwords (Internet, RFID, URLs, Website) in hopes that unsuspecting folks won't realize that this analogy is poor at best, blatantly wrong at worst.
I could use the same analogy for my house. The house is the internet, each power outlet is a URL and each appliance's use of electrical current is the associated data for that website. Now with a bunch of multimeters, I have an "internet."
Analogies in the hands on the misinformed are a very dangerous thing.
The next product revolution? (Score:2)
Re:The next product revolution? (Score:2)
Re:It's not new internet (Score:1)
Internet != Web (Score:2, Insightful)
RFID is PEOPLE!! (Score:2, Interesting)
My interpretation has this being most useful on an INTRAnet where a company can call up an RFID that may have various category tags that would allow them to see that there are only 18 on the shelf, 42 on order, and 235 other products that meet the same criteria that are readily available.
I know a guy who works in IBM's Global Services
Or, how about this? (Score:1)
How is what this vendor is describing any different? RFID tags have identifiable sub-fields, but by definition each is unique (like MAC addresses)...
Hang on a second... (Score:4, Interesting)
Remember URLs? Ever heard of the concept of URIs? A 'name' could be given to a tag which resolves just like a domain name.
Come on people, we don't need new networks. We need IPv6 on the one we've got, and hook more devices onto that.
Re:Hang on a second... (Score:2)
Re:Hang on a second... (Score:1)
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-mealling -epc-urn-00.txt [ietf.org] and looks something like this:
urn:epc:id:sgtin:400700.3456.432123567
And using IP addresses is a flagrant layer violation. The IETF is already struggling with how to deal with services as opposed to IP addresses as endpoints. The best method is to convert what's in the tag to a domain-name and then lo
Re:Hang on a second... (Score:1)
To be able to see if an RFID tag was in range of a reader, or when it was last in range of a reader (thus "on the network" as the original responder mentioned), you'd have a network that resembles the cellular phone network where readers "register" th
Re:Hang on a second... (Score:1)
EPCglobal Network just a set of usage conventions (Score:3, Informative)
The EPCglobal Network is just a set of usage conventions for existing Internet standards and infrastructure for accessing data about the Electronic Product Code (EPC). RFID tags that adhere to the EPCglobal standards for tag encoding contain EPCs. The standard bar code that's been in use for decades is a degenerative case of an EPC.
The usage conventions include a way of turning that EPC into a domain-name (in much the same way that the ENUM standard provides a way of turning a telephone number into a domain-name). From that point on its really just TCP/IP, HTTP, XML, Web Services, and standard security mechanisms we all know and work with every day.
Yes, there is a large amount of incorrect terminology in that article. Anyone that has talked to a reporter about technical stuff knows that there's no telling what you're going to get on the other end. Suffice it to say, this isn't QueCat, it isn't a "new Internet", and it isn't about reading RFID tags from a distance. The stuff the Foundation is building is useful even if RFID tags were never deployed since it also works with bar codes.
I bet you think.. (Score:1)
That'
But does it have pr0n? (Score:1)
frightening (Score:1)
Re:frightening (Score:1)
Feel free to track my package. You have about the time it takes for the capacitor to charge on my degausser.
Re:frightening (Score:1)
Oh great ... (Score:2)
Forgetting something? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Forgetting something? (Score:1)