What are RFIDs?
RFID has really been set alight by the endorsement of the technology by the retail industry. RFID tags are miniscule microchips, which already have shrunk to half the size of a grain of coffee. RFID tags work by listening for a brief radio signal and then respond with their own, completely unique ID code. The beauty of these devices is that they require no batteries - they are powered by the original radio signal.
Historically, companies, like Wal-Mart, needed a way of capturing accurate, real-time information about the products they make, move and sell. RFID offers that capability and helps companies boost supply chain efficiencies, reduce inventories, limit theft, improve product availability and add convenience for consumers.
Wal-Mart is not alone, Tesco, the biggest retail chain in the UK have also adopted this technology by installing Smart Shelves with networked RFID readers.
The brains behind RFID were driven by the Auto-ID Center, based at MIT, an unusual cooperative effort between academia and global companies to develop the Electronic Product Code (EPC), a system for identifying objects and sharing information about them securely over the Internet.
Proponents of the technology insist that this is not a big brother technology - the range limitations ensure this - once a customer leaves a store the unique identifier code becomes useless. If the RFID tags are used on packaging then once the packaging is discarded there should be no problem.
Tags: Radio frequency, RFIDs