Moving Forward in the Village

He moved quickly. Let me explayn why. Digital Villages is a ten years old concept with a huge glocal potential.

The concept offers new ways to approach hyper local problems and the development of solutions with the help of grass-roots tools.

RFID and NFC are twho of them. The barcode will be replaced by RFID one day.

The Future Store is waiting around the corner and NFC will have an important role.

RFID and Near Field Communication

The innovation train to Oulu will start January 13, 2010 at 6h30 am from Helsinki.

We could visit VTT or Nokia to learn more about RFID and NFC.

The train returns to Helsinki before midnight.

Close to fifty participants are talking and documenting open innovation.

We could also pay a visit to Idesco or Buscom but there is a time limit. Details will be decided in early January 2010.

RFID in healthcare

Leading health care providers are using RFID to achieve real benefits today—Learn how you can too!

The RFID Journal is according their website The world's RFID authority. I got an email today from them telling, the RFID Journal will host its second-annual RFID in Health Care event, co-located with the 3rd Annual Leadership Summit on Healthcare Supply Chain Management.

RFID in Health Care is the one event where you can hear from health care providers and leading early adopters share real-world case studies that reveal the business benefits of RFID technology.

You can download a with detailed information about the event from this location. Wive all the speakers here.

This is probably not "the only event where you can hear real case studies from companies that are using RFID" but you can learn what it could be good for:

• Improve patient monitoring and safety
• Increase asset utilization with real-time tracking
• Boost revenue with automated billing
• Reduce medical errors by tracking medical devices
• Enhance supply-chain efficiencies
• And so much more!

Learn How to Cut Costs and Improve Patient Outcomes! Plus, meet the leading technology companies and see their latest solutions.

Don’t miss this unique opportunity to learn how hospitals and health-care providers are using RFID today, and gain valuable insights into how to move from one-off applications to an infrastructure approach to RFID.

Lead more from the Journal.

Where is RFID money going?

If you want to know where emerging companies and their backers think the RFID industry is going, follow the money. Active RFID and RTLS providers captured about 38 percent of the estimated $433.6 million in private investment that flowed into the RFID industry in the last 18 months, an analysis by RFID Update found. That made active RFID and RTLS the top-funded segment, an unofficial title it probably wrested from passive UHF, which includes EPCglobal Gen2 technology.

RFID is not a new technology

World War II. RFID is not a new technology. It was first used over sixty years ago by Britain to identify aircraft in World War II and was part of the refinement of radar. It was during the 1960s that RFID was first considered as a solution for the commercial world. The first commercial applications involving RFID followed during the 70s and 80s. These commercial applications were concerned with identifying some asset inside a single location. They were based on proprietary infrastructures.

The third wave of RFID. The third era of RFID started in 1998, when researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Auto-ID Center began to research new ways to track and identify objects as they moved between physical locations. This research, which has a global outlook, centered on radio frequency technology and how information that is held on tags can be effectively scanned and shared with business partners in near real time.

Reading tags. RFID is the reading of physical tags on single products, cases, pallets, or re-usable containers that emit radio signals to be picked up by reader devices. These devices and software must be supported by a sophisticated software architecture that enables the collection and distribution of location-based information in near real time. The complete RFID picture combines the technology of the tags and readers with access to global standardized databases, ensuring real time access to up-to-date information about relevant products at any point in the supply chain. A key component to this RFID vision is the EPC Global Network.

Unique identification. Tags contain a unique identification number called an Electronic Product Code (EPC), and potentially additional information of interest to manufacturers, healthcare organizations, military organizations, logistics providers, and retailers, or others that need to track the physical location of goods or equipment. All information stored on RFID tags accompanies items as they travel through a supply chain or other business process. All information on RFID tags, such as product attributes, physical dimensions, prices, or laundering requirements, can be scanned wirelessly by a reader at high speed and from a distance of several meters.

We've been working with various RFID projects and alternating intensity since 1996. The growth of RFID can be expected to conincide with a broad use of this technology in connection with mobile phones, futures shopping and process / logistics projects with connecting objects as a central goal.

Big RFID News: Motorola Symbol Marriage

Big RFID and mobiel news about Motorola and Symbol marriage: Sept. 21, 2006. Editor’s Note: "Hello Moto, Hello RFID. Motorola and Symbol Technologies announced yesterday that the cell-phone giant will purchase Symbol for $3.9 billion. Symbol is a major supplier of handheld and mobile computers and auto-identification devices to retailers and consumer product goods manufacturers. How will this affect Symbol's customers, especially those that buy its RFID interrogators and tags? Only time will tell for sure.

Although Symbol is among the largest suppliers of RFID hardware, RFID tags and interrogators account for only 1.9 percent of its total revenue, according to recent SEC filings. Some observers suggest Motorola’s motivation to buy Symbol stems, in part, from an appreciation of RFID's long-term potential growth. If that's true—which seems likely—then Moto's purchase of Symbol should be seen as a sign that the future looks bright for RFID, and for one of the technology's major players. "

This might be a challenge to Nokia as well. Motorola is taking steps towards the huge potentials within the RFID applications jungle. Some very futuristic applications might be available for businesses and the general public within a few years time. This deal will take mobile phones into very new application areas. The future shop is looming behind the corner.