SmartStores » RFID

Digital In-Store Ad Network Works uses RFID

admin — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 00:24:32 +0000

Novitaz, a company that provides marketing research services to the retail and hospitality industries, is preparing to launch a loyalty card containing an active 433 MHz RFID tag complying with the ISO 18000-7 standard. The NovitazInside Card would enable brands and retailers to provide targeted promotional offers and discount coupons to consumers, based on their spending habits.

If the system works as expected and is well-received by the stores and their customers, Novitaz hopes to make the deployment permanent, add additional Santana Row stores into the network, and begin marketing the solution to retailers nationwide.

RFID Microchip TV advertisment

admin — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 00:49:21 +0000

Would you consider an implanted microchip? Some believe that the world is heading for a future where citizens are chipped and as a result will be monitored and even controlled.

The chip is seen as the key to the modern world in that if you were unchipped, then doors won’t open for you, (literally and symbolically), you cannot purchase or sell anything, and you have no access to medical facilities.

Such a future seems frightening, but with manipulation of governments and media with subjects like terrorism, kidnapping, medical help, hacking crimes, credit card fraud, and identity theft, it may be that people will demand this technology in the name of ’safety’.

If this world does eventuate, then you could imagine that the initial advertisements for being chipped would be as friendly as possible given that it is such a controversial technology.

Does this sound far-fetched to you though? If so, then check out this real advertisement. This might help to convince you that being chipped is a real service. Also, note how the advert comes across as caring and helpful.

Wal-Mart to Embed RFID Tags in Clothing

admin — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 03:56:44 +0000

Beginning August 1, men’s blue jeans and underwear sold at Walmart will carry electronic radio identification tags. The company, the world’s largest retailer, insists the devices are crucial to improving the logistics of inventory management, while critics point to the privacy concerns associated with the tags.

The markers in question, called radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags, are implanted in the garments and can be read by hand-held scanners. Wal-Mart officials praise the portability of the tags and the boost in speed and accuracy they bring to inventory control. “This ability to wave the wand and have a sense of all the products that are on the floor or in the back room in seconds is something that we feel can really transform our business,” crows Raul Vasquez, Wal-Mart’s representative for its stores in the western states.

RFID tags are nothing new at Walmart (or many other retailers). Until now, however, the tags were chiefly used to track pallets of goods from factory to warehouse to the local outlet. After August 1, though, for the first time Walmart will bring the technology out of the storeroom and into the consumer’s pants — literally.

Apple patent seeks to reinvent retail

admin — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 01:18:55 +0000

Apple has filed a sweeping patent application for a technology suite designed to provide iPhone users with a broad range of real-time product information, special offers, sales opportunities, and related services in stores, restaurants, and other retail establishments.

The filing also points to the inclusion of near-field communication (NFC) technology in upcoming iPhones.

The system described relies primarily on two methods of obtaining information on products or services: a reader using the aforementioned NFC tech to get data from an RFID or its equivalent placed on a product, owners manual, point-of-sale device or display, and the like; or a matrix bar code to be read by the iPhone’s camera and decoded by an iPhone app or iOS element. Both an RFID or a matrix bar code, of course, would need to be placed on the product by their manufacturer.

Product information could also be provided by an internet connection, in an email message, or an in-store kiosk.

A host of examples are listed in the 83-page filing. Examples include:

Bellying up to a the bar in a pub and checking out the event calendar for that establishment
Walking down a supermarket aisle and reading recipes related to items on the shelves, complete with instructional videos
Scanning the packaging of a movie DVD and being shown that movie’s trailer, snippets of its soundtrack, and online reviews
Sitting in a coffee shop and purchasing the tunes that’s being played over the shop’s sound system
Dining in a restaurant and receiving nutritional information about your meal
Receiving the answers to problem sets in textbooks or reviews of novels in, uh, novels
Scanning software packaging and watching a video tutorial
Scanning magazine inserts and blow-in cards that provide info or discounts on the products advertised

Source: The Register

Editors Note:
Most of these examples seem to be obvious applications for RFID and mobile devices in general, so I am not too sure what Apple is actually protecting with this patent application. Most of these ideas have been known and talked about for years and even a decade or more.

Store of the Future

admin — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 01:43:10 +0000

Smart phones, Smart networks, Smart packages

admin — Mon, 17 May 2010 10:59:59 +0000

FedEx jumps on the “smart” wagon with a new web-based service.

FedEx Corp. (FDX) today is announcing a sensor-enabled device that can wirelessly feed real-time data about a package’s whereabouts, condition and other metrics to the Internet.

The service, called SenseAware, will launch this spring. Its initial target markets are the health-care and life-sciences businesses, industries that often need to know the precise location of the products (drugs, test results, samples) they ship.

The new device, when attached to a parcel, contains sensors that can provide temperature readings, data on whether a shipment has been opened or exposed to light, and precise data about a package’s location.

But FedEx says the new service will allow shippers and recipients to do more than merely track a package and its condition. The platform will help customers compile and aggregate data about shipments that will help them monitor quality or make better decisions about how to deploy their resources.

And so FedEx joins the ranks of companies building so-called “smart” products and services that apply computer networks and intelligence to various problems. (For a fuller explanation of various “smart” systems, see Fortune’s Jeffrey M. O’Brien’s story on “IBM’s Grand Plan to Save the Planet.”)

DIY RFID Implant

admin — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 02:05:02 +0000

Video of a person with a do it yourself RFID implant.

Android, iPhones, and RFID.

admin — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 20:37:46 +0000

An offshoot of RFID known as near field communication (NFC), along with the latest Android phones and Apple’s iPhone, are now helping the US to catch up to Europe and Asia in mobile shopping and mass transit applications, said analysts and other experts at this week’s National Retail Federation (NRF) conference in New York City.

Among the ever escalating numbers of smartphones available in the US, Apple’s iPhone still leads the way in those as well as other mobile application areas, noted David Dorf, director of retail technology at Oracle.

The more than 10,000 iPhone apps online in Apple’s App Store already include some photo-oriented “vision” apps. Examples include an app from Sears which helps you to locate a product in stores based on an uploaded product photo, and one from Wal-mart that allows you to use a picture of a room in deciding what size HDTV to buy.

With the recent entrance of Motorola’s Droid and Google’s Nexus One, for instance, apps of this kind are also headed to the open source Android platform, said speakers in an NRF panel session.

Developers are at work, too, on location-aware apps that will use GPS to send you discount coupons based on where you happen to be, and on augmented reality apps combining a mobile phone’s camera view with multiple layers of related information.

Meanwhile, commuters in New York City and San Francisco have been taking part in NFC trials involving the use of software-based token applications that bill their credit cards for mass transit use.

Participants have been able to hop aboard trains and subway cars simply by waving their phones in front of contact-less NFC readers near turnstiles in mass transit stations, said Sahir Anand, research director for retail, hospitality and Consumer Product Group practice at the Aberdeen Group analyst firm.The United States has long lagged behind some other parts of the world — most notably Japan and the Nordic countries — in mobile shopping and mass transit apps, pointed out Mohammad Khan, president and founder of ViVOtech. But with the advent of new smartphones and NRC, the US is getting poised to “leapfrog ahead,” Khan contended.

Shopping with the Smart Cart: DigInfo

admin — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 22:32:13 +0000

Fujitsu have upgraded their Smart Cart system using the latest in wireless technology. Using the IC chip within a mobile phone as a customer loyalty card, the system can display a range of personalized information. It can also display the carts location in the store and using RFID technology keep a record of the items in the shopping cart.

Adding the Analytic Dimension to RFID

admin — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 02:09:37 +0000

Earlier this decade, Wal-Mart first required its top 100 suppliers to put radio frequency identification tags on shipping crates and pallets, then extended the mandate to include all suppliers. Thanks to the Wal-Mart mandate, the first wave of serious enterprise RFID deployments are on the books, and the result is a C, maybe a C-, in terms of ROI and maximum utilization of the technology. Many have completed their Wal-Mart compliance requirements so they can continue to do business with the retailing giant. However, few have taken the opportunity to go beyond, into the other areas of their business. Fewer still have incorporated other data sources into their application or produced analytic value with RFID data.

This is not to say that companies outside Wal-Mart mandate have not been adopting RFID. Retailers utilize RFID in their stores to manage temperatures, control theft and shrinkage, influence store design and product placement and even experiment with self-service checkout. Indeed, with billions of tags ordered, there are numerous uses for this tiny technology.