http://www.millbrookds.com/prod_internet/millbrook_news/062007-1.asp

QR Code

A QR Code is a matrix code (or two-dimensional bar code) created by Japanese corporation Denso-Wave in 1994. The “QR” is derived from “Quick Response”, as the creator intended the code to allow its contents to be decoded at high speed.

QR Codes are common in Japan, where they are currently the most popular type of two dimensional codes. Moreover, most current Japanese mobile phones can read this code with their camera.

Although initially used for tracking parts in vehicle manufacturing, QR Codes are now used in a much broader context, including both commercial tracking applications and convenience-oriented applications aimed at mobile phone users (known as mobile tagging).

QR Codes storing addresses and URLs may appear in magazines, on signs, buses, business cards or just about any object that users might need information about including items in stores. Users with a camera phone equipped with the correct reader software can scan the image of the QR Code causing the phone’s browser to launch and redirect to the programmed URL. This act of linking from physical world objects is known as a hardlink or physical world hyperlinks. Google’s cellphone OS Android heavily uses QR codes.

Users can also generate and print their own QR Code for others to scan and use by visiting one of several free QR Code generating sites. QR codes and RFID, are leading technology to enable the “Internet of Things” which some believe will be a huge growth phase for the Internet. The “Internet of Things” is a vision where physical world objects link to cyberspace and cyberspace to the physical world.

One company reaping the benefits of MRO controls is Alpharetta, Ga.-based Intelligent Switchgear Organization (ISO), a joint venture between Caterpillar and Eaton Corp, that manufactures, sells, and services electric power generation equipment. Prior to implementing its control program, ISO worked with Fastenal, a distributor of fastenings and MRO supplies. Under the plan at the time, ISO had open bins for MRO items that Fastenal restocked each week and then invoiced ISO for. The open bins allowed virtually any and all employees to take free issue items as they wished.

“From what we saw, they did just that, and there was very little control,” reports J. David Lister, purchasing manager. Items included safety glasses, ear plugs, side shields, drill bits, arm sleeves, box cutters and screwdrivers.

ISO decided that it wanted to determine what if any cost reductions it could receive by actually tracking usage of MRO items down to the individual employee. Fastenal had a solution that seemed to be able to do just that called SmartStores. These are vending machines manufactured by Fastenal that the company leases to its customers. “They are like food vending machines, except that they are stocked with the operational items that we use the most,” reports Lister.

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Infosys was chosen as a METRO Group FSI partner on the basis of its shoppingTrip360 solution, an innovative managed service, that offers retailers and consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies with visibility on shopper and shelf activity with unprecedented granularity, a Infosys release said.

Infosys has implemented its shoppingTrip360 on Smart Shelf Pad in the “real,- Future Store” located in Germany.

Read more: economictimes.indiatimes.com

There are a lot of possibilities to consider.
One versatile option is used in cities like Hong Kong, Singapore and Kaohsiung City in Taiwan where riders use their transit cards to shop at convenience and grocery stores, cafes and gas stations.

Neysa Pranger, spokesperson for Regional Plan Association, thinks it’s likely that New Yorkers can look forward to a similar system here.

Source: metro.us

Unitech RH767

The RH767 is a Windows CE 5.0-based multi-tag HF or UHF RFID and bar code reader. It can read both EPC Gen 1 and Gen 2 RFID tags and comes with embedded RFID middleware for easy integration. Like the Unitech PA966 with which it shares the design and most tech specs, the RH767 uses the older 400MHz Marvell PXA255 processor.

Source: ruggedpcreview.com

However, today’s retail model is struggling. It’s still largely a system built for the realities of an earlier era—a linear, push-based process where products are manufactured in isolation and put into market en masse from factory to truck to store, for customers who do the majority of their shopping in suburban malls.

Global retail today sees lead times as long as six to 10 months, forcing vendors to make significant bets on inventory, consumer trends and distribution methods—bloating supply chains with a stockpile of $1.2 trillion in excess merchandise.

At the same time, retailers lose a staggering $93 billion in missed sales every year, simply because they don’t have the right products in stock to meet customer demand. And that demand is more demanding and immediate than ever before: in the US, over 92 percent of adults conduct research online and seek the opinions of others before they ever purchase a product from a store.

To do business with shoppers on a smarter planet, retailers and manufacturers need a smarter system, one that bends retail’s global supply chain to these new realities. It needs to be interconnected, so the system can be fed by customer insight at every point in the process—all the way from design to distribution. It needs to be instrumented, so every item of inventory can be tracked and accounted for. And it needs to be intelligent, so vast amounts of customer data can be analyzed and turned into real value in real time.

The German Metro Group, one of the largest and most international retailing companies in the world, has introduced RFID technology throughout its entire supply chain, to help them get the products its customers want on the shelves when they want them. And top clothing designer Elie Tahari has built an inventory-reporting platform that’s helped it better match its products to customer demand.

By building intelligence into our entire retail system, retailers, manufacturers and suppliers can eliminate inefficiency and waste at every step of the chain—crucial in the current economic downturn. Even more important, retailers can better serve the new breed of empowered consumer, whose needs for high-value, individual service and low prices will only grow.

Source: businessmirror.com.ph

Although most people are happy for RFID tags to be used in stores to monitor stock levels, they’re less happy about the idea of the chips still sending out a signal once they leave the shop. On a benign level, such tracking capabilities would mean a store would know that people in Hertfordshire prefer blue cashmere jumpers, while those in Aberdeen favour the brown versions. But on a more sinister level, it could also enable them to glean an unprecedented insight into our personal lives, and target their brands to us accordingly.

To those people who fear a “surveillance culture”, the ability to tag and track everything from our food to our clothes would be the next step on an already slippery slope.

Source: Big Brother is Watching You

The size of the second generation modules is thus 1.6 x 1.0 x 0.25 mm, and the module’s thickness has been reduced by more than half and its volume by 89 percent.

The modules can be mounted using ordinary adhesive, with only millimetre accuracy, on to almost any conductive surface to act as the antenna.

Source: EE Times