Retailers Plow Ahead With RFID Chips

iwon news ^ | May 20, 06 | BRIAN BERGSTEIN

[Nachum]

The roots of radio-frequency identification technology stretch at least as far back as World War II, when transponders helped distinguish between Axis and Allied aircraft. Over the years the concept has been greatly miniaturized, landing RFID technology in such settings as animal tags, toll-collection devices, passports, keyless entry systems for cars and wireless credit cards.

But perhaps none of these projects will have as much impact for consumers as the adoption of RFID in the supply chains of huge retail stores.

Mega-retailers led by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) have gotten their biggest suppliers to add RFID chips to pallets and cases shipped to stores. Now, rather than having people with bar-code scanners walk around to take inventory, RFID readers in warehouses can automatically tally items on the fly.

RFID is expected to yield substantial savings largely by reducing the frequency of the following scenario: A customer goes to a store for an item, only to find its shelf empty, even though replacement stock lurks somewhere in the back. It's one of the costliest problems in retail.

Simon Langford, Wal-Mart's director of logistics, distribution and replenishment systems, explains that a bar-code scanner can register that certain items have entered a store's back room. But not until one of the items gets scanned at checkout does the store typically get an update. In between, the item might be on a store shelf or still sitting among back-room clutter.

In the more than 500 stores where Wal-Mart has integrated RFID, radio tags give additional insight - they inform employees when supplies enter the storeroom, when they leave it for the sales floor and when their emptied cartons are taken to the trash.

A University of Arkansas study last year determined that these stores saw a 16 percent reduction in the times that products were missing from shelves. But Langford said that figure understated RFID's true power, because the study included popular items that sales staffers already were sure to replenish. When the research examined only items that Wal-Mart sold less than 15 times a day, the out-of-stock reduction was 30 percent.

Wal-Mart hopes to see even greater improvement soon by giving employees handheld RFID scanners that will direct them precisely to cartons of products they need to bring from the storeroom.

Eventually, individual products in Wal-Mart and other stores are expected to get their own RFID tags to give stores even clearer views of their inventory.

"That's really where the supply chain gets most messy," said Kevin Ashton, who helped drive RFID development at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and now heads marketing for ThingMagic LLC, a maker of RFID readers.

Some high-value items like TVs and pharmaceuticals already have their own tags. But most item-level tagging is a decade away.

First, tag prices must drop below their current 5-to-7 cent range. Work also still needs to be done to master wireless interference issues that can arise in RFID-dense environments. And developers have to assure the public and retailers that data on the tags are secure and not invasive.

"We're seeing the RFID industry get a little bit more mature every day," Ashton said. "We don't view the RFID market as some overnight sensation."

[drhogan]

"The time to panic is when you see the gubbamint settin up those big readers at the entrance/exit ,on either side of your house! "
____________________________
oh, man--is THAT what those guys are setting up outside?
i should have known it!
thanks for the warning!

[drhogan]

you can remove the chip, but it will automatically inject you with a deadly toxin, for which only the illuminati have the antidote.

[Eastbound]

"Ive said 1000 times . . . "

Oh, c'mon! LOL! Okay, I'd believe maybe 10 to 50 times.

Well, we've had two butcher shops and top notch bakery not too far from Wal-mart in the years past. Closed now. Specialty stores would probably survive, but I think Wal-mart's success is because it offers one-stop, under one roof shopping. In a word, convenience and competitive prices. For myself, I'm an old guy and can't even finish traipsing around Wal-mart to get what I need before I have to go home and take a nap.

I fault them for not having comfortable seats spotted around the store for us old folks, especially while standing in line for prescriptions for 20 minutes or so. I have to sit in the blood pressure thingy and pretend I'm taking my blood pressure. Also have to go to the patio section and pretend I'm checking out patio chairs. If they had nap couches, I'd probably check them out too! Darn good thing they don't sell mattresses.

[drhogan]

"I guess the gummit could create a super reader and drive through neigborhoods..."
_______________________________

they don't need to do that. i read on evilconspiracies.org that when a baby is born, the doctor inserts a chip into its brain, so the government can track it for the rest of its life. and soon they'll have chips that reproduce, so when the baby grows up and has kids, his/her kids will be born with the chips already installed.
i went back to the website so i could post the article, and, guess what? the article had been REMOVED!!!!

[mylife]

Dont they have hammocks in the lawn and garden section?

You rock!

I still like the idea of a place that allows that sort of thing, you know..customer service a place that takes your desires/needs into account.

Me? I have a bit of energy left so I dont mind walking next door for service.
Dont get me wrong, Im frugal. But I love service.

We waste a ton of energy on this conspiricay stuff and on the idea of instant gratification too.

Relax.. smell the flowers

[drhogan]

there are chips implanted in the TINFOIL!!!
(AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! he runs screaming out into the traffic.)

[drhogan]

"You haven't answered the question. What are you hiding, who are you protecting."
_____________________________________________

the evil BEHIND the evil; the conspiracy BEHIND the conspiracy . . . the ILLUMINATI!!!!

[drhogan]

how did you find me???!!!!

[durasell]

Oh how I long for the days when all conspiracies were the work of the devil...

[drhogan]

in "davinci code II", the author proves that the devil was merely a fiction created by the illuminati to better deceive the foolish masses.

[Blueflag]

Tin actualy doesn't work as well as copper. I'd recommend a comfortable hat lined with a fine mesh copper screen. You'll need to ground it, so run a conductive wire from the hat to the sole of your shoes. But run that wire insulated from the hat until you reach the 'earth' or ground point.

Avoid electrical storms if wearing the hat.

On a serious note, useful public info is available here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TEMPEST
http://www.tscm.com/TSCM101tempest.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFID
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFID#Types_of_RFID_tags


the Wal*Mart tag ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:EPC-RFID-TAG.jpg

[tacticalogic]

I'm pushing your buttons, I know that. Just bear in mind that RFID is a LOUSY way to spy on folks when far better technologies exist.

It does appear however to hold great potential for theives, cruising parking lots at Christmas with a portable scanner getting an inventory of the merchandise in the cars.

[durasell]

Several years ago I met a divinity student at a cocktail party. He told me two things that I have remembered to this day:

A)Hospitals should have more clergy in them to ease the suffering that drugs and doctors can't reach.

B)Sometime in the sixties psychotic delusions jumped from the devil to technology and government.

Interesting, both concepts had to do with the perception and shortcomings of technology.

[durasell]

Okay, it wasn't actually a cocktail party. It was one of those Manhattan roof top parties strung with christmas lights and several kegs of beer where girls in serious black dresses danced appealingly to the Talking Heads...but I still remember what the guy said...

[Malsua]

Watch out. You're going to be seeing the evil Data Matrix on mailings more often now. In fact, I'm directly responsible for Data Matrices on 30 million pieces of mail this year alone. Oh the humanity.

[Enterprise]

LOL

[mvpel]

Thank you for the ad hominem attack. Now, please explain why RFID chips in pallets and some packages are a risk to the citizenry AND add power to the State.

What makes you think they're going to stop with pallets and "some packages?"

They have designs for chips to be hidden in the soles of shoes, or in tags, or woven into the fabric of clothing. They have readers designed to be hidden in floor or ceiling tiles.

Each chip has a unique number, that individually identifies that individual product. The visionaries set aside enough bits to individually identify every consumer product projected to be produced for the next several decades.

Boxers or briefs? Bra size? In the RFID world that the visionaries see, that will no longer be a personal question, it will be promptly broadcast by your underwear to anyone with a reader, with present technology up to 100 feet away.

If one purchases their products with personally-identifiable means, such as a credit card or using a store discount card, that individual piece of underwear will be tied together for someone with access to the proper databases.

So not only will the stalker pervert hacker know that the pretty woman walking down the street is wearing a pair of pink Victoria's Secret Lace Tanga nylon/spandex panties, size medium, and a white Second Skin Satin seamless unlined demi-bra size 36D, he can find out her name, her address, and when and where she bought each of those items using which credit card.

How does it add power to the state?

Each individual set of items, even if not tied to a specific individual (purchased with cash, say), generates an individually-identifiable pattern of information that can be used to track specific individuals.

So for example, say there's a meeting of the Tibetan Liberation Front in the back room of a dimly-lit pizza joint. Suppose the government agent sets up an inconspicuous RFID scanner, and records the data of everyone who walks past it in the vicinity of that meeting.

They now have a map of connections between known and suspected associates of that organization, including the guy who went to the back room looking for the bathroom who's wearing Fruit-of-the-Loom size 36 briefs and a beige Tommy Hilfiger polo shirt under his jacket, and is carrying a packet of peppermint Certs in his pocket.

Suppose they set up the hidden scanners in the surrounding vicinity, like the ones being marketed to track shoppers as they walk through a store. Even if they don't know who Mr. Briefs/Polo Shirt/Certs is right away, they can track his movements by tracking the individually identified items he is carrying.

No more need for inconvenient checkpoints and paperwork inspections...

With RFID, people can be tricked into adorning themselves with all the unforgeable data the busy totalitarian needs to run an efficient oppressive State.

Have you heard about the way new color printers are encoding their serial numbers with a pattern of barely-visible tiny yellow dots on every page they print? HP and LexMark are RFID-tagging their printers, so that the serial number can be registered to the purchaser and point of purchase automatically. If you're a cranky government official who wants to target a modern-day samizdat for elimination, voila!

Ask yourself, why are the manufacturers so opposed to RFID-tagged product labelling? What do they have to hide, and why are they trying so hard to hide it?

[mvpel]

The whole paranoia thing hinges on the premise that gubmint seeks control of its citizens.

Ever been to China? Iran? Taliban-controlled Afghanistan?

They don't need to monitor actively all the time, just collect the data and review it when they have a need. Like the fireman who bought, using a supermarket loyalty card, fire-starter sticks for a camping trip of the same type used in an arson, as it happened shortly before the arson took place. He was identified by a police search through supermarket loyalty card records, arrested solely on the basis of his purchase, and put through a prosecutorial wringer before they figured out he didn't do it.

[durasell]

China? Iran? Taliban-controlled Afghanistan?



America isn't China or Iran etc.

[stripes1776]

the cool thing in RFID Is that an entire room can be inventoried in no time. Pull the trigger and walk throu the warehouse. No need to individually scan items for inventory

Okay, thanks for the explanation.

If I had one of the devices that energizes and reads the signals, could I inventory the items in my house by walking through the rooms? Could my neighbor inventory my house by walking around the outside of the house?