Dynamic Computer Corporation's Blog

Imagining the Grocery Store Afresh

dccblog — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 13:56:26 +0000

I really don’t have much time for the grocery store. I particularly don’t have time to go through their weekly ads, pick up coupons from the paper, and figure out where the best buys are to help stretch the family budget. I’m kind of excited, therefore, to see ShopRite’s RFID project with Microsoft.

The companies have combined forces to create a smart shopping cart. When the cart will display advertisements and discounts based upon location, which it will sense using an onboard RFID reader. So, if you push the cart into the detergent area, the cart will inform you that Tide is 2 for the price of 1 today.

The smart cart idea isn’t a new one, really. Dynamic is working on one of these for one of our clients right now, although it will be used for marketing research, rather than customer service or sales.

Microsoft and ShopRite are funding the project with advertising, which seems to be a fairly common way to fund the transfer of information nowadays. I haven’t decided what I think about that, because I am sure ShopRite could get ROI on their RFID investment in many other ways. Still, this is a step in the right direction.

My ideal grocery shopping experience:

I walk in, take what I want from the shelf, and walk out the door. No checkout lines, no wondering if the expiration date is okay, no need to get my debit card out of my purse. I walk past an RFID reader carrying the things I want, and my total purchase is automatically deducted from my checking account. That would be perfect!

Cool Video from ZDNet

dccblog — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 15:16:53 +0000

This is a video of and interview with the CIO of PG&E, one of the nation’s largest power companies. She mentions how they plan to use RFID to make their systems more intelligent:

http://video.zdnet.com/CIOSessions/?p=237

Happy New Year!

dccblog — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 16:09:17 +0000

Please have a happy and prosperous 2008, everyone! We at Dynamic are just getting back into the swing of things, and are excited to see what we can accomplish this year. We’re also looking forward to some great new RFID stories, as prices continue to decline and RF chips continue to prove themselves in the real world. Can’t wait to see RFID in action at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing!

The DCC Holiday Party

dccblog — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 20:19:21 +0000

Here are some photos of our evening out!

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Santa uses RFID to Sort Out Photo Problems

dccblog — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 16:30:22 +0000

Santa’s house, in case you were not aware, is located in the Arctic Circle near Rovaniemi, Finland, where the North Star is overhead pretty much all the time. Every year, he gets many thousands of visitors from all over the world who meet his reindeer, explore his home, and soak up the Christmas spirit.

Although they speak many languages, the Elves were having some trouble with their photography projects. People would pay for a photo with Santa Claus, but then the Elves would have a hard time locating the photo in order to print it out.

On Dasher, on Dancer, on Prancer, on RFID! The elves now hand each person an RFID-enabled ticket at the point of sale for the photography line. The ticket is tracked through the photo process and associated in a database with the picture file. When the guest reaches the printing area, simply dropping their ticket on the counter causes the database to recall the correct set of photo files.

Our Visit from Santa’s Elf

dccblog — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 13:15:01 +0000

The Dynamic Holiday party took place Friday evening after work. During our lunch, however, we had a special visitor!

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Near Field RFID testing in the Tube

dccblog — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 13:30:35 +0000

London’s public transportation system is one of the busiest in Europe, and all of the timetables and maps are still provided entirely on paper. This month, however, one thousand riders are testing the new VORTRIX system at the Blackfriars station. Using a phone equipped with an RF reader, passengers get information from ‘smart posters’ containing RFID tags, and located throughout the station. A custom application uses the phone’s web browser to display exactly what trains, busses, and transfers to take in order to reach the right destination. If you don’t enter a destination, it assumes you are from out of town, and suggests attractions and activities you can visit. If the test is a success, they plan to roll out to other stations, and then to integrate an RFID-based system so that passengers can pay for their fare by waving their phone.

Near field RFID is simply a different type of transmission, operating in the unregulated RF band of 13.56MHz commonly used for scientific instruments and medical devices. Near field RF devices have a much shorter range than the more ordinary RFID chips. The maximum distance a near-field device can communicate is about 8 inches.

Great Disaster Response Solution, Texas!

dccblog — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 19:37:01 +0000

This is a biased blog entry, of course. I love the idea of using RFID to track disaster evacuees. Dynamic created a publication for public health officials this fall informing them of ways RFID could help with disaster preparedness and response. So many people are afraid of RFID; I am pleased to point to yet another example of RFID harmlessly making society a better place.

If you haven’t heard, Texas is going to be issuing wristbands with both barcodes and RFID tags to evacuees following a disaster. Readers on the evacuation vehicles will gather data as people enter and exit the vehicles. GPS devices on the busses will report realtime positions for each bus, and therefore all the tagged people within that bus will be tracked. The goal of the system is to help reunite families who have been separated by a disaster much more quickly, and to provide real-time location data in case loved ones cannot be immediately reunited. This should greatly relieve the distress which follows a disaster when families struggle to find one another.

The second reason I like the Texas solution is the clever way they are combining technologies. Using the bus as a container for multiple tags, and tracking a single GPS location for all the tags in the container is a great cost-saving idea, and one with a long-proven track record in the RFID world. Using container-level tracking is an old standby, and a very effective one.

Likewise, incorporating both barcodes and RFID tags in the wristbands is pretty smart, since it means that the wristband can be read by whatever type of reader is available. This is, after all, a statewide system. There are clear benefits for using RFID in heavily populated areas, where benefits will outweigh implementation costs. Meanwhile the 20 inhabitants of Podunkville, Texas probably won’t need RFID readers for their designated evacuation bus, since it would only take a few minutes to scan everyone’s bar code by hand. Even so, this means Podunkville evacuees can be traced through the same system as their friends in urban Houston. Nice.

RFID in your own hands

dccblog — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 14:36:51 +0000

Samsung has announced a very cool RFID reader consumers can use inside a mobile device! This is what I’ve been waiting for; something that might someday make shopping in a store easier. The reason I shop online is that I want specifications and comparisons at my fingertips, and I don’t want to have to ask a pushy salesperson for information. I hope that in the future I’ll be able to pull data from objects’ RFID tags before making a purchase. I realize that’s a long way off, but a girl can hope!

“We are enabling anytime, anywhere mobile access to information,” said Dr. Chilhee Chung, senior vice president of Samsung Electronics’ System LSI division, in a press release. “RFID chip reader systems allow consumers to pull context-specific information into their mobile devices while on the go. Our mobile RFID single-chip technology is an important step in the evolution of ubiquitous computing environments.”

Food for Thought

dccblog — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 12:33:45 +0000

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”

- Anaïs Nin