HP Provides Alternate Technology to RFID 105
NerdForceMaster writes "HP has unveiled a new alternative to standard RFID technology, a chip the size of a tomato seed that has 500KB of memory and can communicate at 10mbps. Lets hope this one is commercially availible soon." We beg forgiveness; dupe etc etc.
Hmm, where have I heard that before.... (Score:3)
Re:Hmm, where have I heard that before.... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Original article (Score:2)
Tomato seed? (Score:5, Insightful)
What ever happened to standard units of measure? This is a tech crowd. How about a size in millimeters?
I tried googling "1 tomato seed in millimeters", but that didn't give me a useful number...
Re:Tomato seed? (Score:2)
Re:Tomato seed? (Score:5, Funny)
Presumably HP is now using the "use food as units of measurement and the hungry masses will lap up your products" theory of mass marketing.
Coming soon:
- a laptop the size of a pizza calzone!
- a new PDA the size of a 8-oz packet of California sun-dried raisins!
- ink cartridges the size of a small tin of caviar (and more expensive!)
- a secure USB drive the size of a sun-dried tomato!
Re:Tomato seed? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Tomato seed? (Score:2)
Re:Tomato seed? (Score:3, Funny)
If the unit is 0.1 attoparsecs wide, they need to say it's 0.1 attoparsecs [wikipedia.org].
If it's half a nanoacre, they need to say it's half a nanoacre [wikipedia.org].
Re:Tomato seed? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Tomato seed? (Score:2)
Much better would be the "barley seed", which was used as a unit of measurement in medieval Europe. The reason was that over a wide range of growing conditions, barley produced seeds that were very close to the same size. In fact, one of the historic definitions of "inch" was eight barley seeds. For most purposes back then, this was good enough, a
Re:Tomato seed? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Tomato seed? (Score:2)
Re:Tomato seed? (Score:1)
What about five billionths of Libraries of Congress?
Re:Tomato seed? (Score:2)
Some will say dupes are bad, but that one is definitely enlightening, bringing new information to the table. I now know that the size of a tomato seed is roughly the size of a grain of rice.
Re:Tomato seed? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Tomato seed? (Score:2)
Re:Tomato seed? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Tomato seed? (Score:3, Funny)
$ units --verbose
1990 units, 71 prefixes, 32 nonlinear units
You have: 1 tomato seed
You want: mm
1 tomato seed = 2.5 mm
1 tomato seed = (1 / 0.4) mm
Re:Tomato seed? (Score:2)
PLEASE tell me that was a mockup for humor value. If there's an actual bit of software out there that had a "tomato seed to mm" conversion ratio, *I WANT IT*
Re:Tomato seed? (Score:1)
Re:Tomato seed? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Tomato seed? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Tomato seed? (Score:1)
Re:Tomato seed? (Score:1)
Finally! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Finally! (Score:5, Funny)
I kid... who needs the brain?
Re:Finally! (Score:2)
Re:Finally! (Score:3, Funny)
-Jar.
Re:Finally! (Score:2)
Pay a megabuck for a sex toy, give it a brain, then *IT* can reject you too...
At that point, ritual suicide is pretty much your only option.
Re:Finally! (Score:2)
TFA says rfid, "not built out" into industries (Score:5, Interesting)
Understatement of the week, for sure. I'm struggling to think of more than half a dozen consumer-exposed implementations of RFID. There are a few gas-station speedpass[tm] gimmicks, some high end automobiles use them in their keys, and various department stores use them to keep inventory from walking out the front door. And a few casinos are now using RFID chips to prevent various gaming schemes and track user play. I think that "not completely" built out is more than an understatement. For instance, the uspto [uspto.gov] currently lists 2114 patents including the keyword "RFID" versus 519515 including the keyword "OPTICAL" (if you think optical technologies are not a fair comparison, do your own search with your own chosen technology.. my point is simply that RFID has barely been explored by many industries)
Not that I claim to be much of an expert on RFID, but at least it appears technologies such as this will be less vulernable to the encryption problems [computerworld.com] that RFID currently experience. (previous link is just some random example i googled for..
Re:TFA says rfid, "not built out" into industries (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:TFA says rfid, "not built out" into industries (Score:3, Informative)
Re:TFA says rfid, "not built out" into industries (Score:2, Informative)
Ugh (Score:2)
I can't imagine how quickly I'd lose one of those!
Better stock up, guys, (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Better stock up, guys, (Score:2)
Re:Better stock up, guys, (Score:2)
$20 says Walmart goes for RFID (Score:5, Insightful)
From the article:
"Information transfer requires actual physical connection to the Memory Spot and Taub says they designed it that way. 'We don't want to increase the range of contact,' he said. 'We think it's just right.'
Of course, the requirement for physical contact to transfer data means that these chips will be completely unsuitable for many of the applications RFID's seem poised to handle. For example, merchandise tags in stores. With HP's chips merchandise currently protected by security tags will still require separate security tags. With RFID tags the securty tags can be eliminated. The concept of being able to walk into a store, stuff your pockets with merchandise, and walk out and be automatically billed as you pass through the door won't work with these chips. That may appeal to some consumers, but not to the people running stores. Less shop-lifting and no cashiers is a pretty sweet deal.
I can see these chips being preferable for some applications though. Although a RFID credit card might let you walk out of that store with your stuffed pockets without slowing down, one of HP's chips may ultimately prove more secure even since physical contact is required for them to operate. (i.e. No RFID-sniffing, or whatever they wind up calling it.) Even if RFID proves perfectly secure, the requirement for physical contact will probably be perceived as more secure by most people anyways.
The storage capacity on HP's chips is impressive however, and will probably open up entirely new applications that RFID never had a hope of filling. Imagine whipping out your HP-ecosystem-ified cell-phone or other such gadget and being able to play short video clips and sounds about a product just by swiping it past your phone. This could range from movie previews from a swiping a movie poster while just outside a movie theater to instructions on how to wash your clothes from a chip inbedded in the tags. Of course, I'm willing to bet that after a while every chip you swipe will try to sell you something before it actually does anything useful...
Re:$20 says Walmart goes for RFID (Score:2)
Soo... is that why they could design it to be smaller than true RFIDs? It doesn't have to transmit over an air gap & the physical connection means they can have much higer data-transfer rates.
My guess is that, once RFIDs have taken their place, HP's grain of rice will fill whatever space is leftover between smart cards & barcodes.
No touch? (Score:1)
Re:$20 says Walmart goes for RFID (Score:1)
But how will it be any better than RFID? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:But how will it be any better than RFID? (Score:2)
A little communication goes a long way (Score:4, Insightful)
Lost item locator (Score:5, Interesting)
unique ID. A detector with left and right LEDs would be enough. To never again go insane trying
to find my glasses, car keys, books, or remote (to say nothing of losing tools outside) would be huge.
Maxim
Re:Lost item locator (Score:3, Funny)
(or you could just tidy up)
Re:Lost item locator (Score:2)
Re:Lost item locator (Score:1)
Besides, I'm prone to absentmindedly carrying things around with me and leaving
them places I'd never think to look again (tools mostly).
Re:Lost item locator (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Lost item locator (Score:2, Insightful)
off-topic rant (Score:1)
Man, if it wasn't for the sex, cooking, cleaning, yardwork, extra income, companionship, day-to-day tasks splitting, good advice, and sex, I don't know if having a wife would be worth the hassle.
Re:off-topic rant (Score:1)
Maxim
Re:Lost item locator (Score:2)
I'm waiting for google to come up with a solution to this one. Maybe putting an RFID chip into everything would help. I have wondered occasionally what sort of "consumer" RFID readers might be coming available. And can I use any with a linux or OSX laptop? Or with a PalmOS or RIM gadget, for that matter.
Re:Lost item locator (Score:2)
But wait, you can have an RFID on the detector, and get a detector's detector.
That can be lost too, so you get a Detector's detector detector
Hmm
Re:Lost item locator (Score:1)
Ow. (Score:2)
Because 500k (Score:2)
Re:Because 500k (Score:1)
size matters (Score:2)
Is that just the chip or the complete assembly? I don't care how small the chip itself is, I'd rather know how big the working unit is. No one uses just the chip so its size doesn't really matter.
Re:size matters (Score:2)
"Boss, I'm currently making only 4 pumpkins per hour, but others with my level of expertise are making as much as 28 medium coffees per hour. I feel a raise of 4 sticks of gum and a bus ticket is more in line with the value of my experience."
hp invent ! (Score:2)
Not Really Better then RFID (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not Really Better then RFID (Score:1)
Re:Not Really Better then RFID (Score:1, Interesting)
Doesn't sound like physical contact is necessary.
Re:Not Really Better then RFID (Score:2)
Perfect timing for a EU commission! (Score:2)
Securiy, Privacy and Effectiveness (Score:2)
For example, we all know that printing a brand new barcode to cover the ligitimate one is as easy as a snap.
I'd like to see what happens if I stick an adesive RFID right over the ligitimate one or if I shield it before covering.
And with access speeds like the ones shown by the to
Industry Use (Score:3, Informative)
Passive vs. Active RFID? (Score:1)
I thought the distinction between passive and active RFID was that 'active' tags had a continuous power source. Passive RFID tags get their power, typically via induction, from the reader and therefore are relatively limited in transmit power and reading distance. This does not preclude them from having receivers and being read/write.
The little glass vial RFID tags made by TI come in both Read Only and Read/Write. http://www.ti.com/rfid/shtml/prod-trans.shtml#lowf req [ti.com]
Of course the HP device requires
Re:Industry Use (Score:2)
That's not true. If it were, the RFID reader wouldn't get a response. It'd be as useful as "write-only memory". And calling it a "receiver" is somewhat misleading too. It's more accurately described as a "tuned inductive pickup". When an appropriate RF signal hits the pickup, enough power is generated to power up the device, which then expends that power transmitting its contents.
HP Sauce (Score:2)
How many encyclopedias fit in a tomato seed? (Score:1)
Re:seed implants (Score:2)
why am I worried... (Score:1)
*Alternative* (Score:2)
Re:*Alternative* (Score:1)
forgiveness happily granted (Score:1)