National Museum to use RFID

National Museum of Malaysia will use RFID as part of its asset tracking management on its artifacts. The project will be completed by April this year. Some 1000 artifacts will tagged with RFID.

Source: TheStar Online InTech 1st March 2007

RFID in Malaysia - Coming soon: ePlate

What is ePlate? It is one of the latest IT application of e-government in Malaysia - electronic registration system for new cars. Yes, it means that in the future all new cars in Malaysia will bear the e-plate, which uses a microchip equiped with RFID technology.

Transport Minister Datuk Seri Chan Kong Choy:
“The number plates will contain a microchip with the car chassis and engine numbers and the design will be standardised." (TheStar, 10 Jan 2007)

“Use of the e-plate is expected to significantly reduce the number of stolen cars being smuggled across our border points into neighbouring countries as well as help the Government to better enforce road rules under our camera surveillance system." (TheStar, 10 Jan 2007)

For more information, read TheStar, 10 Jan 2007.

RFID - Latest applications and success stories

This article provides a list of applications of RFID in various fields namely:

• Supply chain management - used in the tracking of assets and production pallets along the manufacturing supply chain
  
• Manufacturing and warehousing - tracking usage and location of materials and equipments during the manufacturing process
  
• Retail operations - helps retailers reduce labor and manual costs beside curbs shoplifting and boosts store productivity.
• Food industry
• Livestock - identification of the animals
  
• Healthcare - used in hospitals and on patients
  
• Security tracking
• Parcel and parts monitoring - DHL and airport baggage handling
  
• Pharmaceutical industry - Drug industry in US need to deploy RFID label in 2007
  
• Gaming Industries - used to prevent cheating on the gambling table by putting RFID on the chips
• Libraries - helps the books loan and providing real time inventory information
  

Read more here - Emerging Signs of an RFID Payoff (www.ecommercetimes.com, 18th Nov 2006)

IBM to produce Privacy-Friendly RFID Tags

The current application and usage of RFID tag has generated various concern among the users mainly concentrated on the privacy issues. Why?

• Tagged items carried by the buyers can tracked within 30 feets away, enabled its whereabout to be located.
• This will create the opportunity for thieves with RFID scanners to rob the expensive items and its owners.
• If the tag is removed, then the retailers will find difficult when the product is being returned, will all the data already missing.

With the introduction of clipped tag, the antenna can be easily teared off. This leave only the data in the remaining tag without being tracked.

Though this product is able to address the privacy concern, another area to be looked into will be the cost - cost for item-level tagging is still very high.

Detailed reading is avalable at Yahoo!News - Tech: IBM's Privacy-Friendly RFID Tag Ready For Production

Latest updates on RFID applications in Malaysia

Source: TheStar InTech (17 October 2006)

Some facts on latest development RFID in Malaysia:

• Local commercial spending on RFID is estimated to grow from RM9.06mil in 2005 to RM77.48mil in 2010 at a compound annual growth rate of 45.84%
• Key applications of RFID in Malaysia include manufacturing, document management tracking, transportation, security and access control.
• Document management tracking using RFID would account for 35%, or RM 27.12mil, of the total market in 2010.
• Strong demand for RFID document management tracking solutions from the financial, legal and public sectors, which require documents to be kept for many years.
  

RFID application in hospital

Source: TheStar InTech (29 June 2006, page IT18)

RFID tags better but cost more.

The article discussed the application of RFID in hospital. Some of the facts discussed:

• RFID tag stores information
• Doctors and nurses carrying RFID tag readers, perhaps attached to laptop PCs or personal digital assistants (PDAs), could retrieve up-to-date information from the patient’s wristband if the hospital information system is down.
• Convenient for doctors who could refer to or update patient records from the bedside, as they make clinical observations, prescribe medication or order medical procedures.
  
• Implementing RFID in a hospital information system could help cut down on errors as well as reduce the clerical workload for nurses, freeing them to get on with actual nursing.
• RFID tags are more physically robust than barcode tags, are reusable.

However, the limitations faced are:

• No Malaysian private hospital has converted from its barcode-based information system to an RFID-based one.
• Cost could be an issue, with RFID tagging systems costing about twice as much as barcode-based ones.
  
• RFID tags cost from 15 cents (54sen) to US$10 (RM38) each – depending on data capacity and whether the tag is “active” (carries a radio transmitter), among other things – a barcode tag only costs as much as the paper it is printed on.
  
• Issuing doctors and nurses with additional IT equipment ranging from Tablet PCs to PDAs and laptop PCs.
  
• This would add to the implementation costs to the hospital,
  
• Raise potential security and privacy risks for confidential patient data if the devices are lost or stolen.

Sooner or later, RFID will be a common application in hospitals, and may be in schools to.

RFID - An Introduction

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) was invented more than 50 years ago but has so far failed to live up to its promise to connect everyday things through a wireless network and make it possible, in theory, to track every item ever produced.

Computer scientists dub RFID "The Internet of Things," in which anything from shampoo bottles to marathon runners can be tracked using radio tags. Criticism from some camps is that the technology can lead to an unacceptable invasion of privacy.

www.cnn.com Technology segment have a comprehensive discussion on RFID. Read here.

Wikipedia provides a detail explaination on RFID. Click here.

Small business computing.com also provide a brief definition here.

The Free Dictionary.com - here.

Finally, a blog specialised on RFID which worth looking into.

RFID in Europe

Still remember RFID? Radio Frequency Identification. Here is a story on the application of RFID in Europe which comes together with the concern for privacy issues.

Issue:

Europe is feeling pressure to boost its efforts to speed the global adoption of radio frequency identification (RFID), a wireless technology already used by U.S. retail giant Wal-Mart for much of its merchandise and shipping operations. It is used not only commercially in the U.S., but is also an important part of some new passports in America.

The European government and industry leaders stressed the need to balance privacy and the potential for misuse with the need to adopt RFID across industry to be competitive in the world.

While Europe lags behind the U.S. in terms of its embrace of RFID -- a worrisome technology to privacy watchdogs -- the U.S. is not speeding through its RFID adoption either

RFID will become increasingly important in terms of security and being able to keep track of shipping.

Main challenge:

The main difference between the U.S. and Europe on the matter of RFID and privacy is that European law already governs what information can or cannot be collected on individuals

More reading here (www.ecommercetimes.com)