RFID Is A Coming

From C/Net News RFID revenues on upswing.

Global revenue from radio frequency identification tags is poised to grow from $300 million in 2004 to $2.8 billion in 2009, according to a study released Wednesday by market research agency In-Stat.

RFID technology will appear in many industries over the next few years, helping businesses improve process efficiencies, In-Stat said. RFID tags can transmit product information such as origin, time of purchase and expiration date.

Verisign will manage the directory for looking up EPC numbers on the Internet. My question is how will they do this. What will be the device or method. It's not like you can visually see the unique identifer to "tpe it in" to a browser. The key to the RFID supply chain is being able to read the tag anywhere, with any device, in any part of the chain

Ranging in price from about 15 cents to as high as $100, In-Stat said, the tags can help companies manage their supply chains and inventories while reducing thefts and saving labor costs.

RFID tags can be thought of as bar codes on steroids. They contain a tiny transponder that, when it comes within distance of a reader, transmits its unique identifier, which can be matched to a database. EPCglobal envisions a unique EPC stored in an RFID tag attached to every item in a supply chain.

So it all boils down to transmitting the unique identifier from a universal database.