Say Goodbye To The Cash Register

 I started to notice stores using iPads as displays for showroom windows too. Now Verifone acquires Global Bay, the company that is transforming the cash register industry.

VeriFone said the acquisition is part of the company’s strategy to leverage mobile devices more going forward, including smartphones and tablets.

I see Verifone acquiring a company or technology that turns iPads into barcode or RFID tag scanning devices..to complete the entire checkout process.




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Can Wi-Fi Push RFID Into The Mainstream?

WiFi RFID tags offer an easy solution for Physical World Connection.

From Wi-Fi Planet Tuning InTo RFID And Wi-Fi

According to AeroScout director of marketing Josh Slobin, Wi-Fi is poised to finally push RFID into the mainstream

AeroScout has several hundred installations around the world, and has deployed hundreds of thousands of tags, the miniature devices that send out radio beacons used by active RFID tracking systems to determine their location.

“IT managers understand now that they can leverage their existing Wi-Fi networks,” Gabi Daniely says.

“They’re justifying deployment [of RFID] based on the fact that they can use the infrastructure they already have in place—versus having to put in a separate overlay network.”

“They can achieve the same result [with Wi-Fi] at half the cost [of other RFID solutions] and in half the time,” says Slobin.

Asset tracking for now continues to be the killer app. The technology is used everywhere from mines to hospitals to schools, to track the whereabouts of everything from laptops to giant front-end loaders to wandering Alzheimer patients.

Multiple Wi-Fi access points receive a beacon from the RFID tag and relay information about it to a server that calculates location based on a couple of methods—the strength of the signal as received (Received Signal Strength Indication or RSSI) and the time the signal arrived at different APs (Time Difference of Arrival or TDOA)

McDonald's Uses RFID For M-Commerce...Or Is It McCommerce?

From eWeek McDonalds Implements RFID And Mobile Phones For Ordering

This trial is much more an RFID effort than a traditional mobile experiment. Most of the phone's communications capabilities and its display are barely used, with customers having to download a McDonalds application into their phone

At each table, there is an RFID reader and a menu that has built-in RFID chips. Customers plug the reader into their mobile phones and point them at the item on the menu that they wish to eat or drink.

The McDonalds trial is interesting, if for no other reason than it is demonstrating yet another way to deploy mobile commerce. Some use the phone's calling capabilities and screen while others leverage the phone's digital camera to do some 2D barcode-selling.

Original RFID story from Korean Times

Mobile RFID Codes Coming

From ETN News Mobile RFID Code In Use

For the first time in the world, a wide range of products being distributed in the domestic market will be attached with a mobile RFID code from upcoming October.
　
Mobile RFID codes can be categorized into 3 types such as mCode with interoperability with ISO standards, micro-mCode for acceptance of two-dimensional bar-codes and mini-mCode developed for a mobile RFID pilot service.

The National Internet Development Agency of Korea had a public hearing on guidelines to establish mobile RFID services and management measures for mobile RFID codes in Gangnam, Seoul on July 25.

The Agency will officially open a webpage for mobile RFID registration (www.mcode.kr) by the end of this month. Before October when a formal registration service will begin, temporary codes (mCode and mini-mCode) will be issued to organization in need for mobile RFID codes.

Nokia has already developed an RFID phone and I think Microsoft is producing an RFID browser

Slippery Rock University Uses Physical World Connection

Imagine what can happen when the RFID reader is embedded into the mobile phone and the scanning environment extends beyond a college campus.

From RFID Journal Slippery Rock Adds RFID To Cell Phones

The Pennsylvania university is giving out passive 13.56 MHz RFID tags to attach to mobile phones, allowing attendees to pay for a range of goods and services, both on campus and off.

Starting in August, Slippery Rock University's 8,500 students and faculty members will each receive a passive 13.56 MHz RFID tag they can attach to their cell phones. This tag will allow them to pay for everything from laundry and copier services to movies and groceries in the surrounding town of Slippery Rock, located about 50 minutes north of Pittsburgh.

Upon enrolling at the university, students open a Rock Dollar FDIC-insured bank account, in which they (or their parents) can deposit spending money. The ID card's mag-stripe can be swiped at point-of-sale terminals or vending machines, with the money automatically deducted from the Rock Dollar

Pondering Primate Off To RFID Journal Conference

I will be pondering from the RFID Journal Conference in Orlando.

Hope to have some great Physical World Connection updates and pictures to present.