Recently, RFID implementations at two hotels were announced: one by Marriot Hotels and one by Aloft Hotels.

Marriott will use the VingCard Elsafe’s VISION at the Venezuela Marriott Hotel Playa Grande in Catia la Mar. It provides a solution to control access to every door on the property. According to the press release (which looks more like an VingCard Elsafe advertorial) this should be very easy to use for staff. And it will enable guest to remote check-in with an NFC enabled phone instead of with a card issued by the hotel, with which they can not only open the room, but also the safe – well, if the hotel chooses to use these features.

Aloft, also in partnership with VingCard Elsafe, is using branded RFID keycards for their customers of the Aloft Hotel in Lexington (MA), United States. Guest can use this personal card as a keycard - and can therefore skip the FrontDesk check-in. The keycard only needs to be issued once, and can then be used for all future stays. Eventually, the card can also be used to pay for drinks, foods and other purchases in the hotel. I wonder if they will also make the next step to use NFC enabled phones as tokens instead of the keycard, like Marriott might do.

But it all sounds pretty familiar to me – Am I having a déjà vu? lees verder…

Recently I noticed this RFID concept: Live Checking Card

“Do you know who the Green Monster is? It’s that skunk-of-a-bill that you get at the end of the month; it devours all your Dollars because you overspent! Only if you could use something like the Live Checking Card! A Credit Card won’t let you go beyond your limits. It’s a digital thing with an E-ink display that allows you to check your payment history on it. It even tracks your bank account’s transaction through RFID. A cumulative amount shows up on the screen every time you swipe the card; giving you your account balance on your finger tips.”

Sounds nice, and looks cool - check out the clip on YouTube.

But would it work? lees verder…

December only just started, and the first RFID predictions for next year already appear on the web. So what will 2010 bring us for RFID?

• Luxoft predicts that further improvements in RFID tags (besides other things) will bring the world of social media onto a higher level.
• Jack Uldrich predicts that a new iPhone app interacting with an RFID chip embedded in the arm of an elderly Alzheimer patient will save the man from freezing to death after he strolled away from his residence in the middle of the night and became disoriented.
• Gene Munster from Piper Jaffray from predits the iPhone 4G with RFID reader
• ABI Research is predicting things that will not happen in 2010, including a decrease in overall 2010 RFID spending (their other ‘what will not happen in 2010’s are better formulated).
• Mark Roberti (RFID Journal) is optimistic about 2010, but thinks RFID vendors will have to get smarter about the way they market, just as end users have to get smarter about how they use technology to reduce costs and improve the way they do business.
• A more vivid prediction is made about 2030, when RFID will be ubiquitous, according to the RFID Journal writers and editors.
• AIM Global looks forward to 2010 as a year in which RFID implementations will continue to grow - while making use of the latest security measures.

In the past few days several posts appeared on the Web regarding iPhone and RFID; it started with the post on Near Field Communications World – where they correctly indicate that this not the first news on iPhone and RFID: in July this year it appeared that Apple filed an RFID patent. And earlier, in April 2009, Touch showed their RFID add-on.

But… if I had an iPhone with RFID, what would I like to do with it?

lees verder…

It was already possible for owners of a Privium card, but now it will become available for everybody with a chipped EU passport: Automatic border control. Just scan your passport, and ‘the system’ will check if you are you, using face recognition (your passport picture is stored on your passport’s RFID chip) and then do some additional checks, like they already do with with Privium card. Cool! Sounds like a good way to do something useful with that RFID chip, as on busy days the queues can be enormous at Schiphol’s border control.

‘The Joker’ will probably be happy that his ID card (on which he had a ‘clown face’) was confiscated; saves him a lot of make-up preparation every time he wants to travel…

Last week, VeriChip came with an update on their development of H1N1 Virus detection (Swine Flu, Mexican Flu) and Glucose Sensing (for people who have diabetes). And VeriChip recently launched a commercial for their VeriMed HealthLink, an implantable RFID chip which contains a 16 digit number. This number can be linked to your personal Electronic Health Record.

VeriChip is working on very advanced applications of RFID in the Health Care sector. There are also more ‘conventional’ ways to use RIFD in the Health Care sector:

• Tracking and tracing of persons (patients and staff)
• Tracking and tracing of medical equipment
• Tracking and tracing of blood products
• Tracking and tracing of products

The Health Industry Business Communications Council even developed specific RFID standards for the Health Care sector. For an overview of recent and historical RFID applications in the Health Care sector, you could have a look at RFID Journal.

But is that a good idea, walking around with a chip in your arm? And all those tags in the operating room – is that safe? lees verder…

Today, the first news item about Sinterklaas appeared on nu.nl. And my supermarket already has pepernoten and chocoladeletters on the shelves.

So - it’s time to create my RFID Toys wish list! lees verder…

I had to think of this phrase after reading some RFID news items about how RFID can help people who have issues with hearing, seeing or speaking. 

Did you know that RFID can help out in all of these fields?

lees verder…

Browsing through some older news items of RFID Journal leads me to eMotion.

eMotion is a project that took place earlier this year: the visitors of a special exhibition at the Swiss Kunstmuseum St. Gallen were tracked by RFID tags in a glove they could wear. And not only their location was tracked, but also the electrical conductivity of the visitor’s skin, as well as that person’s pulse were tracked. The latter two in order to ‘measure’ emotions of the visitor. This clip explains how it works.

The first results were recently published and show interesting graphs of where users went, and what emotion they exposed.

But there’s more to do with RFID in the field of art (besides protecting your art collection): lees verder…

Yesterday there was a news item that an employee of the Dutch Forensic Institute (NFI) destroyed the DNA profile of her partner, who is a suspect of assault. Fortunately (although not for the employee), the NFI uses a Track & Trace system since almost a year. So how did the employee get caught? lees verder…