A monthly column of technology rambling, rumination and reality

By: Jud Early, Corporate Vice President, Research, [TC]²

December 2004

Happy Holiday Column

As we turn the page on year 2004, each of us has something to celebrate. No matter what your religion, or personal beliefs, if you are able to read this, you have life, sight, and the means to access the Internet. Things that we take for granted are often not available to those less fortunate. This holiday season, please take a moment to give thanks for all that you do have, and make an opportunity to share some of your blessings with others. I hope for all a prosperous New Year as we begin the second half of the first decade of this new century.

Grumpy Holiday Column

After encouraging you to enjoy the holiday season, you may label me as an old curmudgeon after I show my grumpy side. Such are the risks of writing for an intelligent and perceptive audience.

The thing that has me grumped is the unreasonable paranoia that seems to surround the term RFID. One of our readers sent an e-mail that prompted me to think about RFID phobia once again. That e-mail questioned the availability of a device called “TagZapper”. Curious about the name, I did a quick Google search. The search results page has several listings, with the top listing a forum site that purports to be a discussion group for the benefit of the developer, who is asking potential users what features it should have. Now that, in itself is comical. The premise of this device preys on the fears of modern day Luddites who want to disable RFID tags in order to maintain one's privacy. Ha!

Do you have gas? No, I'm not referring to that other kind, but to natural gas. If you are a customer of a public utility, you probably gave up more of your privacy to have the gas turned on than can be discerned from an itty-bitty RFID tag. Affinity cards issued by super markets are also a compromise to privacy, if you are paranoid. From the movement led by the Harvard doctoral student (I'll not mention her name here), who stopped Bennetton in its tracks, to those who believe the Government has nothing better to do than surreptitiously obtain your underwear size, or the brand of razor blade that you conceal in your bathroom, there is a band out there who fear this new technology. Are all these people buying things, doing things, or going places that they are ashamed to admit? I should laugh, as this is really funny, but cannot, as it really is sad.

First, what is their fear? I often describe myself as a simple person. As a simple person, I believe that there is more good in this world than bad. I also believe that the advance of technology is inevitable, and that stopping the advance of this technology will only come with a better, alternate technology. Driving the advance of technology in this case is Wal-Mart and the US Department of Defense. Each has mandated that suppliers (initially, the top 100 or 200) shipping goods to distribution centers, (three in Texas for Wal-Mart) apply RFID tags to cases and as pallet identifiers. This does not seem so onerous. Why should we be concerned about distribution center operations? The conclusion that is reached is that RFID will soon be on each item that you buy, and that powerful scanners can track that can of beans you purchased as you roll out to the parking lot, drive home and store it in the pantry. How awful! Beans in the pantry! Have you no shame? No, but they might be able to learn my clothing size. Ask my waist size, and I'll tell you. I'm a bit on the round side, so if anyone should want to hide their numbers, it should be me. I also don't care what size bra or shorts you may wear, and if I did, I'd probably just ask, not use a radio scanner to find out.

We at [TC]² have tracked the development of RFID tags since 1993, and after eleven years, the cost and read reliability is still not at a level that will allow attachment to individual items, with exception of high price point products. The ability to do multiple reads of many tags in close proximity has been promised for years. I actually saw a demo at IBM, reading a few tags in a single box, in 1993 or 1994. Doing so in a distribution center, on a pallet with other cartons, and with other RF sources and metallic objects in near proximity has not proven to be easy. This will happen, I'm sure, but not at the required read rates and not at January 1,2005. Why then, is there so much fear regarding this technology? I believe it is ignorance.

Working with scientists from the Department of Energy's National Laboratories, and drawing together all known producers of RFID, a symposium was held at [TC]² in 1994. Before the symposium, we had, as an industry group with many companies in attendance, developed a “cradle to grave” RFID tag usage story, where the tag would have read/write capability, and at manufacture of the product would have a blank tag imbedded. As the product moved from manufacturing through distribution, at each transition point, it would be interrogated, information added, until eventually at retail, the customer would be recorded at point of sale, allowing for easy return without receipt, and preventing theft since it would require validation at POS before leaving the store. As one would expect, leaving the store after purchase would initiate a new unit entering the order stream, and supply chain management would be terrific. As the customer used the product, in the case of apparel, the dry cleaner would be able to read the tag and ensure that the correct garment was returned to the customer, after having followed the RF tag's instructions for care, and customer preferences for starch, etc. At the end of the life of the item, the recycle center would be able to decompose the components, because materials would be known. From inception to end of life, the RF tag would be there every step of the way. This cornucopia of benefits would be automatic, and those sections of the chip's memory would only give up information to those with a need to know. Yes, we had a rose colored view of the benefits of RF tagging, and no, were not concerned about privacy issues. Remember, this was before the public adoption of the internet, and before identity theft was a household word.

So the RFID community has been presented some lofty goals, and to date has not met the much less stringent requirements mandated by Wal-Mart, DoD, and later Target. This will happen , so get used to it. Technology marches on, and if it is not in the form of current day RFID, there will be something better to take its place. What we must do is educate the consumer to understand the benefits of technology for taking cost out of supply chain operations, and the potential for personal convenience when the technology comes of age.

Now, back to the TagZapper. Since I don't have time to join discussion groups, and since the purported developer of the TagZapper forgot to include a phone number, I don't know if this is real or is just a practical joke. In case it's real, I'll just list my features wanted here. The retail packaging must be robust. Since it will be tagged with an RFID tag for display in the store, a rigid package will prevent it from zapping its own tag and therefore not be available for purchase at checkout. I'd like it to contain a flashlight, just in case I'm in a dimly lit store and need to check some item for an RFID tag. One end should dispense breath mints, as I wouldn't want to offend, a magnet to allow attaching to a smart shelf while I read a dumb label, an MP3 player would be nice, and since it would then have headphones, maybe a cell phone built in too. On second thought, a robust package may be a negative. If it's too hard to open, I might wait until I reach home to unpack, but, then I could be tracked…

See you in 2005!

Jud