Identity, Security, Payments, Biometrics, Smart Cards and Authentication News

Not Everyone Thinks RTLS-RFID Union Makes Sense

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Company technology leaders are becoming more interested real-time tracking of inventory via RFID. In response, IndustryWeek’s op-ed piece “Where’s My Stuff?” focuses on two things, courtesy of Paul Faber, a principal with Raleigh, N.C.-based Tompkins Associates:

  1. Recent reports that tout increases in RFID equipment sales and Wi-Fi real-time location systems.

  2. That a number inquiries demonstrate market confusion between the capabilities of EPC Gen 2 passive RFID tags and the potential of systems based upon the Wi-Fi standard most commonly used for personal computer wireless networking.

Still, he offers this optimistic conclusion: “The market demonstrates good news in sales growth and application diversity for RFID technologies. Also a positive, customers are thinking about RFID technologies in many different applications, as opposed to the previous year’s focus on retail RFID-mandate compliance.” [end] 

Intelligent Insites Inc. announced that its InSites RTLS healthcare software solution now supports ThingMagic Astra readers for passive RFID data integration.

The ThingMagic Astra reader is an ultra-high frequency RFID reader with a fully integrated antenna designed for commercial environments, such as hospitals and clinics. Astra readers offer Power over Ethernet (PoE) and WiFi options to support flexible, low cost installations.

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PeaceHealth’s Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend deployed the Versus Advantages real-time locating system (RTLS) for clinical automation and better visibility of patients, staf, and assets.

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UPM RFID announced the new UPM Web ultra-high frequency (UHF) and UPM Trap near field (NF) UHF inlays based on the Monza RFID chip from Impinj.

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The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) announced the publication the new 802.15.4f-2012 standard for active RFID and RTLS.

This new standard will enable interoperability between systems and give end users a wider selection of vendors, whereas in the past the choice has been limited to a single source that supplies a proprietary technology platform.

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Intelligent InSites and WaveMark announced the integration of WaveMark’s enterprise visibility solution of consumable assets including medical implantable devices and supplies with the Intelligent InSites enterprise RTLS software solution.

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A new study reveals the market for RFID transponders, readers, software and services will generate more than $70.5 billion from 2012 to the end of 2017.

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