The use of RFIDs has increased dramatically in the last
decade, and its long-term potential looks promising. Unless the security risks
of RFID chips become too high and people’s privacy is compromised, RFIDs will
continue to expand into virtually every facet of everyday life, and almost everything
that people interact with on a daily basis will have RFID tags in them. A RFID
tag is like a physical URL, where the data is stored in cyberspace. RFIDs will
expand the internet from a collection of data to a collection of things as
well.
In the not too distant future, RFID tags will be in almost
every item of apparel. Consumers will be able to purchase items by grabbing
them and walking out the door. The payment would be done automatically because of
the RFIDs in the purchased products and in the consumer’s wallet. Consumers will also be able to return items
without a receipt as the RFID would reference a database record with the
details of the original purchase. By tracking which items are being bought and
returned most frequently, businesses are able to decide if a product is
popular, unpopular, or even defective.
Appliances may be able to read RFID tags in the future. For
example refrigerators will be able to read RFID tags found on food packaging.
The refrigerator would then be able to notify its users if a particular food
has been recalled, or it could find a recipe for a meal based on the contents
of the fridge. A washing machine could also read RFIDs off of clothing and determine
the appropriate amount of washing cycles based on the size of the load.
Locating missing items is another major use for RFIDs in the
future. For example, a person could have misplaced his/her keys somewhere in the
house. Just like a search engine for the
internet, there could be a search function for a specific household. The person
just asks for the keys and a nearby lamp equipped with a RFID reader lights up,
easily illuminating the keys.
While this technology is very impressive, it does have its
flaws. For instance, it would be difficult to read RFID tags in the presence of
metals, so tracking items such as canned foods or detecting products on metal
shelves would be difficult. Also the reading signal for ultra high frequency
RFIDs can get absorbed by water, which is problematic considering the high water content in humans.
While only a few potential uses of RFIDs were highlighted,
this technology has infinite uses and can
benefit society immensely if used properly.
Sources:
The uses for RFID tags that you mention here sound neat. However, I wonder how legal some of those uses are? My post last week on Washington State’s laws regarding RFID chips state that only the company that installed the RFID chip is allowed to read it, and that people must be aware of the fact that their RFID tag is being scanned. Although a lot of the things you talk about in this post sound convenient and really cool, they also sound like there is a lot of potential for invading people’s privacy. Additionally, other states have other RFID laws. Since the legislation surrounding RFID tags varies from state to state, and the national government does not regulate them, I think that will complicate uses for RFID tag manufacturers.
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