BY MIKE LANGBERG, SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS (Reprinted via license from publisher)

Here’s an experience I’d like to have at my local video store on a busy Friday night:

I ask the clerk if the classic 1952 musical “Singin’ in the Rain” is available. The clerk looks down at her computer and says, “Yes, just look for the blinking light in aisle seven.”

Sure enough, there’s a green light blinking on the third shelf from the floor, in the middle of the aisle, exactly where the DVD of “Singin’ in the Rain” waits for me.

I grab the disc and go to a kiosk by the exit. A message flashes on the screen: “Welcome, Mike. The rental for this movie is $3.99 for two nights and will be charged to your Visa card. Press ‘1’ if you want a receipt.” 

ASK is playing both sides of the street, so to speak—high end and low end—and it’s paying off big time. With its paper, disposable (but reusable) contactless cards on one side, and its contact/contactless multi-application cards on the other, the company exceeded $20 million in revenue in just its fifth year of operation. 

In one of its biggest projects yet, ASK is providing C.labels for use in the libraries in Marseille, France. It has already shipped 1.7 million C.labels to Marseille’s 17 public libraries. Working with its partners, Cybernetix and Tyco/Sensormatic France for the Electronic Article Surveillance anti-theft system, ASK has deployed an end-to-end RFID Automated Library Management System. The library uses the new system based on the C.label to manage, track, and secure its entire inventory of more than 1.5 million items. All assets, such as books, CDs, audiocassettes, videocassettes, and DVDs will have a C.label. 

Contactless technology is playing a major role in tracking patients—U.S. personnel as well as prisoners of war—in Iraq. Fleet Hospital Three, a nine-acre, 116-bed facility operated by the U.S. Navy in Southern Iraq, is using radio frequency identification technology from Texas Instruments to track the status and location of hundreds of wounded soldiers, airmen, prisoners of war, refugees, and others arriving for treatment. 

A revised version of this article was printed in a later issue of Contactless News. Click here to read the updated version.

In the past two lessons, we have examined the concepts of frequency and modulation. This month, we will examine coding. First a brief review of the recent building block concepts that are essential to our understanding of coding. 

RFID technology is moving into areas previously not even considered. We are all well aware by now that it is being used for payment and access control, but it is also keeping kids safe in theme parks and making their experiences at these parks more interactive and fun. 

According to PDC, the interactive fruit farming game has helped increase attendance at Stone Mountain by 20%. Wearing PDC’s Smart Band RFID wristbands, players score points by moving from terminal to terminal, completing farming tasks with foam fruit pieces.