From the Editor's Desk

Welcome to the latest issue of the High Tech AIDCourier.

Lots of news this month, it seems that 2011 will finally be the year of RFID. We are still seeing the negative press, and at the moment most of it seems to be associated with the problem of obtaining credit card numbers from RFID enabled credit cards. While we know the problem has nothing to do with RFID, but is the way the information is being stored in the application, the shock tactics of the press mean we are frequently needing to explain.

I'm seeing RFID growth in the retail world as it uses more item level tracking of apparel. Now I see people talking about shoes to add to the list. Also, this morning, I saw a comment that the five cent tag may actually be close to a reality. Of course I remain very skeptical until we actually see one, as we have all heard this story many times before.

If you are interested in RFID things you can follow my tweets at @RFIDMan.

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Technology News Briefs

RFID Standards

There are several standards meetings next week, so you can keep up with the changes at http://www.understandrfidstandards.com.

During the month the following events occurred:
* ISO/IEC FCD 18046-1: "Information technology -- Radio frequency identification device performance test methods -- Part 1: Test methods for system performance" FCD ballot closed.
* A ballot to change the structure of ISO/IEC 29174 "Information technology -- Mobile item identification and management -- UII scheme and encoding format for Mobile AIDC services" has been started. This will break the work in to two parts:
o 29174-1 defines technical aspects of ID scheme
o 29174-2 defines the Procedural aspects
* Both documents have also been sent to CD ballot.
 Text for CD Ballot - ISO/IEC 3rd CD 29177: "Information technology -- Automatic identification and data capture technique -- Identifier Resolution Protocols for multimedia information access triggered by tag-based identification" has been sent to CD ballot.

If you want more information on ISO standardization or on any issue of RFID standardization, then email steve@hightechaid.com.

Radio Frequency Identification