A $10 device to clone RFID access keys on the go

A $10 device capable of skimming access cards on the go is soon to be released into the open-source community. Researchers Mark Baseggio from security firm Accuvant and Eric Evenchick from  Faraday Future are the developers of the Bluetooth Low Energy device (BLEKey), a coin-sized device which skims RFID cards, allowing users to clone items such as access cards.

Countering the Internet of Things’ Flow Toward Centralization

The grand vision of the Internet of Things is currently an exercise in imagination. It is about what happens when more and more of the real, physical world comes online, as devices and sensors proliferate, connecting everything. The promise is that the Internet of Things won’t just connect our homes, hospitals, schools and streets – it will enable whole new ranges of interactions, services and efficiencies. It’s not just about the things, in other words – it’s about the people and environments that animate them.

Janam Technologies LLC: Portable AEI RFID tag reader

Janam Technologies LLC recently unveiled its XM2-RFID for Rail mobile computer. A fully rugged, handheld RFID reader, it offers best-in-class range and battery life, and is the "first fully integrated handheld computer to deliver the ability to read Automatic Equipment Identification (AEI) RFID tags to the palm of the hand," the company says.

The XM2-RFD for Rail provides the power and performance required by mobile workers in freight and rail operations. With its lightweight ergonomic form factor, it is designed to read AEI RFD tags required on all North American rail cars and widely used globally, allowing rail and intermodal companies to track and monitor equipment effectively, the company says. The 13-ounce XM2-RFID for Rail reads AEI tags from at least one meter (3.3 feet) away; after five hours of continuous use and more than 40,000 tag reads, a customer's unit recently had 20 percent capacity in its battery, the company says.

The XM2-RFID for Rail is equpped with a user-addressable compass for use with transportation applications; a 3.2-inch color display; a Motorola SE4500 2D imager for robust decoding of hard-to-read barcodes; and support for Microsoft's Windows Embedded Handheld 6.5 operating system. It is sealed to IP64 standards and can withstand four-foot drops to concrete, the company says.

Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship Adopts RFID Technology to Enhance Comfort and Security

Multipurpose wristbands, not keycards, will welcome passengers aboard the Royal Caribbean’s MS Anthem of the Seas, thanks to a partnership with global security leader ASSA ABLOY Hospitality. The wristbands use innovative and flexible RFID technology to upgrade the cruise experience for both passengers and crew. As passengers approach the gangway, crewmembers can quickly scan the wristbands, which contain all the necessary identification data, making it faster and easier to embark and disembark from the ship.

Event Farm Acquires ClearHart, Set to Launch ‘Internet of Things for Experiences’ Platform

Event Farm, an enterprise event technology company whose clients include Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, and AOL, announced their acquisition of ClearHart, an award-winning full-service innovation agency that specializes in bridging online and offline at live events. ClearHart Co-Founders, Clara de Soto and Erica Mannherz, are joining the company as part of the acquisition.

Founded in 2011 and featured in Entrepreneur Magazine’s 100 Brilliant Companies, ClearHart’s work creating turnkey wearable tech programs at some of the nation’s largest premium events will provide Event Farm with a leading position in the experiential market.

With a focus on the relationship between data capture and the User Experience, de Soto and Mannherz are building products that empower attendees to digitally capture events in intuitive, unobtrusive ways, similar to their work creating the SavorBand at the Food Network NYC Wine & Food Festival.

This investment is part of Event Farm’s strategy to provide clients with quantifiable insights into how events impact their broader strategy. Expanding into the Internet of Things, as well as integrating new technologies beyond NFC, RFID, and BLE, cements Event Farm’s position as a forward-thinking leader in the industry bridging technology and events. The acquisition will provide Event Farm’s growing list of Fortune 500 clients with opportunities to utilize these in-event technologies, expanding event marketing ROI.

New Flexible RFID System From Balluff

Balluff has completed the release of their latest industrial RFID system, the BIS V. Capable of reading three different frequencies of RFID tags, this system is designed to address the challenges of a flexible manufacturing environment.

With four dedicated RFID ports and one IO-Link master port, RFID can now be mixed with sensors, hubs, actuators, and even SmartLight tower lights all in one processor. Since it has an IP65 rating, this Balluff BIS V processor can be mounted directly on the production line instead of making long runs back to a control cabinet. Being released along with the processor are several new read/write heads. These heads were designed to address applications where the part or pallet must be read on-the-fly, since they can transfer a relatively large amount of data very quickly. In addition, there are multiple form factors available that allow mounting in the tightest of spaces.

As with most other Balluff RFID systems, the BIS V can connect to all major control systems. Since each device houses a network In and Out port, the network can be configured in multiple topologies and make a single connection back to the PLC via Ethernet/IP, Profinet, Profibus, CC-Link, or Ethercat – once again proving that this is quite possibly the most versatile high performance RFID system available today.

Public transport smart cards should be free, says ombudsman

The Dutch public transport ombudsman says travellers should not have to pay to renew their public transport smart card (ov-chipkaart) when it expires, broadcaster Nos says on Monday. The cards expire after five years and users have to pay €7.50 to buy a new one. In addition, people with anonymous cards have to send back the old card and provide bank account information to the NS to reclaim any money left on the card.

Gemalto And InComm Pair On Prepaid Mobile NFC Payments

Secure prepaid mobile NFC payments are on the horizon. At least that is the goal of the new strategic partnership between digital security company Gemalto and InComm, a prepaid product and transaction services company. According to recent MasterCard research, the prepaid card market is showing accelerated growth, proving to be one of the fastest developing non-cash payments markets, estimated to increase at an annual rate of 22 percent over the next two years. “In this booming market, we are working closely with InComm to provide bank-grade security during the mobile provisioning of payment card information,” Sebastien Cano, President of North America at Gemalto, said in a Tuesday (July 21) statement announcing the partnership.

Event Farm Acquires ClearHart, Set to Launch ‘Internet of Things for Experiences’ Platform

Event Farm, an enterprise event technology company whose clients include Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, and AOL, today announced their acquisition of ClearHart, a full-service innovation agency that specializes in bridging online and offline at live events. ClearHart Co-Founders, Clara de Soto and Erica Mannherz, are joining the company as part of the acquisition.

Founded in 2011 and featured in Entrepreneur Magazine’s 100 Brilliant Companies, ClearHart’s work creating turnkey wearable tech programs at some of the nation’s largest premium events will provide Event Farm with a leading position in the experiential market.

This investment is part of Event Farm’s strategy to provide clients with quantifiable insights into how events impact their broader strategy. Expanding into the Internet of Things, as well as integrating new technologies beyond NFC, RFID, and BLE, cements Event Farm’s position as a forward-thinking leader in the industry bridging technology and events. The acquisition will provide Event Farm’s growing list of Fortune 500 clients with opportunities to utilize these in-event technologies, expanding event marketing ROI.

UN Calls for RFID Chips and Biometric Tracking of Guns and Ammo

At a recent meeting of government representatives of nations participating in the United Nations’ Programme of Action (POA), the focus was on tracking of civilian weapons, component parts, and ammunition, and how the United States should spend more money helping foreign countries accomplish those goals. At the Second Meeting of Governmental Experts (MGE2) held at the UN headquarters in Manhattan, the globalists discussed a couple of agenda items that should give pause to Americans.

TypeHaus Form Templates, Barcode Generator, and Job Reformatting Now Available

TypeHaus now delivers their form template, barcode generator, and job reformatting technologies packaged as electronic forms and barcode printing solutions to HP LaserJet M604, M605, M606, and Color M553 and M553. This expansion continues TypeHaus' commitment to long term support of businesses with diverse deployed fleets of HP laser printers as well as laser printers from a wide range of manufacturers.

Businesses looking to modernize their documents and electronic forms find the perfect solutions in the TypeHaus FormJet Enterprise, FormJet Pro, and FormJet Internal. Configuring complex host applications requires a lot of effort and resources. Once configured, making major changes to the host is often undesirable or even impossible. The FormJet family solves these problems by accepting existing host print jobs, restructuring them as necessary, and sending the restructured jobs to the printer - all in real-time.

Jet real-time print job processing can be as simple as replacing pre-printed forms with automatically printed form backgrounds, replacing multi-part forms with automatically generated multiple copies with identifying watermarks, or even just identifying specific values being printed and using them to automatically add barcodes to the existing print job. Processing can also be as complex as receiving a print job for one purpose, extracting the data, and printing it for an entirely different purpose. For example, an electronic medical records application prints a simple patient information report. The FormJet extracts the necessary data from this print job and automatically prints barcoded patient wristbands and a sheet of matching labels completely without any changes to the host application.

Regardless of the print job, FormJet Enterprise can create PDF images for archival purposes, and optionally email those PDFs to specified recipients. FormJet solutions range from the FormJet Internal installable inside HP Enterprise class LaserJets, the small FormJet Pro printer add-on device for upgrading a single printer, to the FormJet Enterprise standalone print server capable of performing print job processing for multiple printers across the enterprise.

To simplify barcoding needs, the TypeHaus BarCodeJet family comes packed with intelligence to automatically format over 20 primary 1D barcodes including 43 variants as well as 2D barcodes including Aztec, Codablock F, Data Matrix, Maxicode, PDF-417 and QR Code. The BarCodeJet family accepts the raw data and automatically calculates all mode shifts, CRCs, checksums, etc., as required to generate a properly structured barcode. TypeHaus also provides MICR Font, corporate logo digitizing, forms digitizing, and signature digitizing services for businesses of all sizes.

RFID chips: a key to more or less freedom?

Losing his keys is no longer a concern for Sandro Portner: all he needs to do to open his front door is swipe his hand in front of this chip reader. A fan of new technology, this young man from Switzerland has had two Radio Frequency Identification chips implanted into his body. He is part of a new generation of what some have branded “enhanced human beings”. “I’m not saying it’s indispensable. But I’m a high-tech fan and it’s an invention I was interested in trying out, and it’s easy to remove,” he explains. “People think it’s really weird to get an implant. And then, they see the result and they think, I could try that, too, maybe one day the chip will allow me to do even more things.”

Haldor Advanced Technologies Deploys Canada’s First RFID Enabled Management System of Surgical Instruments

Haldor Advanced Technologies has been selected to implement the ORLocate System , a comprehensive RFID-enabled surgical instruments and sponges life-cycle management and visibility platform, at the University Health Network (“UHN”) Medical Device Reprocessing Centres.

Haldor Advanced Technologies (Haldor) is a privately held company that specializes in developing solutions for the healthcare industry. The company's flagship product, ORLocate, is an automated RFID based system that is designed to help hospitals improve patient safety, reduce costs, and improve operational efficiency in operating rooms and sterile processing departments. ORLocate® is the only commercially available solution that monitors and tracks surgical instruments and consumables, including sponges, on an individual basis before, during, and at the conclusion of a surgical procedure.

UHN will be one of the first North American customers to receive the recently released product improvements such as the ORLocate View, a comprehensive business analytic module designed to provide on-demand data mining and on-the-fly reporting to support a continuous improvement cycle.

7 ways RFID tagging beats a barcode

Technologies come and go, some manage to find their place, but many will fall by the wayside, whether it’s the competing formats of VHS and Betamax or compact discs replacing cassette tapes. Even though the pace of technology adoption has increased over the last century, the retail industry has been using the same method for identifying and scanning product for nearly half that time. The barcode has been a work horse of the industry, linking databases to a physical product and improving inventory management beyond recognition.

View Technologies Announces Team Bringing Real-Time, Location-Based RFID Services to Market

View Technologies, a joint venture between Stanley Black & Decker, Inc. and RF Controls, announced the team launching its real-time, location-based RFID services to the retail, logistics and manufacturing sectors.

View Technologies’ solution continuously locates, engages, and counts RAIN RFID (Passive UHF) tagged items and transforms the physical world into real-time data visibility. Its patented “smart” antennas are mounted overhead for hands-free operation with a range 10 times farther than any other commercial system. The platform features three tiers of service to enable location, tracking, and actionable events for business processes to enhance growth, efficiency and loss prevention.

Appointed president in November 2014, Hudson has nearly 25 years of leadership experience and demonstrated success in start-ups and corporations involved in the Internet of Things (IoT), software and telecommunications.

NSA Offers Block Ciphers to Help Secure RFID Transmissions

The National Security Agency (NSA) is offering two families of encryption algorithms, known as block ciphers, intended to provide a level of security for such processes as authentication or anti-counterfeiting via RFID technology. The block ciphers, dubbed SIMON and SPECK, are intended to be a lightweight, low-power-using alternative to existing encryption systems available for RFID tag reads.

Eddystone, an Open, Scalable BLE Beacon Format, Will Drive the New Physical Web

Google announced Eddystone, an open Bluetooth Low Energy beacon format that comes in two unique frame types. Eddystone-UID works similarly to iBeacon in that it can trigger apps installed on a smartphone or tablet, to react when a signal is received. Eddystone-URL, the successor to Uribeacon, dramatically lowers the barrier to entry for anyone wanting to provide quick, frictionless access to existing web content across nearly all modern Android and iOS devices.

“We have been actively supporting the Uribeacon protocol for a while now. With news of Uribeacon evolving into a part of Eddystone, we worked closely with the team at Google to ensure that our beacons fully support this powerful new beacon format," says Richard Graves, CEO of BKON Connect, LLC (BKON).

In addition to supporting both Eddystone frame types, BKON is also excited to announce PHY.net as the easiest way to remotely manage Physical Web content on beacons with support for Eddystone.

This patent-pending platform includes BKON’s proven A1 beacon hardware and the 100% cloud-based PHY.net service. This combination makes deployments a breeze. Unlike other Physical Web beacons that have to be disassembled, reset, paired to assign a URL and then reassembled before being deployed, PHY.net-friendly beacons enable content owners to simply reassign a new URL from any browser without ever touching the beacon.

PHY.net is fast. Now, content owners can quickly provide nearby visitors with information, incentive, instruction, or other relevant content right when and where they need it, making changes on-the-fly or whenever necessary to keep content fresh and relevant. From a secure phy.net dashboard, a manager of 5 theaters could link 5 posters in each theater (25 beacons) to new trailers in less than 10 minutes. Better yet, she could do it all from her desk or her mobile phone. While a retail manager could look out and see it is raining, then 15 seconds later, be broadcasting a rainwear promotion rather than a sandal promotion.

PHY.net’s unique remote control ability makes it far easier to maintain in larger enterprise deployments. Plus, since there is no need for specific tech expertise beyond basic typing skills, remote deployments are as easy as sending someone a beacon and asking them to place it where users will benefit from having more detailed information. All of the administration happens remotely, at the convenience of the administrator

Google Inc Challenges Apple’s iBeacon With Eddystone

Google Inc has come up with Eddystone in a move that is clearly aimed at challenging Apple Inc’s iBeacon in the beacons format support space. Eddystone is an open-source platform that is available on multiple platforms that include Android and Apple’s iOS. Google has also made Eddystone available under the Apache v2.0 license on GitHub.

Google Inc is weighing heavily on beacon technology with Eddystone, a clear answer to iBeacon. To give its product an edge in the beacon technology space, Google has open-sourced Eddystone. For nearly two-years, Apple’s iBeacon has been something like the cornerstone in the beacon format market.

Spectech Brings RFID Kanban System for Aerospace to the United States

European aerospace service provider Spectech has been offering radio frequency identification functionality as part of its parts-management solution to European companies for the past nine years. This summer, the company is opening a new office in Seattle to better access new North American customers. In addition, it has moved its solution to the cloud and has introduced an iOS app that lets customers check inventory levels and receive alerts if parts are running low, via their iPhone.

RFID and AIDC News: Small Shoe Store Chain Peltz Decides to Publicly Dump RFID

In a somewhat odd press release, Peltz Shoes, a chain of six stores in the Florida market, announced it was dumping RFID tagging of its shoes boxes over what it said were technical issues as well as higher labor costs. It isn't often a company makes a public announcement about a decision to drop system or technology. What drove that move is perfectly unclear, but here's what the company had to say. Peltz began its RFID journey in 2009. It says the RFID tag on the boxes wasn't just being used for its radio frequency identification capabilities alone, but was also being used to provide detailed label information on the shoe boxes on the brand, style, color, size, and price data, which apparently were not clearly labeled on the boxes previously.

How Does an RFID Reader Differentiate from Among a Large Group of Tags?

Tags and readers communicate using an air-interface protocol. Think of it as the language of an RFID system. There are international standards for air-interface protocols. This is like establishing a common language for a meeting of diplomats from a dozen different countries. If tags and readers from different manufacturers all use the same air-interface protocol, then they can communicate with each other, just as diplomats could all communicate using, say, English at the meeting.

Haldor Advanced Technologies Deploys Canada’s First RFID Enabled Management System of Surgical Instruments

Haldor Advanced Technologies has been selected to implement the ORLocate System , a comprehensive RFID-enabled surgical instruments and sponges life-cycle management and visibility platform, at the University Health Network (“UHN”) Medical Device Reprocessing Centres.

Haldor Advanced Technologies (Haldor) is a privately held company that specializes in developing solutions for the healthcare industry. The company's flagship product, ORLocate, is an automated RFID based system that is designed to help hospitals improve patient safety, reduce costs, and improve operational efficiency in operating rooms and sterile processing departments. ORLocate® is the only commercially available solution that monitors and tracks surgical instruments and consumables, including sponges, on an individual basis before, during, and at the conclusion of a surgical procedure.

The ORLocate system will be used by UHN to improve infection control, reduce cost of ownership of surgical instruments, provide visibility of the workflow and optimize utilization of surgical sets.

UHN will be one of the first North American customers to receive the recently released product improvements such as the ORLocate View, a comprehensive business analytic module designed to provide on-demand data mining and on-the-fly reporting to support a continuous improvement cycle.

Entrust Datacard Continues to Help Expand EMV Instant Issuance Market Adoption

Entrust Datacard announced that financial institutions have instantly issued over 2.1 million chip cards globally in 2015 utilizing Datacard instant issuance hardware and associated software. That number is projected to grow as more financial organizations adopt the technology – especially within the U.S. where EMV migration is rapidly accelerating.

As instant issuance continues to be adopted at an accelerated rate, due to financial organizations realizing the value that it brings to their customer-base, chip cards are now part of this market growth. With the increase of chip cards in the U.S., financial organizations are seeing that the benefits of instantly issuing a personalized, ready-to-use permanent debit or credit cards at account opening; or providing an outlet for consumers who need a replacement card are now optimal for issuing EMV chip cards in place of their magstripe cards at the branch level.

Entrust Datacard has a long history of successful implementations supporting over 300 EMV deployments, and over 25,000 instant issuance programs worldwide. In the U.S. alone, more than 3,400 financial branches have successfully rolled out EMV instant issuance; and over 5,400 branches or retail locations outside the U.S. are currently issuing chip cards – all utilizing Datacard® instant issuance solutions.

Entrust Datacard offers an integrated instant issuance solution – including Datacard CardWizard issuance software, a wide range of hardware options, associated supplies and local service. In addition, the Datacard instant issuance solution is already integrated with more than 60 card management systems and network activation switches, so the overall solution requires a low level of upfront integration into the card management systems.

Amano McGann brings NFC mobile payments to US car parks

More than 5,000 attended and unattended Amano McGann car parks in the US are to be upgraded to support EMV and NFC mobile payments, using security solutions provider Apriva’s Gateway system. “Once integrated, applications and POS solutions can communicate with the Apriva Gateway over a wired or wireless network, providing access to payment processing providers,” Apriva explains.

Bristol to get its own Oyster-style card by the end of next year

An Oyster-style "smart" card will be introduced from day one on the long-awaited MetroBuses which should be up and running by the end of next year. It will mean that passengers will be able to pre-pay for their card on the internet at home or on their iphone and then use it instead of cash when boarding one of the new hi-tech single deckers which will run on three routes that are now being built. Passengers will be able to buy the cards in advance at shops or other sites such as a park and ride terminal. They will be top up their cards online, some shops or any of the 90 stops on the MetroBus network.

RURO Announces FreezerPro RFID Kit

RURO announces the release of FreezerPro RFID Kit version 3 to track valuable laboratory samples. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) uses radio frequency communication to label and track assets remotely, as opposed to barcodes or human-readable labels. FreezerPro software associates a unique ID number with sample data and storage location. The RFID Printer encodes the ID on a microchip tag affixed to an asset. The ID and all associated data is then retrievable using an RFID Reader. Most importantly, RFID tags are detected remotely and do not require a direct line of sight, unlike barcodes. This allows users to find tracked assets without opening a box.

By combining FreezerPro software with RFID tags organizations will be able to better track key assets, eliminate errors through automation, and increase efficiency in the laboratory. The release of FreezerPro® RFID Kit v3 is an ideal time for organizations requiring a sample management solution to evaluate FreezerPro® and consider the benefits of RFID over barcodes.

Nova Scotia apple growing goes high-tech with bar code data collection

Researchers in Kentville are throwing away their pens and picking up bar code scanners to track data in an apple orchard. As part of a Dalhousie University project at the Atlantic Food and Horticulture Research Centre, computer science student Vinetha Jagadeesan is creating a program to collect, compile and analyze data from an apple orchard featuring more than 1,000 varieties. Each tree is assigned a bar code to make data collection more efficient as researchers try to develop the tastiest commercial apple variety in Nova Scotia that is also resistant to pest and disease.

Electronic fleet tracking company Zonar Systems raises $50M

Zonar Systems, a Seattle area company that provides electronic fleet inspection and tracking systems for public and private fleets, has scored $50 million in fresh funding, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The filing comes a few days after Zonar announced that Portland-based Daimler Trucks North America, which builds vehicles under the Freightliner, Western Star and Thomas Built Buses brands, had made a minority investment in the company.

Barclays to support Zapp ‘Pay by Bank app’ mobile payments

Barclays has become the latest bank to announce its support for Zapp, a mobile payments startup formed by payments infrastructure operator VocaLink that will work via an integration with existing mobile banking apps for online payments initially, with in-store payments based on NFC to be launched at a later date. The announcement follows reports that Apple Pay is set to launch in the UK on July 14.

Janam XM2-RFID UHF Mobile Handheld Computer Means Business

The latest ruggedized enterprise handheld computer from Janam Technologies, the XM2-RFID UHF, adds a new tool for businesses that require the accurate reading of specialized RFID tags used in a wide range of industries, including retail, transportation and logistics, manufacturing and defense. The XM2-RFID UHF handheld, which lists at $2,295, reads ISO18000-63, EPC Global Class 1 Gen 2 tags to help businesses ensure that the right goods are available in the right place at the right time with no errors, according to the company. The ergonomically designed device, which fits in the palm of the hand, weighs 13 ounces and can complete more than 40,000 tag reads on one battery charge, is the latest mobile handheld computer in Janam's expanding range of products.

RFID tracking slowly working its way into hospital inventory control

Supermarkets and your refrigerator tend to have the same issue in common: "Best If Used By" labels. If you don't get around to selling or consuming that yogurt or luncheon meat by a certain date, it's usually a good idea to dispose of it and buy a replacement. Grocers have to work the systematic dumping of expired products into the cost-benefit analyses for their bottom lines. Hospitals have that same issue as well. There are scores, if not hundreds, of items sitting on their supply shelves that have expired. They may be minor things like ointments, or they could be surgically implantable hardware that cost thousands of dollars a unit.

UK bank Lloyds trials NFC for simpler account authorization on your mobile

Lloyds Bank in the UK is running a small trial to see if it can speed up the regristration process for mobile banking through use of ‘tap to transfer’ near field communications technology. Instead of receiving a phone call when setting up the mobile banking app, people in the trial can authenticate their info by tapping their debit card against their contactless-enabled phone. So far, only 125 people are registered in the trial.

NFC-powered bottle service

A company has partnered with Selinko to create the world's first NFC-connected bottle, called the Rémy Martin Club Connected Bottle. A tamper-proof NFC-tag in the cap guarantees the bottle has never been opened before. With the Rémy Martin app, you can scan the bottle upon receipt to confirm its freshness and authenticity, before you even take a sip. I would explain how the NFC works, but it is luxury, and luxury mustn’t be explained. It transcends near field communications.

RFID Speeds Up Service at Chicago Eatery

At Labriola Bakery & Café's first location, in Oak Brook, Ill., guests order baked items to go, or to take to a table. When the company opened a new location in Chicago, known as the Labriola Ristorante, it featured a restaurant, patio seating and a bar. Operations manager Edwin Arreola sought a technology-based solution that would keep breakfast and lunch traffic moving and ensure that meals reached customers as soon as they came out of the oven. Specifically, he wanted to make sure that customers received their food 10 to 12 minutes after ordering it, no matter where they were sitting.

Pennsylvania School for Disruptive Students Adopts RFID Pendant for Staff, Students

Westmoreland Intermediate Unit (WIU) 7 Crossroads School has adopted radio frequency identification (RFID) pendants, citing a desire to better protect students and staff and deescalate altercations. The school provides "alternative education for disruptive youth," heightening "the potential for disorderly or sometimes violent behavior that could require intervention by professionals trained in the de-escalation of disruptive and potentially dangerous episodes," according to a news release.

China RFID leverages the Internet of Things

Wireless networking is rapidly pervading society, not least in China, where allied topic RFID is lifting off very rapidly. It follows the world's largest RFID order, that for the National ID cards of China, and other big orders such as library tagging in three cities dwarfing all other library tagging in the world. The unique new IDTechEx report RFID in China 2015-2025 reveals that the Chinese RFID market will jump to around $4.3 billion in 2025, powered by sales into the transportation/automotive and financial/security/safety sectors. All that is predominately at 13.56 MHz "HF" in both numbers and market value, in contrast the UHF being very important for RFID in the Americas.

RF Technologies to Safeguard Staff and Students, De-escalate Altercations

RF Technologies, a provider of active radio frequency identification (RFID) safety and security solutions, has partnered with WIU Crossroads School in safeguarding its staff and students with the use of Help Alert Mobile Staff Duress Solution. The AEDY (Alternative Education for Disruptive Youth) environment of Crossroads School heightens the potential for disorderly or sometimes violent behavior that could require intervention by professionals trained in the de-escalation of disruptive and potentially dangerous episodes. By wearing mobile, wireless Help Alert pendants, staff can silently and discreetly summon immediate assistance in the event of verbal or physical conflicts, medical emergencies and/or other situations that require additional staff intervention–simply with the press of a panic button.

According to Nicholas Falcon, Principal of WIU Crossroads School, “Help Alert has provided our teachers and staff with an effective means of immediately communicating their need for assistance. Alerts yield a greater staff presence in areas experiencing conflict; therefore, students are deterred from inappropriate behavior.” He added, “When we talk about logistically trying to communicate a need from a classroom, I would say we’ve cut that down to seconds where it used to be minutes.”

Several mobile emergency call systems were evaluated by Crossroads School. Help Alert was selected because there was no need to add costly infrastructure. The solution utilized the school’s existing Wi-Fi network and access points for location calculation. Help Alert’s battery-powered, Wi-Fi based reference tags were added to supplement in areas where enhanced location accuracy was desirable. Working seamlessly within the school’s existing Wi-Fi infrastructure, Help Alert was able to provide a high level of location accuracy.

Janam Improves Supply Chain Efficiency and Reliability With New Handheld RFID Reader

Janam Technologies LLC, a leading provider of rugged mobile computers that scan barcodes and communicate wirelessly, today announced the launch of its XM2-RFID UHF mobile computer. With best-in-class RFID read range and accuracy, the XM2-RFID UHF is ergonomically designed to deliver business-critical enterprise features to organizations in multiple industries, including retail, transportation and logistics, manufacturing and defense.

The new XM2-RFID UHF fits in the palm of the hand and is optimized to meet the real-world challenges of businesses and government organizations around the world. Weighing only 13 ounces, this high-performance handheld mobile computer reads ISO18000-6C, EPC Global Class 1 Gen 2 tags and is field-proven to complete more than 40,000 tag reads on one battery charge. The XM2-RFID UHF includes Zebra's SE4500 2D imager for robust decoding of the hardest-to-read barcodes—ultimately reducing the complexity and number of devices organizations need to deploy. It also comes equipped with a brilliant 3.2-inch color display and support for Microsoft's Windows Embedded Handheld 6.5 operating system.

The XM2-RFID UHF provides the power and performance needed to cut costs, improve customer service, reduce labor and improve production throughput. It is sealed to IP64 standards and designed for all-day, every-day use in challenging environments.

NCR Uses Advanced Software and 2D Barcodes to Bring Cardless Transactions to Bank of Ningbo ATMs

NCR Corporation announced that Bank of Ningbo has successfully gone live with NCR Mobile Cash Withdrawal. The software-based solution allows customers to pre-stage a cash withdrawal using Bank of Ningbo’s mobile banking application and then completes the transaction by scanning a 2D barcode using their mobile phone’s camera. Currently available across the bank’s nationwide ATM network of more than 600 ATMs in China, the new application offers Bank of Ningbo customers another cardless withdrawal option on top of the current method of scheduling cash withdrawals via mobile phones.

NCR Mobile Cash Withdrawal makes the bank’s cardless cash withdrawal option even faster by using a 2D barcode. Bank of Ningbo customers only need to pre-stage their cash withdrawal amount (up to RMB3,000) by selecting the “Pai Pai Cash” icon on the bank’s mobile banking application, a pre-scheduled transaction will then be generated in the application. As soon as the customers arrive at any of the bank’s ATMs, they can simply scan the 2D barcode on the bottom right hand corner of the ATM screen with their mobile phones to withdraw cash. The entire process takes about 20 seconds. With this new feature, customers are no longer required to enter their code, PIN and requested amount at ATMs, and it also prevents the inconvenience of customers not receiving or losing the PINs. Bank of Ningbo’s mobile banking app is available on iOS and Android smart phones.

According to Bank of Ningbo, the introduction of the additional 2D barcode option of cardless cash withdrawal with NCR’s innovative technology is a reflection of the bank’s commitment in leveraging the latest financial technology to innovate its product and service offerings to enhance customers’ experience. Bank of Ningbo also pointed out that NCR’s solution is more secure and easy to implement. After an analysis with NCR’s back-end monitoring software, the Bank found that transaction volumes via “Pai Pai Cash” have increased every day, as more mobile scheduled cardless withdrawal customers have turned to use “Pai Pai Cash”.

NCR Mobile Cash Withdrawal requires no additional ATM hardware; it can be deployed with just a simple software upgrade. The solution is a very secure approach to traditional card-based ATM transactions. No consumer data is stored on the device or contained within the on-screen 2D barcode. Rather, scanning the barcode only identifies the location of the ATM and prompts fulfillment of the transaction. In turn, using a mobile device eliminates the threat of ATM skimming devices used by criminals.

Patient safety driving increased RFID use in hospitals

The University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington, Vt., announced recently that five million medications have been tracked using radio frequency identification technology. Adam Buckley, MD, interim chief information officer and chief medical informatics officer at UVMC, said any time a system allows a hospital to track reliably from ordering through dispensing through administration at the bedside, patient safety has been greatly enhanced.

Smart Card Alliance and International Parking Institute Collaborate to Help Parking Industry Transition to EMV Chip Technology and Implementation

As the U.S. moves to EMV chip cards for payments, parking industry stakeholders need to review their current payments infrastructure and develop their strategy and plan for EMV migration to prepare for the upcoming October 2015 EMV fraud liability shifts. The Smart Card Alliance and the International Parking Institute (IPI) released a new white paper, EMV and Parking, to provide guidance and education surrounding the transition to chip technology and the fraud liability shift in the parking industry. The white paper, "EMV and Parking," was created by the Smart Card Alliance and IPI for parking merchants, suppliers and integrators of parking equipment, software and support services, and can be downloaded for free at http://www.emv-connection.com/emv-and-parking/. "The transition to chip technology requires infrastructure changes, and that takes time.

Parking industry stakeholders should begin planning and preparation now to avoid complications and elevated fraud costs down the road," said Randy Vanderhoof, executive director of the Smart Card Alliance. "This white paper has the unique perspective of both the Smart Card Alliance members, many of whom are experts in payments, and also IPI members who specialize in parking. This allows us to provide the education and guidance parking stakeholders need to move forward with their chip technology implementations."

Smart Shoes Lead to Clean Hands

French startup MediHandTrace has begun marketing a solution that employs RFID-tagged footwear to track whether hospital personnel are following proper hand-hygiene protocols. According to the World Health Organization, seven percent of hospital patients in developed nations will contract a hospital-acquired infection (HAI), while the number is about 10 percent in developing countries (though much higher than that in some nations). In 2006, French engineer and physicist Bernard Delord started looking for technological solutions to a universal health-care problem: preventing the spread of HAIs caused by poor hand hygiene.

Why I’m saying “no” to NFC on my phone

Changes in the payments industry are intrinsically tied to consumer behaviour. How people pay, where they pay, and what they pay with, is determined by convenience. As smartphones increasingly dominate the lives of consumers – from how they search the internet to how they shop – it is unsurprising that the next frontiers for payment innovation are widely anticipated to be within mobile commerce (m-commerce). But will the technology live up to the hype? Is the UK payments industry about to be fundamentally altered? And, if so, what implications will consumers need to consider?

SATO's PJM RFID Technology Integrated With BIT Consulting's myMEDISET

SATO, a global provider of Auto-ID solutions that empower workforces and streamline operations, and BIT Consulting, a leading software solutions provider for the healthcare industry, announced recently that SATO’s PJM RFID Technology is now available with myMEDISET. BIT Consulting’s myMEDISET is a leading solution for medical device loan-kit and consignment management that is based on SAP software. The myMEDISET 7.0 solution is certified by SAP to run on the SAP NetWeaver technology platform.

Founded in Freiburg, Germany, BIT Consulting developed myMEDISET for businesses in the medical field. The solution minimizes costs and reduces administrative workloads for managing high-value assets. myMEDISET supports complicated loan-kit operations for orthopedic implant vendors using barcode technology, and with the integration of SATO’s PJM RFID Technology, myMEDISET is now an RFID-ready solution.

NFC security: 3 ways to avoid being hacked

Here's what to keep in mind as near-field communications (NFC), the technology that allows Apple iPhone users to tap and pay, takes off. By the end of 2015, more than a billion phones will have the capability to use the wireless protocol to exchange data, and applications beyond payments will become common. The technology promises greater security, but individual smartphone makers’ implementations of the technology are not perfect. In an annual hacking competition of mobile devices in 2012 and 2014, security researchers used previously unknown flaws in the NFC functionality of smartphones to compromise devices.

RFID Global Joins RAIN RFID Alliance

RFID Global Solution, a leading provider of asset management solutions, announced it has joined the RAIN RFID Alliance. RAIN RFID is an industry alliance founded by Google, Intel, Impinj and Smartrac, and hosted by AIM, the automatic-identification trade association. RAIN is focused on promoting awareness, education and programs to accelerate the growth and adoption of UHF RFID in business and consumer applications. Similar to the Wi-Fi community and Bluetooth Alliance that have transformed their industries, RAIN’s objective is to emulate this success for RFID.

The collaboration will bring additional resources to RAIN’s effort to evangelize technologies that connect billions of everyday items to the internet. Data from these items help businesses run their operations more efficiently and provide better customer service. RFID Global delivers IoT solutions for the data center, industrial, and healthcare industries, and will share its experiences with the RAIN Alliance, thereby contributing to the adoption of RFID technology.