RFID World 2006

Thousands of folks convened last month at the Gaylord Texan in Dallas for RFID World 2006, a conference that is growing in headcount and quality each year. In fact, at last count, there were at least 185 exhibiting companies. Surprisingly, a true feeling of RFID awareness and understanding prevailed. Attendees and vendors alike know what the technology currently is capable of and where it needs to go. Not surprisingly, it still is very apparent that RFID has a long way to go before it reaches maturity. Show highlights include:

In a session titled "RFID and Consumer Brands: Myth Versus Reality in RFID Implementation", VF Corporation, Tandy Brands and Daisy Brand Inc. were on hand to discuss the challenges that they faced in early RFID implementations and the role that RFID will play going forward.

"We weren't going to buy millions of tags until the price dropped," said James G. Jackson, director, vendor relationship management, VF Corp. Thanks to RFID strides made by both Wal-Mart and the Department of Defense, Jackson said the industry suddenly began to move a lot faster than expected. "We need to be prepared for item-level," said Jackson. "The initial reasons we were interested in RFID have changed because our business has changed."

Robust Vendor Offerings

On the vendor front, Markem had set up an impressive RFID-labeling contraption, capable of tagging product in both very warm and very cold climates. The company also is bundling "track and trace" software for clients to offer a more complete RFID package. I was told someone placed an order for eight of their labeling systems to be up and running by April. Not bad.

ADT Security Services Inc., a unit of Tyco Fire & Security, announced the availability of a Gen 2 software upgrade for its RFID Agile 2 readers allowing end users to easily upgrade to the latest technology. Gen 2 protocols are improved open standards ratified by EPCglobal, the standards-setting organization for the commercialization of electronic product code (EPC) technology. The Agile 2 reader is different because of its intelligence and the ability to upgrade easily through downloads, according to Randy Dunn, director of RFID for ADT. "The ADT firmware upgrade offers other added functions in addition to Gen 2 capability," Dunn said. "We plan to provide new features and improvements through ongoing software upgrades approximately two times a year."

In other vendor news, Checkpoint Systems says it is making Gen 2 tags for transport ticketing. Alien Technology announced a worldwide reseller agreement with HP. Omron was hawking an out-of-the-box RFID compliance kit that cost less than $20,000. ThingMagic has a new RFID reader that the company is selling to resellers, and Texas Instruments will be buying Gen 2 chips from Impinj for use in its own tag design.