A Radio Chip in Every Consumer Product
Monty Solomon
A Radio Chip in Every Consumer Product
By CLAUDIA H. DEUTSCH and BARNABY J. FEDER
Here's a tip to thieves: If you are bent on stealing packages of
Gillette Mach3 razor blades, go someplace other than Tesco's Newmarket
Road store in Cambridge, England. There, a "smart shelf" continuously
queries tiny radio chips embedded in the packages it holds, and senses
the silence when one is removed. The system may soon be programmed to
alert security when several are taken at once, Greg Sage, a Tesco
spokesman, said.
And, yes, Procter & Gamble will notice if a case of Pantene shampoo
does not make it to the Wal-mart Supercenter in Broken Arrow, Okla.
Its truck is equipped to monitor signals continuously from chips hidden
in each case. If any case stops sending its "Hi, I'm still here"
signal, a monitor in the "smart truck" will record exactly when and
where.
Such technology, known as radio-frequency identification - the same
techniques that enable an electronic sensor to record data from an
E-ZPass tag or an office door to open for people with chip-equipped
cards in their pockets - could one day stymie pilferers. But it is also
capable of doing much more for commerce. Beyond Gillette and Procter &
Gamble, companies as diverse as International Paper and Canon USA are
teaming up with retailers and customers to apply R.F.I.D., as it is
known, to tracking products from the time they leave an assembly line
to the time they leave the store.
The companies are tagging clothes, drugs, auto parts, copy machines and
even mail with chips laden with information about content, origin and
destination. They are also equipping shelves, doors and walls with
sensors that can record that data when the products are near. "We want
to track all of our merchandise, and that includes items that people
are unlikely to steal," William C. Wertz, a spokesman for Wal-Mart
Stores, said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/25/technology/25THEF.html