Douglas Adams would have said it had he been alive. RFID hype and panic cycles are notorious. Either RFID is end all to this world's problems - when it helps mankind be ever more dare I say be more efficient by keeping track of its myriad consumables, or it is the root of all evil - when it stops pacemakers and defibrillators from working. The recent article that has caused all this brouhaha is an innocuous and well researched and lucidly written paper by 5 dutch researchers, published by the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA for short).

Quite Simply all that is being said by the paper is this - "Strong RF signals cause EMI (Electro Magnetic Interference) in electronic devices thereby disrupting their normal mode of operation". Specifically it says, off-the-shelf RFID readers can cause malfunction of "critical care equipment" in hospitals when used in their proximity.

It doesn't make any assertion about RF signals causing bodily harm at all, just in case you were wondering.

Hmm.. that's fair isn't it? - If I use my cellphone (1-4W) next to a speaker, it causes the speaker to sputter, so it is quite likely that a strong RF emitter like a 3W RFID reader (by comparison a microwave typically radiates 700W) should cause problems when put next to an electronic device. The 2.5G iphones radiate about 1.59W and the article points out that a similar study carried out in 2007 by the same researchers has found that newer cellphones cause similar problems like shown with RFID in the proximity of critical care equipment.

Woah! what is more common - a cellphone or a 3W UHF RFID reader?. Last I heard we had half the population of this world outfitted with a cellphone, but only a few tens of thousands of UHF RfID readers sold. Let's take solace in the fact that although the research is credible and regulation should therefore take some kind of action, we better worry about cell-phones first.

Alright, so I said we have time but does it still mean RFID has no future in Hospitals?. Let me try and be as resounding as I can about this - RFID is a general term encompassing many different frequencies, power-levels and applications. Failing in one very specific and worst case test of RFID, DOES NOT mean the death of RFID across the board.

Infact, the most common frequency in use in hospitals for consumables authentication, patient management and drug tracking is 13.56 MHz (typically at 200mW) which surprisingly finds no mention in the paper. Instead a 868Mhz reader operating at potentially more than the 2W ERP allowed by European regulations, which hardly is popular in hospitals to begin with is a huge cause for concern - why again?!. This is like being afraid of all tomatoes unequivocally because there is one out there that can potentially harbor salmonella - you would have to be a little paranoid to stop eating tomatoes altogether won't you?.

All being said, one must give credit to the effort put by the researchers ( test cases are online at http://www.amc.nl/?pid=5266) and their results but we must take a deep breath, be rational and NOT PANIC.

Perhaps it was the plethora of sci-fi movies painting implantable RFID microchips as a means for Big Brother to track your every move. The concept of implantable tracking devices evokes fears of stolen identities, information misuse, and a general lack of privacy. Will better security be the ultimate solution or the Achilles heel to implantable RFID?

Implantable RFID is in wide use today. It is estimated that at least 2 million cats and dogs have been tagged with implants. In fact, as I write this blog, my dog Riley’s HomeAgain Microchip Identification card sits here next to the computer. Despite the wide adoption of implants for animals worldwide, the biggest issue in the United States has been the use of a standardized tagging system. With several different implant manufacturers using proprietary tagging technology, the problem hasn’t been with hackers stealing Fido’s social-security number, but rather the failure to identify lost animals. This has required some shelters to carry more than one reader, or purchase multi-protocol readers – an expensive proposition for some volunteer run organizations.

So what about human subjects? VeriChip was the first company, in 2004, to receive FDA certification to implant their RFID microchips into human patients. Privacy advocate Katherine Albrecht may have said it best, “A man with a chip in his arm may soon find himself wondering whether that cute gal on the next bar stool likes his smile or wants to clone his VeriChip. It gives new meaning to the burning question, 'Does she want my number'?" Since FDA approval, a whole host of problems has prevented the widespread adoption of VeriChip's implant:

• Availability of Information – VeriChip uses a proprietary web-based interface. Therefore, availability of patient information is not always guaranteed – a major concern for an emergency room environment.
• Health Risks – given the fact that chips make use of some metals, there have been reports of incompatibility with these implants and MRI devices. VeriChip therefore does not recommend that chipped patients undergo an MRI unless they are fully conscious. There are additional reports that these implants assist in sarcoma formation and are also possibly linked to the development of fast-growing, lethal cancers. Incidence of malignancies has been reported in lab rats and has not been extensively studied in human or pet subjects.
• Religious Concerns – many religions oppose implants and body modifications, a major hurdle in the international market.
• Privacy – VeriChip uses a 16-digit identification number which is linked to a patient’s health record. Even if a hacker were to obtain this unique ID, they would need to have gained secure, password protected access to VeriChip’s patient database to make use of the patient information. However, plans on how to clone VeriChip implants are widely available and can easily be found with a quick web search.

Given all of these challenges, it is clear why the adoption of RFID implants has been slow. With the continued development of international RFID standards, and the use of low-cost external tracking devices, such as patient wristbands, RFID may prove to be a more suitable method for tracking patients - which creates lots of questions revolving around the sustainability of the implantable market. It is for these reasons that may have led VeriChip to ultimately announce the sale of its Implantable RFID Business last month. There may be no need to invest in tin-foil deflector beanies after all!

Not one year goes by when the RFID market is projected to grow at an even more resounding, oh! last year is so out of fashion rate. This year has been little different with the latest report from ABI giving us another giant glimmer at the end of the tunnel, a sort of pat in the back saying carry on because the rewards are stupendous for those who persevere.

ABI in their latest report released last month (week of the 19th May) assert that sales will grow at a lip-smacking 15% annually between 2007 and 2013 reaching an eventual target of 9.7B. This they say could have been much faster had it not been for slower than expected growth in the more high volume segments like access control, toll management etc.

The Skeptic in us will question - do these projections really hold up? Well, discerning members of the cynics club should take a look at what ABI said to all of us back in 2003 , (http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/view/506/1/1) when they made the assertion that the RFID market will be worth a healthy 3.1B. The good news is that well, mostly the analysts agree that in 2007 the world did a little better than expected by grossing in 4.9 B in RFID sales. The sour news is that the analysts back in 2003 were nowhere close in their assertion that most of this value will be garnered in the operations/supply chain sector. By even the most optimistic estimates the combined market share of the asset management and supply chain sector is at 13%, (http://www.idtechex.com/products/en/articles/00000813.asp) and has decreased from the then 20% instead of growing to 42% as predicted.

Ah! great, the market is much bigger than ABI could have imagine in 2003 you say, well, it is nice if you are the one looking outside in, but for those who are trapped in this RFID bubble it means one thing and only one thing - the market is larger sure, but way more fragmented then we could have imagined in 2003. Not only do we have a plethora of frequencies, a plethora of regulatory environments and standards, a plethora of vendors and SI's but now we have an ever increasing plethora of applications. Say hello to a market with a Pareto distribution. Can't say if the Industry has grown up but it sure has grown fatter.

How fat can fat be? To illustrate this I can't help but make the hackneyed comparison of one wireless technology to another, in this case RFID with the cellphone industry. Recently I heard that ITU is announcing that by the end of the year half the world's population will have been handed a cellphone over which they will merrily be making small talk with their next door neighbour. 3.3 B in the last 20 years is an impressive feat no doubt but when you realize that RFID companies are trying to similarly slap a tag to everyday objects from pill bottles to freight cars, the mind boggles knowing that an average new yorker alone has access to 10B different product choices. So, either the analysts at ABI are right and the growth rate is 15% for the next 30-50 years till we tag everything around us or in reality the growth rate is going to be much larger, say, maybe twice as much... From my own experience working on embedded projects I can tell you one sure thing, that the wackiest RFID application you can dream of is already in production

Here is some commentary from Sean Loving, SkyeTek's founder: 

While the buzz is squarely on Supply Chain Management (SCM), I happen to believe that SCM is the least interesting part of the RFID market. Frankly, SCM is downright dull when you start to understand enabled reader technology.

At SkyeTek, we divide the embedded reader market into two primary segments: dedicated and enabled.

Dedicated readers look and smell like RFID readers - things like dock-door readers, handheld scanners, label printers, etc.

Enabled readers are far more interesting, because most of the time you wouldn’t know or expect RFID to be in there - things like medical devices, exercise equipment, and consumer electronics to name just a few of the places we have embedded enabled readers.

Though it gets somewhat scant industry attention, I expect the mega opportunity in RFID will have almost nothing to do with SCM. While analysts have not covered embedded RFID readers (especially the enabled portion) and thus there are no reports to support this theory, (though I’d welcome the research…are you listening VDC, IDC, Gartner, etc.?), I have strong anecdotal evidence that comes from our customer base.

Many if not most of our customers are not your typical SCM RFID install. Rather they work in vertical industries where RFID was not even in the consideration set a year ago, and amongst their competitors probably still isn’t. Yet our customers are solving real problems and enjoying real benefits from enabled solutions.

From our perspective, the attention that WalMart and the chips inserted in “Muffy” have generated is certainly a positive. It has gotten people thinking about what RFID can do for them, and I think it is worth pointing to some illuminating facts from our business:

(a) SkyeTek had already enabled over 100 unique applications with RFID before ever making a single outbound sales call

(b) we continue to see increasing demand in the form of inbound inquiries for embedded reader technology in some form or another.

The point is that once people start thinking about RFID, they end up applying the technology in totally new and innovative ways. Usually the more deeply they embed RFID into the product or service they already provide, the more interesting and useful the application becomes. Again, from our own sales leads we can say that when embedded customers seek out RFID solutions they occasionally find the marketplace offers what they need. More often, at least outside of SCM, they quickly learn how hard it is to fit a dock door reader or an animal scanner into their next generation DVD player, stair-climber, or microwave oven.

While the business motivations of customers are predictable (protection of consumables revenue, security and authentication, inventory and positive id), the functional and performance requirements are diverse, from readers in cell phones to readers in conveyor belts. Regardless of the type of equipment, OEMs are finding they need embedded reader technology to meet the most important requirements of their particular application and market, and this means looking beyond the purpose-built, vertical-specific hardware devices that seem to dominate the market.

In order to extend RFID to 1000s of new applications, a new technology and approach is needed to address this vastly underserved opportunity, and this means embedded readers. At SkyeTek we are looking beyond the current landscape and, along with others, are working to make embedded RFID reader technology more readily available, and able to meet the widespread but under-reported demand that is brewing across every vertical and horizontal market, and not simply working within the SCM doldrums.

We at SkyeTek are lucky to be exposed to ideas in their infancy. Lots of ideas. Working for SkyeTek, where we are focused on the embedded reader market, the ideas about how RFID will change the world go way beyond tracking goods. We sit with customers every week who tell me about their visions. Some simply want to improve existing products by adding RFID as a feature to do the same thing they’ve always done – but better. Others are integrating RFID with sensors, controls, wireless networks, and other technologies to create new and unique products. If even a small percentage of these ideas succeed, we stand to see a revolution in retail marketing, life-changing advances in medical treatment, a change in what we carry in our pockets, and countless other improvements in the way we move through our day. We might even have more fun on our vacations. (We're still engineers at heart, so we love automation and streamlined processes).

There has been much press in the last few months about security and privacy concerns related to RFID technology. Even The Today Show had a segment questioning whether the new smart cards were really that smart. First of all, I think it’s GREAT that RFID-enabled technologies are entering the American vocabulary on morning shows next to what to wear for fall and how to cook the best Thanksgiving turkey. Surely, this is a positive indication that RFID is starting to take hold and becoming more relevant to our everyday life. But to address the controversial issues surrounding RFID, these are nothing more than challenges that will take time and creativity to overcome. And overcoming these challenges is what makes working with emerging technologies fun!

RFID is still a relative newborn in terms of mass adoption. Of course, the internet wasn’t born overnight, barcodes took 30 years to become pervasive, and the evolution of cell phones and other mobile computing and communication devices is still evolving. All of these technologies changed the way people live, and we are excited to think of all the ways that RFID is likely to do the same.

These entries will focus not just on the neat ideas that will revolutionize the way we live our lives, but also discuss the associated challenges whether they be technical, political, social, or economical. By discussing these issues, I hope to open a dialogue for creative solutions that we at SkyeTek are now and continue to be aggressively involved in solving.