Walmart is mandating "RFID" usage by its suppliers.

[Gin]

http://boston.internet.com/news/article.php/3109501

Which company is responsible for the RFID rush? The answer may surprise you. It's not based in the world's technology capital, California, Washington or even New York.

It's in Arkansas, the headquarters of retailing giant Wal-Mart. While the front of the store is filled with grinning, blue-vested Wal-Mart employees greeting shoppers, out back in the storerooms and loading docks, the world's largest retailer is using automated inventory with RFID -- and insisting that suppliers and IT vendors follow.


Wal-Mart recently told its top 100 suppliers they would have to feature RFID on all cases and pallets of goods delivered to Wal-Mart by 2005 (smaller suppliers get an extra year to comply). Faced with banishment from thousands of stores, suppliers are scrambling to honor the mandate.

[Nlighten1]

1. Good ol' Wally World

I haven't shopped there in years.

[papau]

2. Broadcasting anti-theft tags? - or just readable without line of sight?

Short for radio frequency identification, a technology similar in theory to bar code identification. With RFID, the electromagnetic or electrostatic coupling in the RF portion of the electromagnetic spectrum is used to transmit signals. An RFID system consists of an antenna and a transceiver, which read the radio frequency and transfer the information to a processing device, and a transponder, or tag, which is an integrated circuit containing the RF circuitry and information to be transmitted.

RFID systems can be used just about anywhere, from clothing tags to missiles to pet tags to food -- anywhere that a unique identification system is needed. The tag can carry information as simple as a pet owners name and address or the cleaning instruction on a sweater to as complex as instructions on how to assemble a car. Some auto manufacturers use RFID systems to move cars through an assembly line. At each successive stage of production, the RFID tag tells the computers what the next step of automated assembly is.

One of the key differences between RFID and bar code technology is RFID eliminates the need for line-of-sight reading that bar coding depends on. Also, RFID scanning can be done at greater distances than bar code scanning. High frequency RFID systems (850 MHz to 950 MHz and 2.4 GHz to 2.5 GHz) offer transmission ranges of more than 90 feet, although wavelengths in the 2.4 GHz range are absorbed by water (the human body) and therefore has limitations.

RFID is also called dedicated short range communication (DSRC).

[DancingBear]

4. Somebody else actually knows this stuff??

I used to work as a Systems Architect for RFID/RTLS (real time locating systems) - gave it up due to all the travel and the fact that the company went Chapter 7. We used programmable tags that received a2.5 Ghz signal from strategially placed antennas, and returned the signal at 6.8 Ghz. Algorithms were devised which then "showed" the location of the object in question on a WIndows-based CAD map on one (or more) PC's.

[papau]

8. So many skills, so little income, and now so old!

Thank God for grandchildren!

:-)

[DancingBear]

9. I hear ya!

(though not as well as I used to) :)

[Don Claybrook]

3. So this is the real back-story?

Does anyone else recall that a month or two back, Wal-Mart began testing RFID-embedded products in one of its stores? There was public outcry, and they cancelled the test.

I guess they've learned a thing or two from the US Congress about quietly doing whatever they want to do despite public outcry. Well, I'm happy to report that I don't shop at Wal-Mart, but I'm concerned that I shop at some places that will eventually follow suit.

[Melsky]

5. Also discussed here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=220899

[Military Brat]

6. The brother of Big Brother is named "Wally"

I despise Wal-Mart and everything it stands for. If they were giving away free merchandise like books, CD's, stereos, tires, bird seed, sweaters, anything, I don't care, I wouldn't accept it. I support local community businesses, not some faceless "just another brick in the wall" corporation. RFID is an invasion of privacy and in the end will cost even more jobs to the American workforce. (Do you hear that, inventory personnel?)

Wal-Mart is a major player in the economic market. The GOP would say that it's proof that cream rises to the top. Well, so does scum. Just ask bush.

[JewelDigger]

11. Great Line!

proof that cream rises to the top. Well, so does scum.

I LOVE that! I'm definitely gonna use that somewhere - thanks! :-)


on edit: to change italics

[Silverhair]

7. Was. They dropped it. For now that is.

RFID isn't going to go away, nor is it unique to WM. The tags are the size of a period at the end of a sentence, and cost about a penny each. It's downright scary. The far right doesn't like them either.

[Gin]

10. if suppliers are mandated to implement this...whatever company

they ship to will have the chip...but may not have the technology to take advantage of it..at least not now anyway.