Cool+Ideas

=iPhone RFID: object-based media= By Timo | Published: 14 April 2009 Touch is a research group exploring the way mobile phones communicate with the physical world. One of their latest experiments involves attaching an RFID reader to an iPhone. When the phone is close enough to an RFID tag attached to certain objects, different actions or windows are triggered on the phone. In the demo, the creators have linked favorite videos, ads, and their podcasts to individual toys that could represent objects at a store. media type="custom" key="8014284"

=iPhone RFID and NFC peripherals= “The iCarteTM is a Near Field Communication (NFC) / Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Reader, designed to provide NFC two-way communication, RFID read/write and contactless payment capability for the iPhone. NFC and RFID tag information can be written and read by the iCarteTM and communicated to the iPhone or to any Computer with a USB port. iCarteTM has an embedded smart-chip that can be configured as debit, credit, pre-paid and loyalty cards, for secure contactless transactions. iCarteTM can also read NFC Smart Posters, download or upload electronic coupons, tickets or receipts. iCarteTM is ideal for iPhone users who want to use their iPhones for fast and secure contactless payments, transit payments, loyalty rewards, checking balances, top-up, discovering new services from smart posters or kiosks and exchanging information with other NFC phones. Business iPhone users can use the iCarteTM for commercial applications such as asset tracking, document tracking, healthcare, security and access control.”

=How to make your own iPhone RFID reader= Imagine if you could open your front door using your mobile phone. It might sound like a futuristic idea but Apple has patented a system which allows the iPhone to communicate with external devices such as locks. Behind this magical door-opening concept is RFID technology, which currently allows you to wave an Oyster card over a reader to get into a station, for example. Instead of waiting for this magical technology to appear on the next iPhone though, a research assistant at CASA/University College London has managed to build his own RFID iPhone accessory (video below). Benjamin Blundell's iPhone RFID solution is explained in great depth on his blog. Blundell's solution reads RFID data but can't write it yet, which means it can't be used to open doors at the moment but it does demo how the iPhone could interact with external objects. It's worth noting that last April a team of researchers at the Oslo School of Architecture & Design (OSAD) demoed an iPhone RFID reader and later that year a company called Wireless Dynamics announced an RFID iPhone and iPod Touch accessory called the iCarte. The OSAD demo didn't include instructions on how to build a reader and we can't seem to find anywhere in the UK that sells the iCarte. So if you're desperate to get involved in some iPhone RFID action then Blundell's instructions should be very helpful. media type="custom" key="8014702"

=Place and product-based collaborative filtering= Jon Olav Eikenes, Guilia Schneider, Bjørn Erik Haugen and Marie Wennesland created a high-level concept that proposed the idea that once we start to use our phones to pay for things, couldn’t we also start to use collaborative filtering of places and purchases? As ‘wallet phones’ become commonplace across Asia, we need to think about how these applications will be created and marketed here in Europe. What ‘added value’ will these phones offer over cash or credit cards? In this scenario, the ‘wallet phone’ not only let the user know how much they have paid, but it will recommend and offer social commentary on their choice of both products and places.Building an ‘Amazon’ for places and products is interesting because it builds upon everyday transactions and behaviour. The data that users and communities could pull out of these transactions is potentially very rich and useful. It also raises privacy concerns, but with the focus on users or communities owning and managing their own data on their personal devices, this project advocates for user-agency in such a system. More details and images at Jon Olav’s & Giulia’s weblogs.

=Nokia 6131 NFC phone at CES= media type="youtube" key="w0HNGl0BnYk?fs=1" height="385" width="480" align="left" A video has surfaced from the recent launch of the Nokia 6131 NFC phone at CES. The demo shows some basic functions of touch-based interactions such as using a ‘smart poster’ to make a phone call, uploading pictures to a picture frame, printing out from the gallery and paying at a contactless Visa till.

It is instantly clear that the interaction with the device has been much improved since Nokia’s previous NFC attempts. As the NFC interactions are now a core part of the operating system the response is very quick, and the range of functions is becoming appealing. The comments on both YouTube and Gizmodo are unusually positive.

Using a ‘flip’ form for an NFC device is very clever, as it allows the RFID reader to be at the top of the device when opened: the most natural placement for people to use the phone as a physical ‘pointer’. In previous NFC ‘candybar’ phones, the RFID reader has been placed underneath, to separate it from the multiple other antennae at the top of the phone, and this has been confusing for users.

The above was originally published November 5, 2010 at http://rfid.thingmagic.com/rfid-blog/bid/50212/RFID-for-Wander-Prevention A question posted to our Billions of Identities blog entry asked if there were solutions to track an elderly person living alone to determine if they are OK. The answer is yes, and here is some information on that topic that may be useful. For those of us who have had a family member or loved one suffer from Alzheimer's, or some other type of dementia, the experience can be painful for everyone involved. In addition to assistance form the most patient of healthcare professionals, solutions like the Companion anti-wandering system from RFID solutions provider Vuance can provide a new level of peace of mind. The Companion system includes a battery powered 433 MHz active RFID tag and motion detector embedded in a plastic wristband combined with a low-profile door alarm that contains an RFID reader and infrared emitter that creates an IR field across the doorway. The alarm device is powered by a 12 volt adapter and can be attached above a doorway to provide the desired area of coverage – about 4 feet. When a person wearing a Companion wristband moves into the IR field near a doorway an audible alarm is sounded, indicating that someone may be wandering outside of a desired area. While this system was initially designed for in-home care, Vuance intends to bring similar products to market for nursing homes and other facilities. In larger facilities, the intent is to create a network of RFID readers to monitor a greater number of individuals and doorways and even integrate with software to send text alerts or pages to specified staff members. Conceptually this same type of fully integrated system could extend to the home – providing location information, text or pager alerts, and maybe even video feeds to loved ones in remote locations to help care for our elderly family and friends.
 * //Providing Added Peace of Mind for Elder Care//**