From the Editor's Desk

Welcome to the latest issue of the High Tech AIDCourier.

This has been a crazy month. There is so much going on this month that it has been hard to stay on top of it all. The standards column below details some of the work that is going on in that arena.

Did you see the announcement from Wal-Mart that they are going to start tagging apparel? Good news for the industry but it certainly had ignited a lot of press about it. As I sift through all the editorials and comments, I get the feeling that most people do not have a problem with this and it is only the hard core privacy people who are objecting. I still don’t get it! Even though I am very careful with my identity information, I don’t understand how a hang tag on my jeans is going to compromise my privacy rights. I do understand how it is going to let Wal-Mart be even more competitive and I say – good job, especially if it reduces the cost of my jeans.

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Technology News Briefs

RFID Standards

Although there have been few physical meetings this month, the phone lines have not had a chance to cool off before the next call starts. We have two big areas of work in progress at the moment. Data Protocol for RFID and Security/File Management for RFID. The Data Protocol work is the result of a ballot and is an attempt to resolve the comments raised during the ballot.

The file management and security for RFID is a new work item (ISO/IEC 29167) and is bringing many people to the table. The discussions range from how to implement a useable file management system on a tag to how to provide security. The security side includes the ability to have untraceable tags, and the ability for tags to encrypt data. This group has a mirror group in EPCglobal who are looking at the same issues (along with EAS) for the Gen2 UHF standard. The goal is to keep the two groups in alignment.

If you want more information on ISO standardization or on any issue of RFID standardization, then email steve@hightechaid.com.

Radio Frequency Identification

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Press Releases

The Final Comment