RFID is Poised for Change

However, low cost processes are useless if specifications and overheads are too expensive. Here it is interesting that there is an increasing interest in something cheaper and simpler than EPC in its currently chosen form. Some, like Marks and Spencer, opt for a stripped down specification of their own. Others are backing the Ubiquitous Product Code of Tokyo University now being trialled by governments in seven East Asian countries on the basis that you should not need to put 72,000 transistors on a gumball, a letter or even a book and the issuance of the numbers for such tagging should be very low in cost. Time will tell who is right, but IDTechEx believe the indsutry would do well to contemplate some very simple specifications - ironically those envisaged by Massachusetts Institute of Technology that started it all, and low cost administration. Otherwise its early and commendable success may be seen as but a Pyrrhic victory.