HP reinvents the wheel er uhm...RFID?

[Anthony Fremont]

Looks like much ado about nothing to me. Is this anything more than
RFID wrapped in hype? Let the patent wars begin.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/060717/hewlett_packard_chip.html?.v=1
http://biz.yahoo.com/ibd/060717/tech01.html?.v=1

 

[Jim Thompson]

Looks like much ado about nothing to me. Is this anything more than
RFID wrapped in hype? Let the patent wars begin.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/060717/hewlett_packard_chip.html?.v=1
http://biz.yahoo.com/ibd/060717/tech01.html?.v=1

And "Shares of Hewlett-Packard fell 24 cents..." ;-)

...Jim Thompson

 

[Joel Kolstad]

Looks like much ado about nothing to me. Is this anything more than
RFID wrapped in hype?

Integrating the antenna on-chip is something that is somewhat atypical and
potentially advantageous to HP's approach; otherwise it looks like nothing
new.

The second story is clearly influenced by some market droid's report, in
that they're often comparing apples and oranges -- these newer,
900MHz/2.4GHz RFID ICs with the older, bulkier 13.56MHz models, or these
newer tags -- which all have options have lots of memory onboard, it's
always just a question of how much you want to pay -- with really old or
*cheap* models where you only get a serial number. I also like how they
turn what's clearly a downside -- requiring a reader to be within
millimeters of the tag -- into an upside by catering to privacy concerns!
("RFID scanners can read chips as far as 10 feet away!" -- Tell you what,
give me a grant for, oh, say, only $250k and I'm quite confident I can take
a traditional RFID tag and only make it work over the span of a few
millimeters. )

---Joel

 

[Walter Harley]

I also like how they turn what's clearly a downside -- requiring a reader
to be within millimeters of the tag -- into an upside by catering to
privacy concerns! ("RFID scanners can read chips as far as 10 feet
away!" -- Tell you what, give me a grant for, oh, say, only $250k and I'm
quite confident I can take a traditional RFID tag and only make it work
over the span of a few millimeters. )

Actually, if you could come up with one that was *provably* only readable
from less than a few centimeters, regardless of the reader technology (ie
immune to white vans and black helicopters), then it would address a
legitimate privacy concern. Till then I'll keep wearing my AFDB.

Right now the industry and press seem to be confusing two things: the
distance from which a tag can be reliably and inexpensively read, versus the
distance from which it can be read at least some of the time by someone who
is willing to invest substantial amounts of money to do so.