RFID Helps Keep Nick on the Go

Reader data is sent to CR Media's Internet-based server using NCR software to translate that data. CR Media employees can view an image of a map of the United States to see in real time how many players are in any specific location at a time, Wallack says. CR Media personnel can click on any location to find out how many are in inventory and how many were rented and when. They can also access a device's rental history to find out when and how often a particular player was rented and for how long, as well as the locations from which it was rented and then returned.

When a player is returned, it is taken to the back room to be cleaned and recharged and the reader captures that ID number again and sends the ID number to the server.

NCR's Terry Massey

CR Media uses the data both to monitor the devices at the 43 participating Hertz locations and to compare against monthly rental reports from the individual locations as well as to send reports to Nickelodeon.

If a Hertz office reports a player missing, CR Media can track when the player left the location and Hertz can access their video records to see an image of the individual who took the player. "We are able to see on-hand inventory, run reports, and use those reports to compare to actual sales reports," Wallack says. Hertz has its own back-end system in which is stores data about who rents the players and when and where they return them. Hertz sends those sales reports to CR Media monthly.

One challenge NCR faces when installing the systems at airports is working around existing RF transmissions, which vary from one airport to another, Massey says. In each installation, an NCR engineer measured RF in the vicinity and mounted readers accordingly to shield them from those RF signals if they were present.

The Nick on the Go player

"It's worked really nicely," Massey says. "It's fun to play a mission critical role for such a new company. CR Media needed creative help, and it was great to provide that. They are very high-energy, bright people."

"So far we've had 110 percent customer satisfaction [regarding the players]," Wallack says. "It's a very 21st-century amenity. They love it to death." Wallack says CR Media sees itself as a technology pioneer, forming an unprecedented partnership with Nickelodeon and Hertz to provide technology to their customers, and he says the use of RFID for tracking furthers that pioneering effort.

Currently, each player plays programming only in English, but content in Spanish will be available in May. Hertz employees use content-loading stations, supplied by CR Media, to add new programming that CR Media provides periodically.