Get Ready for Reality Online
RFID provides the foundation for a new way of doing business in which every product and asset has a digital counterpart.
By Bob Violino
Sept. 1, 2003—Many business executives are wondering about all the buzz surrounding radio frequency identification. What makes a radio-powered microchip with a serial number so important? The answer, says Glover Ferguson, chief scientist at Accenture, a consulting and technology services company, can be summed up in one word: information.
Ferguson envisions a world in the not-too-distant future when every product and asset—from jet engine parts to important documents—will have RFID tags that will enable these inanimate objects to communicate information about themselves to computers. Accenture calls this "silent commerce." But Ferguson sees this as only the first stage in a trend toward what he calls "reality online."
Once individual objects can be identified, companies can add temperature, motion, radiation and other sensors, as well as miniature microphones or video cameras. Then, not only will these objects be able to identify themselves to computers, they'll be able to provide information about their status and condition. That data can be stored online to create a digital representation of the physical world—a virtual double of the real world.
Sept. 1, 2003—Many business executives are wondering about all the buzz surrounding radio frequency identification. What makes a radio-powered microchip with a serial number so important? The answer, says Glover Ferguson, chief scientist at Accenture, a consulting and technology services company, can be summed up in one word: information.
Ferguson envisions a world in the not-too-distant future when every product and asset—from jet engine parts to important documents—will have RFID tags that will enable these inanimate objects to communicate information about themselves to computers. Accenture calls this "silent commerce." But Ferguson sees this as only the first stage in a trend toward what he calls "reality online."
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Once individual objects can be identified, companies can add temperature, motion, radiation and other sensors, as well as miniature microphones or video cameras. Then, not only will these objects be able to identify themselves to computers, they'll be able to provide information about their status and condition. That data can be stored online to create a digital representation of the physical world—a virtual double of the real world.
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