Nov 16, 2017The following are news announcements made during the past week by the following organizations:
Honeywell;
Connect&GO;
Idox Health;
Rigado;
LEGIC Identsystems, and WISeKey.
Honeywell Unveils Passive Vehicle RFID Tag for Toll Collecting
Honeywell has announced its latest passive RFID tag, which enables secure vehicle identification while preventing counterfeiting, spoofing or the exposing of customer data to unauthorized users. The IT70 tag can be used for highway tolling applications, electronic vehicle registration, and vehicle access and payment.
The tag can be read from car and truck windshields at ranges of 10 meters or mere, even while a vehicle is traveling at speeds of more than 160 kilometers per hour. Drivers throughout Brazil are using the tags to access toll roads and pay for gas and parking, the company reports.
"Organizations want to prevent unauthorized use of the tags, and their customers need the peace of mind that data being transmitted from their car is secure," said Hank Stephens, the RFID product leader of Honeywell's Productivity Products business, in a prepared statment. "We incorporated a range of cryptographic standards to provide two-way authentication and data security with up to six access keys with fully configurable privileges."
Since it is a fully passive RFID tag, the IT70 requires no further maintenance once it is applied to a vehicle windshield. The tag features up to six access keys, cryptographic encryption support with the ability to perform AES-128 functions three times faster than competitive tags, and the ability to withstand extreme environmental conditions ranging from -40 degrees to 85 degrees Celsius.
"Although commonly used for toll lanes and parking garages," Stephens added in the prepared statement, "these secure RFID tags can also be used for other electronic payment transactions, such as buying gas without having to leave your car."
Connect&GO Offers RFID Wristbands for Amusement and Water Parks
Montreal-based Connect&GO launched its latest wearable product, designed specifically for amusement and water parks, at the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (IAAPA) trade show, held this week in Orlando, Fla. The Connect&GO Parkpass is a branded RFID wristband that allows amusement park, water park and family entertainment center guests to utilize a fully connected experience during their visit.
The Parkpass was first conceptualized at a family entertainment center in Montreal, Canada, envisioned by video game company Ubisoft. The Rabbids Amusement Center offers an indoor play zone in which families can engage in a variety of activities, games and challenges based on popular Ubisoft characters and stories. Each child receives a Parkpass wristband linked to a personalize profile. Parent and child profiles are paired, thereby increasing security. A child cannot exit the center unless accompanied by the parent linked to his or her profile.
As children move throughout the center, play games and scan their connected wristbands, they earn points that can be redeemed for prizes. Gamification keeps children active and engaged, the company explains, and the data collected with each scan can help operators to understand patterns and behaviors.
The Parkpass tells the story of each visitor's journey and creates an easy way for him or her to enter, pay and play throughout a property. "Whether you're linking your guest's fast pass or their season pass and monetizing the lines and accelerating the crowd flow or providing an easy and secure cashless payment transaction, the Parkpass empowers visitors to focus on the park, the fun and the memories," said Anthony Palermo, Connect&GO's CEO and co-founder, in a prepared statement.
The ParkPass allows park operators to gain insights into consumer behaviors and purchasing patterns. Data collected in real time can be visualized on the Parkpass dashboard, enabling park management to optimize operations, sales strategies and marketing initiatives, and to build customer profiles.
Customized wristbands can be offered at an additional fee, encouraging guests to purchase an upgraded version and/or season pass to the park. Loyalty programs are maximized using the Parkpass point system, and experiential activations, such as print-on-site photo kiosks and instant social-media sharing cameras, provide additional opportunities for increased spend-per-head.
Idox Health Intros RFID Asset-Management Solution for Health Care
The latest version of Idox Health's iAssets asset logistics management solution provides a 360-degree view of a hospital's equipment, the company reports, delivering timely information that enables personnel to review information regarding asset location, availability, usage frequency, patient allocation and safety. According to Idox Health, NHS trusts will benefit from an enhanced digital service that provides a holistic view of all hospital assets—from syringe pumps to beds—to help clinicians reduce clinical risk, improve patient care and boost productivity.
This can help to reduce the amount of clinical time workers spend searching for equipment (estimated by The Nursing Times to take up to 30 minutes of every shift), the company reports, while providing trusts with the insight required to maximize asset availability, reduce procurement spend and ensure compliance through a coordinated approach to asset management.
The solution's mobile bar-code trackers allow personnel to link medical devices to a location and to a patient wristband. The Scan4Safety feature on the handheld device confirms whether a device is safe to use within its planned preventative maintenance and sterilization cycle, thereby ensuring clinical safety. iAssets offers the functionality to allow staff members to gather the utilization rates of assets trust-wide, which is essential for re-procurement and capital expenditure planning and to drive savings.
Fully compliant with all seven GS1 keys, iAssets complies with the most recent mandate from the UK Department of Health and is part of the iFIT logistics management suite.
"Our previous version of iAssets was simply all about tracking of assets, whilst now the product gives a holistic solution, including the utilization and sanitization of assets," says Daphne Tabone, Idox Health's senior manager for marketing. "Our latest release of iAssets contains asset-monitoring features and is more focused on patient safety. The system complies with the Scan4Safety mandate being enforced by the NHS." According to Tabone, RFID readers are placed where customers see fit, against paths followed by assets at each site. The solution includes both fixed and handheld readers, and the company uses various models and brands according to customer requirements.
Rigado Unveils IoT Suite With Bluetooth 5 Support
Rigado has announced its Edge Connectivity Suite with full support for Bluetooth 5. Designed specifically for large-scale commercial Internet of Things (IoT) deployments, Rigado's latest Edge Connectivity solution comprises Bluetooth 5 end-device modules and the Vesta IoT Gateway, which includes cloud-based tools for secure deployment and updating. Rigado's Bluetooth 5 solutions are now expanded to include Nordic Semiconductor's new nRF52840 system-on-chip.
"Many manufacturers and integrators are now choosing Bluetooth Low Energy for their Commercial IoT applications—such as asset tracking and smart lighting—and the new Bluetooth 5 features make it an even more attractive option," said Ben Corrado, Rigado's CEO. "But using BLE for large-scale IoT deployments requires a solution that addresses flexibility, interoperability and security. That's what Rigado provides."
Specifically designed for companies that need to develop, deploy and manage a large number of connected devices and gateways, the Edge Connectivity Suite includes:
• Certified end device modules: Rigado's modules save connected product teams six months and more than $200,000 in design, test and certification. Fully Bluetooth 5-enabled, the modules feature mesh-networking capabilities, suitable for such applications as smart lighting and asset tracking.
• Edge-computing gateways: Rigado's Vesta IoT gateways manage connectivity to end devices and ensure that data reaches public and private cloud services. They also support custom edge applications to process data and offer local device control. Flexible wireless options and customizability mean that companies can optimize their gateway for cost-effective enterprise deployment.
• Cloud-based tools for secure deployment and updating: Companies require a scalable solution to securely manage updates to devices in the field. Therefore, Rigado's gateway ships with the company's provisioning and release-management system, which can be integrated with existing development tools for secure updating at scale.
"Rigado's IoT gateways allow us to quickly develop, deploy and scale our mobile proximity solutions for retailers and restaurants," said David Helms, Radius Networks' chief technology officer, in a prepared statement. "We evaluated a wide range of edge connectivity options, and found the Rigado gateway to be a uniquely customizable and cost-effective solution for large scale, low-power wireless with edge computing power."
To help companies rapidly prototype Bluetooth 5 IoT solutions, Nordic and Rigado have partnered to create the Rigado IoT Development Kit, which combines the Vesta IoT Gateway with Nordic's Thingy:52 sensor. The kit includes sample software that makes it easy to capture sensor information from the Thingy and visualize it via the Gateway Web app, or stream sensor data to Amazon AWS, where it is then visualized in a cloud-based dashboard. The IoT Development Kit is available now.
LEGIC Identsystems Selects WISeKey as Security Partner for Mobile Services
WISeKey International Holding, a cybersecurity and IoT company, has announced that LEGIC Identsystems has selected WISeKey as its security partner for enabling mobile service security for LEGIC's mobile ID and RFID offering.
LEGIC's offering is a security enabler for mobile services, the company reports, and addresses current and future needs for security against cyber-attacks or cybercrime. With LEGIC Connect, a smartphone or smartwatch can function in numerous capacities, including as a door opener, a train ticket, a time and attendance tracker, or a car key. With LEGIC's technology, all the rights of a contactless card or other virtual credential can be migrated to smart devices at the touch of a button.
"WISeKey has been a long-term security partner of LEGIC," said Dr. Otto Eggimann, LEGIC's VP of operations and business units for Asia and the Americas, in a prepared statement, "and we are very happy to renew our collaboration by selecting WISeKey to secure our new LEGIC offering."
"We are very proud to be selected by LEGIC for this project," said Bernard Vian, WISeKey Semiconductor's managing director, in the prepared statememt. "This agreement is estimated to generate revenue of several million dollars for WISeKey, over the life of the project."
