Mark Roberti
I regularly receive e-mails from folks looking for assistance with RFID projects of one kind or another. Two recent correspondents are requesting help from RFID Journal readers.
The first correspondent is a value-chain manager for a large mining and gas company who is also a doctoral candidate at Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh. This person’s field research will be a series of focus-group studies to determine if the technology is feasible for use RFID in a mining-industry warehouse.
At present, the researcher is locating participants for the focus groups—participants must work in a non-mining industry warehouse currently using RFID tagging technology in its day-to-day operations—and plans to conduct two separate interviews (lasting 60 to 120 minutes each). He is offering an honorarium to compensate participants for their time. If you can help, please e-mail George at
[email protected].
Another researcher works at NHNZ, an international television production company based in New Zealand that produces factual programming for numerous clients, including Discovery Networks, National Geographic, Animal Planet and the Travel Channel. NHNZ is currently producing a six-part series for Discovery Networks Asia entitled Man-Made Marvels, which will showcase some of the most inspiring and ingenious feats of design and engineering on the planet.
One episode will revolve around the construction of Songdo City in Korea. For this episode, the producers will rely heavily on the technology being implemented in this “Ubiquitous City”—particularly RFID, which, according to the designers, will be integral to the city’s functionality.
Because Songdu City is still under construction and most of the key initiatives have yet to be implemented, the producers are short on images to convey the RFID component. They would like to film some short sequences that would give the viewer a glimpse of what the future might be like with ubiquitous computing and RFID technology. “Ideally,” says Mark Orton, a researcher for NHNZ, “we are looking for an RFID research centre, or a prototype environment that can be easily filmed.” If anyone can help, please e-mail me at
[email protected]. Thank you.