This article was originally published by RFID Update.
March 19, 2009—Product releases and technology innovations highlighted this week’s news, including international standards and developments that link RFID with cell phones, sensor networks, medical devices, Zigbee, ultrasound tracking and more.
- A group of RFID providers and users formed the DASH7 Alliance to promote use and product development for the ISO 18000-7 active RFID standard. Systems based on the standard are used to track shipping containers and other logistics items around the world. Participants in the alliance include U.S. government and military institutions, private sector firms, RFID vendors and researchers, according to the announcement.
- ISO 18000-7-standard technology is included in a recent U.S. military contract award. Active RFID technology provider Hi-G-Tek of Rockville, Maryland, announced it has won a subcontract from government contractor Unisys to supply active RFID equipment and services for the recent RFID III award. Unisys was one of four prime contractors to be selected for the indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract from the US Army.
- M/A-COM RFID sold its pedestal and forklift-mount RFID reader product lines to Micronetics for undisclosed terms. Hudson, New Hampshire-based Micronetics manufactures RF components for the aerospace industry. M/A-COM RFID, which was formed last July as a subsidiary of Cobham and Tyco Electronics in Lowell, Massachusetts, has sold more than 15,000 RFID reader portals and manufactures a variety of non-RFID wireless products. See the announcement.
- Barcoding Inc., a data capture solutions provider and technology developer, announced it will open its RFID Technology Center in its home city of Baltimore. The new center will house R&D labs and support large integration projects.
- The Canadian province of Quebec began issuing RFID-enabled License Plus driver’s licenses this week. See more information about the optional program here.
- Gentag, a Washington, DC-headquartered firm that is developing technology to create cell phone-enabled RFID sensor networks, announced it has engaged management consulting firms in the U.S. and Europe to help it explore options for selling its intellectual property portfolio.
- Cell phones from Nokia will include NFC RFID tags from Innovision, the UK chip maker announced. Innovision said this is the first time in 2009 that a mobile operator has distributed the NFC tags prepackaged with a mobile phone.
- CAEN RFID and TERTIUM Technology, both of Italy, announced a new handheld that can read RFID and collect data from Zigbee (IEEE 802.15.4) sensors. The new BluePalm M also offers an integrated bar code reader plus Bluetooth, WiFi, GSM/GPRS and GPS wireless connectivity.
- Sonitor, whose systems use ultrasound to locate tagged items, announced a new receiver designed to provide room-level accuracy for hospital tracking applications. The receivers can connect to Ethernet or WiFi networks to monitor zones as small as a patient bed.
- Connecticut-based Queralt introduced a hosted solution to track inventory sold by consignment. Readers are installed at the user site to automatically record whenever items are moved to or from consignment inventory. The company announced the system supports passive and active RFID tags, sensors and can integrate with a variety of software systems.
- VeriChip will provide RFID chips to Medcomp for integration into the latter’s vascular catheters. The $3 million deal is pending FDA approval of the devices, according to Delray Beach, Florida-based VeriChip’s announcement.
- RFID provider WaveMark and Noblis, which provides recall management solutions, jointly announced they have integrated their technologies to offer RFID-supported recall management for the healthcare supply chain. One of the features enables medical products to be tracked to specific patients through integration with electronic medical records (EMR) systems.
- SMARTRAC, an Amsterdam-headquartered manufacturer of secure RFID inlays and contactless cards, reported its fiscal year 2008 revenues grew 16 percent to €112.3 million, but net profit fell to €13.6 million. The company noted its inlay volume sales for U.S. electronic passports was down 40 percent.
Previously this week RFID Update covered:
- New venture capital funding for GlobeRanger (see RFID Software Provider GlobeRanger Raises $8.3M).
- An analyst report on Asian RFID market prospects (see Asian RFID Outlook Predicts Pockets of Opportunity).
- A profile of RTLS vendor Ekahau and its diverse customer base (see WiFi Coverage Helps Ekahau Find RTLS Opportunity).
