RFID in Japan

Matsushita Electric Works, Ltd has commercialized the human skin data transmission technology. The company started selling the technology to manufacturers of mesuring apparatuses including Teraoka Seikou. Teraoka Seikou will, for example, build a system for sales agents who sell meat by weight. Sales agents wear a special wrist-band that accumulates information. When a customer orders, say, ground beef, a sales agent touches a corresponding digitally-enhanced product information card. Then, the information in the card is transmitted through the sales agent's skin and stored in his wristband. Now he puts some ground beef on an electronic scale and touch it to transmit the data in the wrist band to the scale. The scale then shows some product infoformation including the price.

The technology can be used for "human-human communication " as well as "human-machine" communication -- Matsushita Electric Works intends to sell the technology for various applications including office/home security, digital money, patient identification in hospitals, amusement facilities, etc.

via ITMedia News, September 13, 2004 (in Japanese; some photos)

Posted by konomi at September 17, 2004 02:38 AM | TrackBack