RFID in Japan

NTT Communications Corp. will test two RFID-guided shopper-assistant robots at a large shopping center in Japan. The robots are guided by RFID tags and help shoppers by carrying shopping bags. They also provide related sales information when they arrive at the destination store. They will be used for a week, starting February 9, 2006, at Diamond City Lucle in Fukuoka.

When a shopper selects a store using a touch panel, the robot will accompany the shopper to that store, moving at the same speed they walk. To know where it's going, the robot will read some 5,000 smart tags embedded in the shopping center's floor. Built-in sensors will allow it to detect and avoid other shoppers.

The robots will also be used to help online shoppers.

Online shoppers will be able to interact with store personnel via a camera on the robot to get a better understanding to the merchandise offered.

Thanks again, regine!

via Nikkei Net

related: RFID Shopping Assistant Robot

dwango released a new fishing game that allows players to catch fish using a camera phone and QR codes. There are over 100 kinds of fish as well as unknown creatures and driftwood, which are encoded in different QR codes. While fighting a fish, playes must push phone keypads according to an on-screen instruction. Phones vibrate during fish fighting.

[ push "6" many times! ]

via SlashGames < QR Code Blog

NEC announced a new "customer relationship support solution" for providing personalized in-store services that match customers' preferences and personal traits. Customers shows either "RFID-chipped mob¤¤le phone straps" or customer loyalty cards to an in-store RFID device. Then, their purchase histories, preferences, etc. are displayed on sales agents' PCs and mobile devices.

The system incorporates the know-how for judging people's personality types, which is provided by some psychology research organization (name not disclosed). When analyzing customer data, the system also provides information about customers' personality and "stars" based on their birthdates. Sales agents use this information to adapt their interactions with the customers. Or, sales agents who are highly compatible with the customer go talk with him/her.

The system includes NEC's customer-relationship application, RFID middleware "RFID Manager", RFID tags/ readers, servers, and in-store PCs. The company's goal is to sell 200 systems (2.5B Japanese Yen in total) in three years.

via CIO JP

related: 10,000 Shanghai Department Store Customers RFID'd

In Japan (and possible other Asian countries), Ubiquitous ID Center's uID standard may be a major competitor for EPCglobal's EPC starndard. The development of a uID infrastructure that connects eight countries including China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Australia was recently completed and it will be available in January.

So-called "uID Operation Centers" will be establised in Australia (Tasmania) and China and then possibly in Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

YRP Ubiquitous Networking Lab, the organization behind uID, recently initiated a three-year project called "Asia Ubiquitous Project" and the development of the uID infrastructure is part of the activities of this project.

via Nikkei IT Pro and Nikkei Shimbun

Seven collective standards for mobile RFID technology were recently ratified by Korea's IT standards organization. The standards are intended for B2C applications rather than SCM type B2B applications.

The standards ratified by TTA include mobile RFID code system, search service structure, application data format, general application requirements and suitability of protocol tests. They also define service models such as movie promotion, cultural heritage information and relating application requirements, service management protocol and message send protocol.

thanks regine.

via Telecoms Korea

People have been talking about RFID-based automatic checkout at retail stores. For example, if all sales items are RFID-tagged, you could just go through a gate with a cart full of sales items, the system reads information about everything in the cart, and automatically charges your credit card (ultimately, you could just put things in your bag or pocket and walk away from the store.) But, it looked like such a scenario belongs to the future rather than today because of the high cost of tags, privacy issues, and the difficulty to accurately read tags.

Here's some ambitious project - FamilyMart, Itochu, and Toshiba Tec unveiled a checkout system that identifies all purchased items at the same time using item-level RFID tags. If customers use RFID payment cards such as SUICA, the checkout process can be done very quickly with this system - it takes only several seconds (more than twice as fast as the conventional checkout processes.)

FamilyMart Co., Itochu Corp. and Toshiba Tec Corp. said Tuesday that they will jointly test their new system to process a large number of purchase items instantaneously using store cash registers between Jan. 30 and Feb. 24 in a project supported by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

A pilot test of this system will start on January 30, 2006 in a real store.

FamilyMart convenience stores plan to use this system in the future.

thanks again regine.

via Kyodo News & Mainichi Shimbun

Oops, it's not about attaching RFID tags to salmon sushi.

National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) of Japan once claimed that they have successfully developed the core technology for printing RFID chips. But I didn't know about using Salmon.

it is the first time that a memory device is actually formed on a flexible substrate by printing," said Kamata and Uemura. They also added; "We expect radio frequency identification (RFID) tags to be suitable" for the initial application.

and...

Kamata and other members made the memory device by forming organic semiconductor device, and source and drain electrodes on a ferroelectric layer made from DNA of salmon and "poly-methyl L-glutamate (PMLG)," a kind of polypeptides (protein), stacked on flexible substrates of various materials such as polyimide.

Since antennas can be printed, this Salmon-based technology may make it possible to devise a "printer-like machine that produces a complete RFID tag on demand."

thanks a lot regine

via Nikkei Tech-On

In Shinjuku, Tokyo, some street lamps were RFID tagged for the purpose of deliverying information to citizens - information about nearby stores, public facilities, etc. Attached to each street lamp was a so-called "information panel" that has an RFID tag embedded in it. The local goverment plans to tag more street lamps next year aiming at tagging all 10,000 street lamps in the region.

Citizens may use a PDA-like device called Ubiquitous Communicator (UC). A UC device reads RFID tags on street lamps and first fetches the information about the user's current location. Then, using GUI, one can find out about nearby stores, entrances to train stations, public restrooms, event information, etc.

In addition, QR codes are printed on "information panels" so that people who don't have UC devices can also access the information by using their camera phones.

It sounds like Shinjuku's local goverment is seriously thinking about "real" uses of the technology. The RFID street lamp infrastructure could be used for deliverying sightseeing information in normal situations. In case of a disaster/emergency the same infrastructure could be used to get pertinent up-to-date information about what's going on and also to guide citizens safely to evacuation sites.

via Nikkei IT Pro