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RFID-enabled smart shelves heading into stores

engadget.com — These shelves will be able to track whether you debated the PSP over the DS lite, whether you wanted the high end version but opted for the low end because of price and what items were popular amongst consumers and which were not.

Who dugg this? Made popular Sep 18, 2006

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  • ggko, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Do these shelves work for the tin-foil aisle of the supermarket?
  • ripberge, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Having worked extensively with UHF RFID for Wal-Mart and the U.S. Department of Defense, I would say that these shelves will not roll out en mass anytime soon.

    UHF RFID is very finicky and its hard to get accurate reads of tags when they're densely packed. Not to mention you'd be absolutely showering the store with radio and there are some valid health concerns over that. I think using data from POS machines wisely will let you figure out stockouts and buying correlations in a more reliable fashion for the foreseeable future.
  • pahncrd, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Yeah, but you have to pay extra.
  • R0CKY, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4For anyone reading about RFID for the first time, Google for "Katherine Albrecht" or visit http://www.spychips.com for some entertaining/interesting reading on the whole RFID hoohaa.
  • pennyfan87, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Just wait until they can communicate with the RFIDs in our hands, and they'll know everywhere we've ever been, and everything we've ever touched!
  • d00fy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Walmart already has this. I believe they've had it for Gillettes with a similar set up about a year ago in the US.

    I'm not even going to break out the tin-foil on this one, you guys believe whatever you need to believe. I can understand "the mark of the beast" comments. I'm not overtly religious though, so... I truly don't care about that aspect.
  • R0CKY, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Not exactly correct apparantly. I've heard one potential use of these chips is to change the price of goods depending on who is buying it. Because stores can track who bought what and at what price (they already do with store cards), they can now if they wish dynamically price goods on the fly using this information as they already know what price the customer is willing to pay for each item. Although I only heard this on a radio show and have to verified it further, it is an example of how all this data they collect can be used to value the person, not the goods.

    Another example - the local jeans store will be able to tell how long you have worn those jeans you have on for, the second you would through their RFID enabled doorframe.

    Again, this is info I heard on a radio show, I would encourage anyone to google around and get various opinions from both camps before forming one themselves :o)
  • ErikPersson, on 07/21/2008, -1/+2dudes RFID isn't all evil. Think of it this way. They can tell if someone took the last copy of the new Zelda game off the shelf and hid it behind barbies adventure. An even cooler app is to RFID food products. When you get home you can slide them into your RFID enabled fridge/Pantry and have a dynamically updated database of what food you have.
  • xelloss, on 10/12/2007, -5/+6Wonder if there will be a 666 in those chips.
  • d00fy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Somewhere in the article: RFID zapper... just a coil rigged to a flash capacitor...

    http://events.ccc.de/congress/2005/wiki/RFID-Zapper(EN)

    First it started with pets, products, then livestock, currencyidentification papers, then it's people. All of which have already been achieved. Clearly livestock and people aren't mandatories yet.

    I'd be pissed off, but I can't, I just admire these guys too much. They're too smart for the average person.
  • ripberge, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The primary goal of applying RFID by most of these retailers is to reduce volatility in their supply chain. Using them to price dynamically is not only ludicrous, but discriminatory. You would need an RFID chip on your body to identify you as a person when you walked up to a shelf to do this, not on the products.

    Most RFID tags are applied to cases and pallets. This story details an experiment of item level tagging in which RFID would be applied to product PACKAGING. If an RFID chip goes on the jeans it goes on the product tag, its NOT going to be sewn into your jeans.

    Btw. The SpyChips book is Luddite propaganda.
  • thydzik, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1do they really need this though.

    a lot of this information can be deduced from the checkout databases. Even knowing what products where purchased by the same shopper.

    'how many tossed it in their carts, which items attracted little to no attention'
    the items that where bought, and not bought perhaps
  • d00fy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Or the garbage can RFID reader that let's you know when your food has been scrapped... Or the luxury resort pool-side bars where you have subdermal implants... Or that Flordian family that chipped themselves to thwart terrorism.

    Yeah, nah thanks.

    I'll just open my eyes and look in my pantry, or fridge. I'm quite capable of organizing and maintaining food.. Especially non-parishables...

    It's cool if you're into this, so long as youi know of the security issues, and the reason why it's being implemented/required.
  • Surreal, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Gross.
  • farm3r, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1BTW even though I don't believe in any conspiracies about it at all, have a look at the bar-codes. Some of them have a beginning, a middle and an end marks (they extend longer than the other lines until half way through the numbers). Well that marker consists of two thin bars which correspond to the number 6 (or at least it looks like that), thus the conspiracy theories. I am sure that whoever made the decision to use that is having a good lough :-)
  • hidebehind, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3I appreciate companies taking the passive approach to spying on us and mining information, but they need to learn that sometimes just asking users questions will result in what they wanted without the harmful effects of contaminating the trust pool.

    I for one will resort to producing my own goods (I can burn a DVD with any fresh bic pen. Please note, however, I did not consider any other pen brand when making that decision.)
  • Simucal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Yea, but how do they taste?
  • LADIESCREVICE, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I'm one for privacy, but I think this is really pretty cool. It's an evaluation of the product, not the person.

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