Gimme an R, gimme an F, gimme an I, gimme a D…

March 10th, 2009

What’s it spell? Or rather what does it create an acroynm of… RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification).

The best example of RFID in action is your trusty Oyster card. Each Oyster has an RFID chip holding your Travelcard or Pay As You Go details, when you touch it on the yellow receiver you pass the details through to the database.

Using a relatively cheap bit of RFID kit, set up and supplied by our guest star Iain “The Innovator” Millar - We triggered Play, Stop and Forward iTunes controls with just our boardroom lazy susan, some Post Its and a MacBook Pro.

It was relatively straight forward process to define the action the RFID tag should perform, and once programmed could be “stuck” to pretty much anything.

This stimulated a healthy discussion about possible uses, from both our team and other guest star Robbie “Caboose” Toay.

Stairway to heaven
Sneaking up to people going done tube escalators a putting stickers on them that correspond to a note, reader at the bottom plays the tune!

DVD collection
Putting sticker on your DVD collection so you can still browse via the nice covers, when you choose one you wave over the reader and it plays the relevant DVD from your previously digitised collection

Sympathetic music playlists
Each person has a sticker that correspond to their musical tastes, when in a room (office, bar etc.) the system knows who’s there and plays a sympathetic playlist!

Dating events
Readers hidden under mats lets you know who’s single unobtrusively

City wide events
All TFL stations, Hide & seek, Treasure hunt, pub crawl etc.

Membership cards
‘barman pours you drink as you enter….’

Table football
Readers behind goals, sticker on balls, tied into flash application, shows ‘Goal to Jamie!!’ when goal scored

Lazy Susan
Brilliant music playing system by rotating Susan….

Oyster cards
not sure what but the fact that everyone has got one and we could potentially tag everyone is pretty smart.
Key, Phone, Wallet
Reader on your door at home, if you have forgotten anything when leaving you house will stop you (via stickers on the key items)

Food descriptions in restaurants
When dishes arrive (Yo Sushi style) the list of ingredients and additional information displayed (history of the dish etc.)

Throwing badges
Dave’s Adobe badges have stickers put on them and when thrown onto the reader launch the relevant application

Kick a big bag of flour
Reader in a  big bag of flour sticker on your shoe – booting the bag sends an email

Theme tunes (current favourite)
Reader on the door we all have our own stickers that when we walk in trigger our ‘theme tune’ to be played

Watch this space for prototypes coming soon…

All Comments

  1. The Innovator Says:

    Hey - when do i get my kit back? :)

    Iain…

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