Nissan turns to RFID

A new Nissan hub in Singapore is tapping into radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to cut time for identification and retrieval of new cars, from an average of 24 hours to two hours, reports ZDNet Asia.

The Nissan Hub, operated by Tan Chong International, is believed to be the first RFID-enabled automotive facility in the country. The project was awarded a grant of S$120 000 (R668 200) from Singapore's National RFID Centre earlier this year.

Singapore's acting minister for information, communication and the arts, Lui Tuck Yew, lauded the project as a good demonstration of local RFID technology capability.

Apple has filed three patent applications covering technologies such as haptics, fingerprint recognition and RFID, says ZDNet UK.

The RFID reader patent will see RFID-communicating circuitry integrated with the circuitry behind the touch-screen itself.

The fingerprint recognition patent is not really to do with authentication and security, but rather for identifying which fingers are in use, so as to associate different functions with different digits.

University Hospital, part of the State University of New York Upstate Medical University, is deploying a WiFi-based RFID system provided by AeroScout, to locate equipment at its emergency centres, states RFID Journal.

The hospital is also using the system to track temperatures of pharmaceuticals and tissue samples stored in 100 refrigerators.

With the RFID system, Steffan Haithcox, AeroScout's senior director of marketing, says that employees can log into the MobileView software at the nearest PC, and view a graphical interface that displays the location of an item that a staff member keys into the system, such as a specialised operating table.