Smart RFID drives mobile commerce

Biotechnology firm, XtremeSignPost has been awarded a patent to advertise commercial products using radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology, reports Gigaom.

RFID-enabled mobile phones are used to recall and share consumer experiences from personalised RFID-tagged consumer products.

The company is also working on linking user-generated content such as images and video files to RFID-tagged products and is also pushing for simple payment processing.

The winner of this year's Red Dot concept award went to a Mexican company Agent, for a soccer ball designed to slash referee mistakes, states Fast Code Design.

Ctrus is an RFID-enabled soccer ball that lights up in different colours when it's tossed out of bounds, scores a goal or falls into the crosshairs of a foul. The ball also has a camera and speed and positioning sensors that monitor the actual movements of the game.

The ball, only a concept at this point, works by integrating GPS and RFID chips in a skeletal structure. The skeleton's then covered in a reinforced-elastic mesh, which has the same bounce of a standard soccer ball, but doesn't require air.

Identive, a provider of products and services for the security, identification and RFID industries, has snapped up Smartag, a Singapore-based manufacturer of RFID chips, says The Engineer.

According to Identive, Smartag opens up new opportunities and channels for the company in the Asia/Pacific market, while boosting manufacturing capacity.

Smartag specialises in design and production of RFID transponders and inlay-based solutions, including labels and tags used for asset tracking, cards and stickers used for e-payment and ticketing transactions.