RFID from Tikitag - unplowed field for homemade

Interesting news was found on Engadget :

Tikitag (a division of Alcatel-Lucent) attracted attention at the conference DemoFall, showing the RFID kit (reader and RFID tags), which, as stated, should be available for sale within a month at a very affordable price.


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So, from October 1, a set of a reader and 10 tags will be sold for $ 50; Additional packs of 25 tags will also be available, which they call tikitags. The reader is a software / API for the computer (Windows / Mac OS), with which you can get information about the tags and integrate the reader with your application.

It's great that RFID is starting to enter the mass market. This set, I think, should attract enthusiasts, because With it, you can implement interesting ideas, for example:

• Electronic pass (access control) - give tags to your friends, and when you put a tag to the reader on the door, you will receive a notification about who is standing in front of the door (or open the door automatically)
• Electronic catalog of books / CDs (logistics) - give a friend to read a book? navigate the book over the reader and register the event in your catalog; book returned - again spend over the reader
• Physical manipulator ("smart objects") - on the edge of the cube is glued on the label; depending on which side of the cube lies on the reader, you can control the functions of a music player (play / pause / ...) or other software (cut / copy / paste / ...)

In general, just have time to dream. You can read about other interesting ideas for using this kit at: www.tikitag.com/ideas

A short excerpt from the FAQ :

• passive tags with a range of up to 4 cm and an operating frequency of 13.56 MHz are used;
• the label does not have to be visible: it can be sewn into clothing or bricked into the wall (provided that the label remains within a radius of action <4 cm from the surface) [I think the opposite is true - the reader can be hidden under the table or in the wall] ;
• it will be possible to assign a specific URL to each tag without any programming, directly through the web interface;
• at the moment, the reader reads only one tag, in the future Tikitag plans to release readers that read several tags at a time in the receive radius.

I think I'll order a kit to play with.