RFID: Is it soup yet?
When the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ended its four-year collaboration last fall with dozens of blue-chip companies researching radio frequency identification technology, the group transferred much of its expertise to an emerging standards body known as EPCglobal.
Working with the results--and many of the same people from MIT's Auto-ID Center--EPCglobal is now pushing to create RFID standards using existing communications network infrastructure and the electronic product code, a system for assigning unique identification numbers to items.
Tom Laffey, vice president at integration software maker Tibco and chairman of EPCglobal's Software Action Group, has been with the standards effort since it was at MIT and has seen the hype surrounding RFID reach new levels over the past year. Laffey recently spoke with CNET News.com regarding his views on EPCglobal and the technology's rate of progress.
