RFID tagging has for long been used by enterprises for streamlining businesses.
But those days aren't far when you would have to attach a new device to your
computers at home — the RFID reader, because with Touchatag, you can now have
your own RFID tagging system with which you can tag any item and enable them to
be traced or accessed for information via any online electronic application.
This idea opens up new avenues of providing service. Imagine a cinema hall
providing its premium members with an RFID enabled membership card, which the
member can use from his home to book tickets, and their ticket information will
be associated with that RFID card. The member can just walk into the hall and
the RFID readers at gates will read his ticket information from the RFID enabled
card and then he can proceed to his seat without a printed ticket or going
through the hassle of standing in queues. Or imagine a not-so computer literate
mother being able to make a Skype call to her son in the US by just swapping her
son's protograph tagged with an RFID sticker over the RFID reader.
Price: USD40 (2 year warranty) Meant For: Everyone Key Specs: RFID scanner, RFID service through website Pros: Your own RFID kit for a small amount Cons: Need to be online for tag association Contact: Touchatag (Alcatel-Lucent Venture), Gurgaon Tel: 4159999 email: lchowdhary@alcatel-lucent.com SMS Buy 130592 to 56677 |
Touchatag is an RFID service that allows you to tag various objects and each
tag can be configured to perform a specific task that can be programmed through
the Touchatag website (www.touchatag.com). The site works as a platform through
which you can link things to the Internet. To start tagging items you need to
download and install the Touchatag software from the website and plug the
Touchatag reader to a USB port. From the website's dashboard, you can create
Touchatag applications that will program the Touchatag RFID tag to perform a
specific function. These tag associations can be with websites, applications or
other online activity.
We tried the RFID kit by installing the Touchatag software on a Vista-based
machine and plugged the USB RFID reader to it. After logging into the website,
from the dashboard we created an application that associated the Touchatag RFID
sticker to open up a browser window. A tag can just not be associated with a URL
but also to start up application activity on a computer, but the catch is the
computer has to be online since Touchatag software communicates to the Touchatag
website to seek for the scanned tag associated function. So, you can see the
options related to using this tagging application are endless.
Bottomline: The service is in a nascent stage, but when an eco-system
of RFID enabled devices becomes affordable and omnipresent, then we can expect
such a service to make more sense and be of wider use.