RFID happenings

• January 5th, 2007 | General

A brief news bulletin on important RFID happenings since the first day of the New Year.

Bank of America will carry out a test to gauge public interest in its new endeavor where customers will be able to make payments using keychain fobs that will contain RFID inlays. The fobs will be issued by Oberthur Card Systems and will work as companion devices to the credit cards and debit cards that the bank issues. Texas Instruments will provide the RFID inlays for the fobs.

The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers has awarded a $10 million contract to Digital Angel for providing low-frequency RFID tags. The tags will be used for tracking the migration routes of fish, the water levels and also to monitor the movements of endangered salmon.

Precision Systems, an Israel-based company which supplies RTLS equipment has been bought by Paralec, which is a Rocky Hill N.J. - based manufacturer of conductive inks for RFID tags. The acquisition gives Paralec a foothold in the field of asset tracking and logistics. The iLocate RTLS by Precision Systems makes use of 433 MHz bidirectional active tags for seeking out assets.

The VeriMed system which enables accessing patients’ records with the help of VeriChip RFID tags carried by patients has been declared a success by the VeriChip Corporation.