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Saturday, July 18, 2009

The Future of RFID tagging



Some believe that one day we will have flying cars, machines that teleport us from one place to another instantly and robots as servants. To some surprise personal assistant robots are not as futuristic as they seem. In the works today engineers are creating robots that respond to RFID tagging in order to assist someone in cleaning and organizing. The way this robot works is everything in your house is embedded with little RFID chips; socks, food boxes, toys, kitchen appliances. All of which will soon be implanted by all manufactures. Each tag will hold information such as, “I am a box of cereal, and I expire November 12th”. The robot will first be set to a “learn” mode. From there it will wonder the house and take note of where everything belongs. Then it will be switched to a “fetch” mode. The robot will then wander the house and read RFID signals of each item, cross-check the information with its knowledge of where things belong, then pick up the items and put them away. Parents can spend more time relaxing and less time picking up the toys of their children. For some this RFID technology and robot could have the potential to allow families more time together and eliminate many unnecessary fights.


RFID also has the potential to make our world green. Never again would we have to sort our garbage into recyclables. RFID chips could be implanted on all bottles, cans and other products, allowing the garbage facility to sort the garbage efficiently. From there a machine would redirect the garbage into the appropriate recycling bins. While it is easy to recycle most people don’t. This could truly clean up our environment and be beneficial to all.


While this all seems good on paper, many people have issues with the privacy and technology behind RFID tagging. I believe that the personal assistant robot is a great idea. I admit that I would desire to have one, who likes to clean? However, I do believe that this has the potential to make American’s even lazier than they already are. For people who can afford this robot, their kids would no longer learn the importance of cleaning up after themselves and chores would be unheard of. I believe that a larger gap in society would form between the upper class and middle class families. However, I feel that this technology needs to happen in our garbage facilities in order to separate our trash. No one can argue that recycling is important, however not everyone does it. While it might cost a lot to set up this type of machine, the rewards are priceless.

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