Monday, October 18, 2004
Look out Dewey, here comes RFID
Hundreds of libraries are moving to RFID chips to make their operations more efficient amid the usual complaints about possible invasion of privacy. According to the story, critics, "...envision a future in which a network of hidden RFID readers track consumers' every move, their belongings and their reading habits, though most agree that such a scenario is largely impossible today for technical reasons." And I know of people who envision heaven as a place where 52 virgins await them. I guess gullibility has no boundaries.
In the meantime, for the rest of us who live in reality, ever suffer through a library close-down while it did an inventory? Ever curse almost audibly when you looked for a book that was supposedly on the shelves but couldn't find it? RFID can eliminate both of those possibilities. And because library books, in theory at least, are supposed to be returned, costs are incremental to new arrivals, not completely repetitive and, as such, prohibitory.
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