[IxDA Discuss] Arphid revolution

[gussy.co.uk]

Hi,

I will like to thank everyone that helped me in researching for my project
on arphid and the potentials of RFID tags for a social interaction.
 My research has lead me to an interesting path in understanding and
proposing a project brief for space studios competition. Sadly, I didn't win
and I wish other contestants the best of luck. I'm looking forward to the
winners list which will be displayed on spacestudio's website some time in
July. I was quite confident that my proposal had a strong design concept
which I have been developing, but obviously it did not fit to their
requirement.

I will like to post the proposal so that you all can read for yourselves and
hopefully give me some insights into parts of it which I can improve on. I
will be grateful for any feedback due to the fact that I'm still researching
and developing this project.

Kind regards,
Jack


Making the Internet of things (R-Library)


Have you ever wondered how oyster cards work? On the other hand, have you
"accidentally" forgot to swipe you oyster card before you boarded a train
and encounter a ticket inspectors who asked you to present your ticket? You
thought that you were okay because there was no way they could find out that
you did not swipe before you entered the train, wrong!
As they pull a handheld device and placed it on you card, you heart starts
beating really fast. What are they doing? Suddenly the ticket inspector
starts mumbling out names of different stations, which you have used over
the last month(s), identifying the ones that you did not swipe in your card.
This is when it hits you that you will be caught and fined, then suddenly
the inspector looks at you and says, " last time you swiped this card was
yesterday at 8 o'clock, why didn't you swipe in before you enter the
train?"
How did they do that one might ask, is it possible to track and identify
your movement as long as you have a tag emitting an identification code?
This project will try to clarify how this was possible by outlining the
what- regarding hardware and software, installation requirements. The how-
current and future ideas for new applications and scenarios, the who-
customer responsibilities and awareness of technology and the when- when and
where the technology can be widely implemented and tested.

What are arphids?
This is the term used for describing any system of identification were an
electronic device that uses radio frequency or magnetic field variations to
communicate is attached to an item. The two main components are the tag,
which is a device placed on the item being tracked and the reader, which is
a device that recognizes the presence of the RFID tag by reading the
information store within it. The reader can then inform and communicate with
another system about the presence of the tagged items by the help of
software's that stands between readers and applications known as RFID
middleware.

Possible applications

Scenario 1
When doing your research in the library, have you ever wanted a system that
can help you gather information quicker and faster without having to visit
different search engines?
By analysing the way the library is catalogued one hopes to develop a
project that will help converge all the information together faster and more
effective when using the library's bibliographic system.
By attaching an rfid tag to each library book and rewriting the
identification code, a user can use the library search engine to look for a
particular book which will then give them a visual representation of where
the books on the selves. When the user has allocated the book, he\she can
then take the book to a computer interface when within a distance of a
reader, it brings up related articles based on the topic of the book
e.grelated books, journals, video's, blogs, wiki's etc.

Scenario 2

Last.FM with it's 8million a day users, is an Internet radio station and
music recommendation system. This system builds a detailed profile of each
user's musical taste, showing their favourite artists and songs on a
customizable profile webpage.
Appyling a humanistic and social aspect to an existing social environment
like the library. The concept of having an arphid library hopes to use
already information stored in your library card of all the books that you
have borrowed and the dates in which you have borrowed the items by
communicating with similar users who fits the same profile for the books/
equipments borrowed in the past.
This means that your library card would have an RFID tag attached to it and
also the tags will be unlocked so that when a similar user, which fits your
profile, enters the library it will automatically show on the RFID library
interface that a similar match has entered the building. This database will
then start ranking a user, which fits your profile by analysing records of
books borrowed according to dates, with the most recent borrowers at the top
of the list and will also try to find a link with other books borrowed to
fit your profit. Once this is processed it will then give you a similar
match for your book with all the information of their previous records of
items borrowed. This will then initiate the option of whether you would like
to contact users with similar profiles either by text/email/VOIP for further
discussions of the particular topic. The system will also allow a
recommended implementation of the tags.

Scenario 3
By attaching an RFID tag to your library card it makes it easier for users
to automatically take books out of the library without having to go through
the process of standing in a queue to take out book. The readers will be
placed on the exit doors so that as they pass through exit barrier it will
automatically read the books borrowed and add the information to their
arphid library cards.
When researching ideas in the library, it is quite a lengthy process of
finding journals and papers on your specific topic when using the library
online database. Google has been successful because they made it easier for
people to research for topic by accommodating all users, even when the word
is misspelt is still manages to bring a correct spelling that matches the
keyword. The rise of wiki's and blogs has also contributed in encouraging
user driven content where articles are posted up by users allowing more
collaborative methods of adding content. Today a new blog is created every
five seconds according to technorati which is a search engine for blogs, and
the size of the blogosphere is doubling every five months. By allowing
everybody to change articles on wiki's opened up the purest form of
creativity spawn by a collaborative intelligence. This has given the users
an unimaginable power over big corporate business that wanted to make the
Internet just as a passive media.
Attached to the reviews and opinions are an endless types of information
from where to get an affordable products to how many people has accessed the
same article: delicious.com and digg.com. A current trend that were first
envisioned by amazon and is widely spreading to sites like gussy.co.uk which
allows users to see what other users have purchased with other items. This
might help in filtering of information and bringing someone closer to
clarifying their ideas.
As the Internet continues to attach a huge database for user driven content
and community networking, the question is how can we make this information
accessible to users so that they can easily access the information needed
without having to know the name of every wiki's or blogs online. How can we
make the Internet of things become reality? RFID tags might not have all the
answers but as a project proposal, one will like to explore how users in a
library environment can simultaneously access all information provided on
the library database. By entering an RFID area where unique identification
codes on books/ magazines/ dvd's can be read by a reader and then linked to
the library system bringing all related articles, journals, papers even
blogs and wiki's based on the topic without going through the process of an
endless search through all the online library database.