Below are three of the top stories in automated data collection, RFID and the Internet of Things in recent weeks.
MIT Uses RFID Reads to ID Contaminated Food
Researchers at MIT have developed a novel way to use RFID tags to identify contaminated food.
It works like this: When a passive RFID is energized by a reader, it sends back a radio signal containing perhaps a tag number and other information.
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| Biohax says that it is in discussions with several British legal and financial firms about fitting their employees with microchips. |
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But the MIT researchers found was that this return signal can be affected by the actual contents of the product, since the radio waves have to pass through them. So, for example, a jar of mustard and one full of olives would produce different signal profiles.
And, it turns out, the signal returned from a product that has become contaminated could be different that one that comes from good jar of the same item.
"It's almost as if we have transformed cheap RFIDs into tiny radio frequency spectroscopes," said Fadel Adib, co-author of the paper describing the new system, in a press release on the invention.
However, it will take a lot of trial and error to identify the good and suspect signals across a broad universe of products, containers, and other variables. Naturally enough these days, MIT is using machine learning to aid the tedious process.
Currently, the approach can identify baby formula that is pure versus product that has been contaminated by a threat called melamine. It can also identify between various adulterations of pure ethyl alcohol.
But MIT plans to greatly expand that list of products over time.
The full MIT research paper can be found here: Learning Food Quality and Safety from Wireless Stickers
Number of RFID Implants Continue to Grow
 150 - That is how many employees of UK firm BioTeq have already been implanted with RFID chips, which can be used to do everyday tasks such as opening secured doors, accessing the copy machine, paying for drinks or snacks, and more.
This is very similar to the implant program we've reported on a few times managed by Swedish firm Biohax. In fact, Biohax told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper recently that it is in discussions with several British legal and financial firms about fitting their employees with microchips, including one major company with hundreds of thousands of employees.
BioTeq in turn says has also implanted them in employees of a bank testing the technology, and has shipped them to Spain, France, Germany, Japan and China. Last year Wisconsin-based firm Three Square Market partnered with Biohax and became the first company in the US to microchip its employees, on a voluntary basis.
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However, a UK labor group said on the news that "We know workers are already concerned that some employers are using tech to control and micromanage, whittling away their staff's right to privacy. Microchipping would give bosses even more power and control over their workers
New Zebra Study Sees IoT Spending Only Expected to Grow Modestly
Zebra Technologies is out with this year's study on the "Intelligent Enterprise," now in its second year.
Study highlights include:
• Enterprises increased their investments in IoT by just 4% in 2018 over 2017, spending an average of $4.6M this year.
• 38% of enterprises have company-wide IoT deployments in production today.
• 84% of enterprises expect to complete their IoT implementations within two years.
• 82% of enterprises share information from their IoT solutions with employees more than once a day; 67% are sharing data in real-time or near real-time.
Not surprisingly, data analytics and security dominate enterprise' IoT management plans this year. 66% of enterprises are prioritizing analytics as their highest IoT data management priority this year, and 63% an actively investing in IoT security
Any reaction to the stories in this week' roundup? ? Let us know your thoughts at the Feedback section below.
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