It's an RFID World... or will soon be

Why am I doing this? I'm really just an interested citizen and consumer watching the world of RFID and the RFID-ification of the world. I'm simply fascinated at the implications and look forward (with some trepidation) to watching the technology be deployed across all aspects of life.

Even though there is a massive and rapid Radio Frequency Identification deployment going on as I type, most people wandering into stores and driving down the street aren't aware of the situation. We're all going to be interacting more and more with business and government, thanks to RFID, as the months of 2006 go on, unlike any other time in history.

I believe it's a technology that easily could have as profound an effect on the world as did the internet. In fact, I believe that RFID will help propel the idea of the internet into complete maturity, for better or worse.

It's not a brand-new technology by any means. RFID has been used by the military for awhile in keeping track of its important "assets." We're also most familiar with it's functionality when we drive into a parking garage with our parking pass stuck to the dashboard or circumventing the toll booths with our "SpeedPass," whether we know that it's RFID enabling this or not.

But RFID is going to be expanding it's tentacles out into every aspect of life over the next few years as Wal-Mart and other massive companies embrace the incredible possibilities it promises in the supply chain. It'll be in our clothes, our shoes, our vehicles, our credit cards, our passports, our driver's licenses and under our skin, to name a mere few.

I'm keeping up to date on the developments by setting up a Google News Alert that shows me everything in the RFID world that Google finds. I'm also keeping a list of bookmarks on my del.icio.us area that deal with RFID.

There's a lot of good stuff happening from all sides, like Katherine Albrecht and the people over at Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering (CASPIAN/Spychips) as they keep an eye on the technology and it's major players from the privacy and biblical realms.

Stay tuned and hopefully we can get some good discussions going.