Just like the rise of e-commerce in the late 1990s, RFID has the potential to create new companies and thousands of jobs. That in turn fosters innovation, which could drive down costs, especially for tags.
How important RFID can be in local economies can be demonstrated by this story from Ohio, where the city of Dayton is setting itself up to be an RFID 'incubator'.
OK, perhaps $1.4m 'seed money' won't go that far, and 100 jobs at an average salary of $80,000
is only a starting point. But for every Dayton, there will undoubtedly be other cities that want to set themselves up as RFID 'beacons'.
There are companies too that want to create a marketing stir out of RFID. For example, Mini USA decided to utilise RFID to promote its cars in four US cities: New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Miami. Mini drivers utilise RFID ('really fun interactive devices' ) keyfobs to receive personalised messages on billboards contained LED displays.
Although this pilot program began at the beginning of the year, it would be no surprise to see the idea extended to other cities, or adopted as a marketing tool by innovative companies. So who's going to be the first to take the plunge in the UK?