RFID’s are associated with credit cards, passports and inventory systems. However, they can also be used to add a proximity interaction to a service like entering a subway via a passkey (Jan Chipchase has several posts describing these interactions around the world). By linking yourself to an RFID tag you can let a device know who you are. If you add in a link to an online, personal profile the interaction can be very personal.
By having your information at the ready an RFID tag can give you a much simpler interaction with technology. It is very easy to conceptualize the possibilities, but to really get a feel for how RFIDs can effect your interaction It’s an area that has to be explored physically.
That’s why we are giving all of the attendees at ETech RFID tags (See the tag art to the right) that can be linked to their conference profiles (opt-in). With these tags you can interact with several projects we’ll have at the conference. BTW, ETech is happening March 9-12 in San Jose. Use et09pd30 at checkout for 30% off.
We were inspired to do this after I attended PICNIC in 2008 (Radar post) and got to experience first-hand the many, many uses of an RFID badge. Mediamatic linked your profile to it and that information was used to record your experiences. We got help from Mediamatic on our implementation and even used the same vendor.
If you make it to ETech here are the projects you can play with:
Lensley’s Photobooth: Leonard Lin‘s new project is Lensley, a high-end photobooth with online photo-services integration. He’s creating a special version just for ETech that will tag photos with your name and tweet that you’ve just had one taken.
Personal Calendar: Radar’s own Edd Dumbill is the fellow behind the profile APIs. He is going to create a project that will show attendees their personal calendar at a public kiosk.
ETech Prophet: Josh and Tarikh of Uncommon Projects (they made the cool Yahoo! geo-bike) are adding an element of play to their project. They sent me a mail describing it as: “Essentially, we’d like to make an “Etech Prophet” a kind of mechanical turk idea (perhaps in another form factor)–you wave your RFID fob, it gesticulates, makes a noise and sends you your pithy fortune via twitter”
People Collector: This is a favorite of mine. Business cards are a waste of time and paper. I just want the person’s email address. Nothing else. The People Collector will be a mobile device that people can use to exchange contact information with other attendees. When you meet someone just wave your fob over their People Collector and a message will be sent to both of you. The People Collector will be built in Tom Igoe and Brian Jepson’s Hands-On RFID Workshop on 3/9.
Do you have something that you want to make? Let me know in the comments or find me on Twitter. We are still looking for projects.