May 01, 2009

Indian enterprise on show at Asian RFID and smart card show
Source: Anand Pathasarathy, India Techonline

Anand Parthasarathy was at RFID World Asia 2009 and  Cards Asia conferences in Singapore last week  to bring you this exclusive report of  tech breakthroughs  unveiled  by Indian ingenuity-fuelled players worldwide
 
April 27; 2009: SINGAPORE:  Indian ingenuity was on display -- at Asia's biggest annual showcase for the smart card and radio frequency tagging industry --  RFID World Asia 2009 now in its  6th year and Cards Asia  that completes  14 years, were   overlapping events at the Suntec Convention Centre  and drew  simultaneously  industry's best and brightest for 3 days of conferences, tutorials complementing a well attended technology and solutions exhibition.
 
San Jose-based Redpine Signals used  the Singapore event to  launch the industry's first   module for Wi Fi based real time  location system based on 802.11n.    The Redpine "Find-iT"  solution provides all the  functionality needed to  build   location  sensitive  2-way communication systems  for industrial and enterprise applications. Using  Wi Fi with active RFID, allows users  to  boost the range  and positioning accuracy  while consuming very low power.  The module is also the first to  meet  the Cisco Compatible Extensions (CCX) tag spec for 802.11n, explained   Redpine General Manager and Sr. Vice President ( System Products), Dhiraj Sogani. The product flows from Redpine's Hyderabad-based   100-strong R&D centre, he added.
 
A key member of the team at Microsoft that helped put together Biztalk RFID server  the first  software solution specifically tailored to work with radio tags,  Anush Kumar  moved on with some other  team members to  to start  their own  real time solutions company, S3Edge -- headquartered in Portland OR   with a development centre in ( yes, again!) Hyderabad.  At RFID World Asia, Anush, who is the Chief Technology Officer at S3Edge,  showcased real time solutions that married    mobile and hand held   scanning and data logging devices  to  fixed  placement, retrieval and  warehousing systems. One of the applications   demo'ed at  the event   mimicked  the solution provided to  the  10-store RiteCare pharmacy chain in Hyderabad  which allowed it to  reduce inventory by almost 60 percent and increase  order fulfillment accuracy by 97 percent.
 
Microsoft's Biztalk RFID server was also the engine that fuelled  an innovative  RFID-based event tracker from the Australia-based   Breeze.   Breeze Event Tracker ( BET)-equipped stands could track  how many attended their presentations;     a break up of their job functions and nationality, their areas of professional interest..  and the  live data was available as an instant graphic.
 
 The world's largest manufacturer of  cards -- 5 billion plus --is headquartered  near Chicago, Illinois in the US and is the principal supplier to both Visa and Mastercard.   Not very well known is the fact that the company -- Versatile  Card Technology ( VCT) founded in 1986 by an Indian,  Pethi Veluchamy  -- and   has    a significant manufacturing muscle in Chennai, India,   a 6000 sq m  plant, which accounts for almost half its global output. They were at Cards Asia to  show the flag.
 
Another global player with an India base, was  Bar Code India --  having long outgrown its name to become a major player in  auto ID and data capture technologies. Solutions on display included some in partnership with  the safety and security divisions of Tyco.
 
And the Ahmedabad-based Aseptic Technology  had its own niche in the global market -- for scratch cards  and scratch card based personalization systems.  In Singapore for the first time, they were offering not just printing services but  made-in-India, print machinery as well.
 
Singapore govt. initiative
 
In a concurrent announcement,  the Singapore government said last week it will be  investing  S$ 1 million into 8 projects involving wireless tagging.   This includes one at  the National University Hospital  to ensure that  pieces of surgical debris like gauze is not left behind in patients after surgery, reports The Straits Times. Also being tagged are  scalpels -- even the patients themselves.
 
.. and tagged bags in HK 
And Hong Kong will go boldly where no airport has gone so far -- RFID tagging all baggage that passes through it.  The HK  International Airport (HKIA) has just awarded a  contract for the supply of 70 million tags  and the associated baggage tracking system to Motorola, and its  tech partners, Avery Dennison  RFID and Printo-O-Tape.
 

RFID World Asia and Cards Asia were organized by Terrapinn