I love when I see RFID used in places that I haven’t seen before. Today when I got the email from the Cornell lab of Ornithology I was taken back as they showed their tracking of small feeder birds using RFID. The data that they are collecting will help many birds down the road as we can discover feeding habits during each season and compare to how they eat. The video will explain in more details and show how they are using RFID tags on birds. It is very informative and if you like the outdoors like me you are in for a treat.

To see more information visit Birds.cornell.edu for details on their program.

Will Disney use RFID chips to save money? One of the greatest debates among those looking for Disney deals revolves around refillable mugs at the Walt Disney World Resorts. Disney sells these mugs with the stipulation that you can only use them for the length of your stay. However, many people purchase them once and then bring them back year after year to continue to fill them for free. Disney has tried changing the mug graphics more frequently but visitors continue to use the old mugs.

No matter where visitors stand on the refillable mug debate, Disney is taking a definite stand by employing the use of RFID to limit refills. According to DIS Unplugged, Disney is testing new technology at its All Start Sports Resort. Drink dispensers will only dispense drinks into cups that have the appropriate RFID chips embedded. Single use cups will be timed for meal time and the refillable mugs will be timed for the length of stay at the resort of the purchaser. The technology is provided by ValidFill.

Over the last several years, Disney has been ramping up the use of RFID both in the parks and on their cruise ships. The new Disney Dream ship uses RFID in the room keys to allow visitors to tap a box on their doors to open them. They can also tap their keys when they have their pictures taken by cruise photographers to have them added to their room accounts. At Disneyland, RFID chips are being sewn into Cast Member costumes to allow for quicker changes and inventorying. Rumors continue to circulate about RFID being used in the coming years in the Disney World parks to better customize the visitor experience at attractions and rides.

Whether Disney is using RFID to cut costs, increase behind-the-scenes efficiency, or provide vacationers with a better trip, it apparent that Disney is getting both creative and aggressive with the RFID technology.

So by now I am all sure that you have heard about the Bellagio casino in Las Vegas getting robbed for millions of dollars. I couldn’t help but laugh when I first heard it as I knew the chips the guy stole are practically worthless. Besides being tracked with RFID the guy took $25000 chips that require an ID to cash out for federal tax purposes.

I am sure there is alarms set up in the casino for anyone cashing in the chips with the RFID tracking codes in them. He may try to cash in some of the lower denominations but as soon as those chips pass through the cashiers window security will be alerted and he will be arrested on the spot.

I am sure that the bank robber had never heard of RFID or he wouldn’t have chosen the Bellagio casino in the first place. What this has done is forced the hand of every casino in the country to look into spending for RFID. You can safely bet that insurance companies will be forcing the rest of the casinos to adopt to radio frequency identification chips in the near future.

So now we all know that the Bellagio is insured in case of robbery but since the thief will never get a dime the insurance companies will not have to pay a dime. I am not an authority on the types of chips the Bellagio uses but its safe to say they will probably be changing designs on new chips so the old ones that were in the robbery stand out more.

If you think about it the robbery suspect did what a lot of people do in Las Vegas, Go home empty handed.

I was just reading all about the Amber alert down in Lubbock Texas for Michael Darthard-Dawodu and it got my mind thinking. First I am glad that the baby was found alive in New Mexico but is there any way that the abduction could have been prevented in the first place.

If you are not familiar with this particular Amber alert the baby was taken from the mother in a Texas hospital by someone posing as a nurse. The infant was kidnapped early Saturday from a woman who walked out of Covenant Lakeside Hospital with the 5 pound baby hidden in her purse.

This woman allegedy said she needed to take this days old baby to get some test done. Any mother in this situation would hand over their baby to someone that had hospital clothes on. It has been said that the woman actually came in the room a few times posing as a nurse. I am sure the mother felt comfortable hat this was a hospital employee.

Sure a hospital is busy place and this lady was seen on a security camera exiting the building but what could be done to stop this from happening in the first place is what I am thinking about. I would never want to think about the feelings that poor mother had when they told her about what happened.

I believe that we could and should use some sort of RFID tag device, maybe a label in a wrist strap on each baby that would be hard to remove. They already tag the baby with it’s name so they don’t get all the babies mixed up. It would be easy to make that wristband RFID capable. That’s another thing that could be tracked also using something like I am thinking about. Maybe a tag on the inside of the diaper where it would not be seen. I know the wetness part is a tricky issue but the label can be placed high enough on the waistband that it could avoid getting wet.

Each hospital could place a RFID reader at each elevator entrance and staircase on the maternity floor. When the tag goes through it a big read flashing light could go off and security could have stopped this from happening before the suspect was caught 100 miles away.

Once again I am sure the people that are against using RFID for anything will say that it violates the babies privacy rights but that is something that I bet every parent that reads about this story will just laugh at.

I am sure that there is already a RFID product on the market that would be able to handle this already. I just can’t focus on one as I keep thinking about what those poor parents must have been going through at the time.

With the cost of Generation 2 tags on the decline and the important issue at hand many hospitals should look into some sort of RFID enabled device or something else to keep this from happening.