Gizmodo: rfid tags

Nabaztag's RFID Mirror Does as Your Gadgets Command

Andi Wang — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 22:00:13 EDT

The Nabaztag, known for reading you the news and playing back podcasts, has come out with a new kind of reader: The Violet Mirror RFID reader.

Designed to be "so simple a two-year old can use it," this RFID Mirror—which comes with a mirror, two programmable micro-rabbits and three Ztamps RFID tags—is supposed to recognize different objects you show to it and also perform certain tasks you've assigned to the Ztamps via USB on your computer. For example, waving your umbrella over the mirror will make it tell you the weather, scanning your wallet in front of it will get your bank-statements e-mailed to you, or flashing that photo of you and that hot cheerleader will automatically send a text-message to your wife to let her know you'll be late for dinner. [ThinkGeek via i4u via Endgadget]

Verayo RFID Chips Use "Electronic DNA" to Make Them "Unclonable"

Elaine Chow — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 00:30:00 EDT

Here's a challenge to hackers everywhere if I've ever heard one—a company named Verayo claims to have created an RFID chip that's completely unclonable thanks to a type of electronic DNA technology called Physical Unclonable Functions (PUF). Unlike basic passive RFID chips, where data can be easily copied from one chip to another, Verayo's PUF-fy RFID chips use a series of challenge-and-response pairs to make counterfeiting nigh impossible (or so they say).

The company has an academic paper explaining how their tags work, for those of us more programming literate. Each 64 bit challenge-response duo is random and generated on demand. Pairs are then uploaded to a main database for authentication purposes. According to Verayo, even if information is copied onto a new chip, it'll have a different challenge and response. One possible point of attack already identified—if someone breaks into the main database and harvests all existing challenge-response information, what happens then? [Verayo via Slashdot]

Apple to Make Networking Easier with RFID Tags

Louis Ramirez — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 08:14:11 EST

Setting up a wireless network is pretty easy (for most of us), but Apple wants to simplify the process even further by putting RFID transceivers into wireless base stations, like the AirPort Express or AirPort Extreme. All network info (like encryption keys and SSID info) would be stored in the base station. Devices that you want to connect to your network would be fitted with RFID tags, so when the two come face-to-face (the device and your base station), RFID info can be read/written to the tag without having to configure anything. As an example, the patent mentions an Apple Wi-Fi remote...

which could be configured by "bringing it into proximity with the computer or network base station." In the long run, this will make networking devices easy enough for my Luddite relatives to do, which is good news for people who get weak in the knees at the thought of networking. – Louis Ramirez

RFID Tags for Apple Devices [Unwired View]