So, in addition to frying data, the resulting flash from the gun will also fry your retinas. It even has a built-in MP3 player with a 2-watt amp for sound effects. Needless to say, if you do decide to build something like this, I wouldn't go aiming it at credit cards, hard drives, passports or living creatures. Hit the following link for instructions. [codeninja via Hack a Day via Technabob]

Jack Schulze and Timo Arnall made this stunning video by using a specially-made LED wand, long-exposure photography, some animation, and a metric ton of patience. I, on the other hand, will be using the next few moments, my eyes, and an ounce or two of amazement to appreciate the supposedly paranoia-inducing beauty of RFID. [PopSci]

Basically, you can program certain controls or sounds into the paper radio. Say you're an artist who wants to bring attention to a local college radio station—you program that into the RFID chip, and then when the paper radio is draped on any speaker equipped with an RFID reader, it'll change the station to the one you picked. Or you can have it broadcast short messages; Matt suggests a particular environmentalist star of 30 Rock might program in warnings to turn off your lights when not in use. It's a very particular usage, but the radios themselves look so cool that we don't really care if they're 100% practical. [MocoLoco]

The film Nearness explores interacting without touching. With RFID it's proximity that matters, and actual contact isn't necessary. Much of Timo's work in the Touch project addresses the fictions and speculations in the technology. Here we play with the problems of invisibility and the magic of being close.

Nearness is interesting and everything, but it needs some personality. I mean, where are all the rolling balls and drinking birds? [Nearness via Boing Boing via Neatorama]

Basically, you wave a keycard to lock and unlock the data on the drive. That's great, but while I'm hesitant about RFID cards after lousy experiences with my Amex's ExpressPay chip, the Hard Drive Secure's specs made me weary for other reasons:

• Includes 2 security keycards (1 user keycard, 1 master keycard) in credit card format
  which will lock and unlock the drive for use.
• Controlled access using RFID technology (Radio Frequency Identification) for data security. The 2 included RFID keycards are AES encrypted.
• USB 2.0 interface – connects to any modern computer
• Reliable and fast data transfer
• High quality aluminium enclosure with optimal internal airflow management
• No cooling fan – no noise!
• Compact design, only 15.5 x 14.8 x 4.3 cm, saves space on your desk

The Hard Drive Secure is available now (though strangely sold out) with a steep $500 price tag. [Freecom via EverythingUSB via GadgetReview viakCrunchGear]

The fingerprint ID also, of course, can theoretically act as a security device so that only you can activate your phone. There's also haptic (physical) feedback when you're hitting things, as well as using the touchscreen as an RFID reader. None of the three are really mindblowing in themselves, on the surface, but if implemented intelligently might make for a big step forward in the iPhone product line. [Macrumors via Boy Genius]

And I'll be damned if it doesn't work perfectly. Alongside a static picture, this e-passport displays a rotating photographic avatar when placed near a power source. OLED-Info thinks the card is pulling power from an RFID reader, but given that the display is full-fledged 320x240, 260k color OLED panel that's playing video, I tend to think there's a more powerful type of inductive charging going on here. [OLED-Info—Thanks, Ron!]

It sounds a little sci-fi at first, but it's not: RFID tags are powered by electrical signals converted from electromagnetic waves emitted by a nearby sensor machine, which is exactly how this system is said to work. The thing is, the amount of electricity involved here is tiny, and Nokia's system won't even have a base station—it'll draw from ambient electromagnetic waves, meaning Wi-Fi, cell towers and TV antennae. Nokia hopes to harvest about 50 milliwatts—not quite enough to sustain a phone, but enough to mitigate drain, and slowly charge a handset that's been switched off.

Current prototypes only gather about 5 milliwatts, which is essentially useless, and scientists and industry experts just don't see the technology maturing to the point that Nokia wants it to, at least in the near future. But the company's researchers are standing strong:

I would say it is possible to put this into a product within three to four years.

If you believe them, this is pretty exciting: maybe not as a primary charging mechanism, but as a battery extender. [Technology Review—Image from Technology Review]

Essentially, the magazine hoped to bridge the gap between print and web media by using an RFID chip to link related online content. By using a USB RFID reader, the Violet mir:ror, I was able to scan the chip and access additional content through my browser.

The general effect? I'd be lying to say it was much more than a novelty, but that doesn't mean the idea is bad. Amusement linked about 5 pieces of online content, including media clips and even a flash game, through the RFID chip. This part works pretty well. Going instantly between a magazine and a playable game is pretty neat.

What didn't work for me was that the RFID signal isn't really tied to individual stories. You can't just flick a page and have related content pop up. You wave the chip by the mir:ror (I obviously ripped it out for convenience), then a link pops up. You wave it again, and another link pops up. There's not much rhyme or reason to it, which is probably more a limitation of the technology than a flaw with Amusement's design, but it made the experience ever so less futuristicy than I'd hoped.

Still, Amsuement is on to a decent idea here if publishers are able to iron out the kinks. And as for the magazine itself, I wish it were reprinted in English. The inspired layout and design more than rival my favorite gaming magazine, Edge. [Amusement and Violet]

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]

Essentially, you hold your iPhone in close proximity to a certain object, and that object tells your iPhone to play a particular preloaded clip. Endless potential children's toys that come to mind, but so do other applications, like pulling up a video maintenance manual when close to parts of your car, complete with clips showing you how to change a tire or jump start your engine based only on proximity...and maybe some level of curse detection. [The Touch Project via TUAW]

By simply pressing your card to the remote, you can make payment for VOD movies without the hassle of navigating an onscreen QWERTY.

How is all of this consumer magic possible? The remote contains an RFID reader, compatible with Japan's popular Edy cards—cards that are, incidentally, powered by Sony's FeliCa technology.

So it all comes full circle. You buy a Sony product to use your Sony card to buy Sony media that's easily purchased with Sony cards on Sony products. Genius. [Akihabara News]

Cruising through downtown San Francisco in his car with a $250 homebrew RFID reader setup consisting of a Symbol XR400 RFID reader and a Motorola AN400 patch antenna stuck to the side of his Volvo, he snagged the info off of two passports in just 20 minutes. The point, he says, is "mainly to defeat the argument that you can't do it in the real world, that there's no real-world attack here, that it's all theoretical." The range of his gear is about 30 feet, which is plenty of clearance.

He plans to release the source code of his software next month—not the first time he's tried to publicly discuss his methods and the dangers of RFID embedded in personal IDs. It also won't be the first time the government denies it's really an issue, either. [The Register via Gadget Lab]

Tiny RFID cards are attached to each card, and movements are monitored with four separate HD cameras, all running into a video encoder to create a live feed. A custom bit of software mixes the feeds with the data from the RFID chips, creating a live feed where the viewer can see exactly where each card is and what each player is doing. Even when in a full deck, the RFID chips are thin enough to stack properly, and the viewer would know when each card will be dealt.

Apparently the setup cost Milner about $7000 and three months to build, but it's very impressive for what it is. Why anybody would want to have this sort of thing outside a television studio doesn't make much sense to me, but Milner, a chairman of an IT company, loves the level of detail it brings to his games. [Giz AU]

Zipcar users will be familiar with the process: book any available car at any time, get its location via text or email, wave your RFID membership card by the door to unlock it. Inside you'll find iPod connections and GPS standard, with a variety of fleet options to choose from ranging from "Personal" to "Jet Set." Fees break down with a monthly contract commitment of $50 a month, with per-hour rates anywhere from $8.50 to $12 depending on your plan.

It's only starting in NYC this week (and also running in London and Paris), but expansion is in the cards, of course. The Hertz folks also say they're working on one-way rentals that allow you to drop off the car at your destination, which is something Zipcar can't do. [Hertz Connect]

This Sunday, the Dallas White Rock Marathon will implement a pretty cool feature for participants and their friends/families. While most modern marathons track runners with (RFID?) chips attached to their shoes, this marathon in Dallas will take that data and send it out, texting or emailing split times and finishing results to anyone who registers with a particular runner.

Neat stuff, though just writing this post has given me a nasty cramp. [Do It Sports via dallasnews]

It's a simple technology. A signal from the microchip will track their movements and this will be received by monitoring authorities.

Then, he says they plan to punish any HIV/AIDS patient who had infected a healthy person. For some reason, this joke of a human being thinks that using RFID technology to reduce people to cattle is the best way to stop the rampant HIV/AIDS spread in his province—which is 20 times the national average in Indonesia. Because, like everyone knows, punishing an ill person is always a better method to stop an infectious disease than actually attacking the source of the problem which, according to the usual international health watchers, is the poor education about AIDS and the lack of condoms in the province, coupled with ritual swinging in Papua tribes.

I wonder if his plan B is just putting them in camps or shoot them straight away. [Reuters]

Using the robot is easy enough. You push the touchscreen on its chest to select, say, tickets for an amusement park. Then you wave your FeliCa-enabled wallet phone (RFID device) over the robot's right hand to, as we can only assume, pay for your tickets and deactivate the robot's deadly laser security system.

Apparently the system could also incorporate facial recognition to identify frequent visitors, or recommend services based upon their age/gender. And while we know that this terminal is just a kiosk shaped like a robot, we can't help but to admire the sincere technoanthropomorphism. [IT Media via Pink Tentacle]

The RFID bit is in the little Ztamps you stick to your gear, and the magic all happens through Violet's new website. The mir:ror can recognize many objects right off the bat, with dedicated stamps, but through the site you can configure more of your stuff to work with it.
Tempted by a strange kind of gadget-driven augmented reality? Then it's out today for $70, though you only get the sensor, a skin for the sensor "puck", 2 nanotagz rabbits (looking like mini clones of Nabaztag himself) and 3 ztamps for that: you'll have to buy more RFID stickers for your other objects. [Dynamism via Technabob]