News and info briefs for the RFID industry.

RFID News:

• The entertainment industry is considering the benefits of RFID for SCM (Supply Chain Management) in regards to tracking the distribution of goods such as CD and DVDs. At present, the industry feels that RFID is too costly a solution, especially at the item level. Resellers of entertainment media, such as Best Buy, are exploring the use of RFID in consumer loyalty cards. [via RFID Journal]
  
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• The fastest growing area within life sciences for the adoption of RFID is in biospecimen tracking. In various research institutes, biospecimen samples can often arrive from anywhere in the world. [via RFID Update]
  
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• The Korea Association of RFID/USN says that the South Korea RFID market will exceed US$500 mln this year. The forecast for 2010 is over US$1.2 bln. [EE Times]
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• Sirit Inc. was recently awarded an RFID transponder contract worth nearly $6 mln from the BATA in California, to be used for electronic toll collections. This contract is an extension of an existing project, due to increased toll lanes. [via DMN Newswire]
  
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• New Zeland's Defence Force is considering using RFID technology to track their assets, especially "consumable items". [via Stuff NZ] Similar plans have been considered by other countries to track components to make a variety of weapons.
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• The United States currently has the largest active market for contactless payment devices. The "service station retail sector" shows the most potential for opportunity in terms of total payments collected. [via TMCNet] Other reports indicate that India will become the largest market for contactless payment via mobile phones. Estimates are a potential market of 100 million within the next few years.
  
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• US Senators John Cornyn (R, Texas) and Byron Dorgan (D, N. Dakota) recently initiated a Caucus to discuss RFID. This includes "benefits, policy challenges and innovation solutions of RFID." [via RFID Journal]
  

These RFID summaries give you a synopsis of goings-on in the radio frequency identification industry. Topic include RFID tags/ chips, readers, systems, data management, software, privacy, regulations, and more. Links have been provided to more detailed stories, if you want more details. On occasion, I've added a bit of commentary.