Advances in RFID Is RuBee the next generation of RFID?

The race is on to see if this hot new technology will be an alternative, or a complement, to RFID
By David Wyld, Contributing Editor

What if there was a technology that one-upped RFID? What if there was a way to have continuous identification, but without the extreme size, cost, and limited life of active RFID? What if there was a way to gain far greater read ranges? What if there was a way to overcome the problems of reading around water and metal that have been the operational “Achilles’ heels” of item-level RFID?

That possibility exists today in the form of RuBee. Already heralded by industry observers as “RFID 2.0,” RuBee may be the most exciting development in the automatic identification marketplace. This article is a primer on RuBee and its potential prominent place in the auto-ID market.

RuBee 101

RuBee is the commercial name for what is known officially as LWID (Long Wavelength ID), as defined by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers' (IEEE). The moniker was given to the technology by engineers at Miami-based Visible Assets after the Rolling Stones’ song, “Ruby Tuesday.” In June 2006, the IEEE announced that it had formed a working group to begin work on a new visibility network protocol standard, which will be known as IEEE P1902.1™.

The standard, which the IEEE hopes to have in place by the second half of 2007, will provide physical and data-link protocols, based upon RuBee technology. RFID and RuBee are almost polar opposites in a technological sense.

This is because RuBee uses almost exclusively magnetic energy, rather than the electrical – or radio frequency – energy used with HF and UHF RFID. RuBee operates at low frequencies, below 450 kHz and optimally at 132 kHz, which is far below the AM radio band.

Because RuBee uses only microwatts of magnetic energy to communicate between the tag and the reader (known as a router, which is simpler in design and lower in cost than RFID readers), RuBee alleviates any of the safety concerns with traditional RFID. Because the technology uses low frequencies that are not attenuated by water and metal, RuBee tags can be read in and around environments that contain high amounts of liquid and metal far more accurately than traditional RFID. RuBee tags have been demonstrated to be readable even when buried underground.

The reading capabilities of RuBee are starkly different than traditional RFID technology. Indeed, the read ranges of RuBee are far higher than UHF and HF RFID. Using volumetric loop antennas (as opposed to dipole for traditional RFID), RuBee has been shown to have a far greater read range than passive RFID tags, with performance estimates ranging from a radius of 8-20 feet (using a 1 square foot antenna) to as high as 100 feet x 100 feet, meaning an possible read range of approximately 10,000 square feet.

Today’s RuBee tags are active, in that they are powered by coin-sized lithium batteries that are low cost and have an expected life of between 10 and 15 years. The IEEE P1902.1 standard will also cover passive RuBee tags, which are presently under development, but which would harvest energy and reflect magnetic signals in the same manner as passive RFID tags.

From the viewpoint of Reik Read, lead RFID analyst for Robert W. Baird & Company, “the key downside element of the RuBee technology in comparison to RFID is a slower read rate.” While HF RFID tags can be read today at 100 per second and UHF tags can be read at up to 150 to 200 per second, the read rates for RuBee tags are approximately 6-10 per second.

While such read rates will make RuBee impractical for most supply chain and postal/shipping applications, the slower rates could actually work in RuBee’s favor in other venues, such as animal identification, assuring product authenticity, and medical applications. Also, while the read rates are far slower, the read accuracy of RuBee tags has been shown to be superior in tests and pilot applications to EPC-RFID tags, with less susceptibility to ambient noise and other RF signals.

And yet, speed is not everything. According to John Stevens, chair of the IEEE's P1902.1 Working Group and chairman of Visible Assets Inc., the concept is that “RuBee is a visibility tool, whereas RFID is a tracking tool.” RuBee thus is envisioned as a “visibility” system, providing far more information than the simple tracking of objects or products through an assembly line or in a warehouse.

While tracking systems collects data on where an object has been, visibility systems can provide for both a real-time information system on the status of people and objects, as well as historical information on items and an audit trail on objects (which has become extremely important for corporations operating in the United States today in the wake of the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act). As such, RuBee thus presents intriguing technological advantages and conceptual design differences over the traditional EPC-RFID model.

The design of RuBee technology also allows for peer-to-peer communications, not only between tags and routers, but also between tags themselves. With this capability, the tags themselves could be programmed to issue “pair-wise” matching alarms, so that each RuBee tag could be used to provide an alert if an item was shoplifted from a smart shelf in a retail setting or if there was an unauthorized removal of a controlled substance or a high-value item.

The P1902.1™ standard will also have a "real-time, tag searchable" protocol for RuBee tags, which will allow for tags to have unique “.tag” URLs associated with them and be searchable via the Internet. As opposed to the EPC model, where tag memory is kept to a minimum and the tag is a pointer to records and info on the tagged item, RuBee tags will be designed to have memory capacity to carry information on the item about the item.

As John Stevens recently commented: “If you've got 50 items on a conveyor that need to be read in under a second, RFID will work, but if you have a product where you want access to internal records inside a warehouse and want to find out about its history from the day it was born ... that's visibility.” With these capacities however, RuBee tags will cost far less than any competitive active RFID tags presently on the market.

Analysis

Writing in Computer Power User, Kyle Schurman projected that the market prospects for RuBee are bright because “this new technology should fill in some of the gaps in the market that RFID can’t meet.”

Indeed, with its differentiated capabilities, RuBee may be ideally suited for applications in the retail sector, in health care and pharmaceuticals, in animal identification, and in a whole host of areas where traditional RFID has been considered technologically impractical or cost ineffective. In retail, there may even be room in the retail market for RuBee tags to be used in tandem with EPC-RFID tags on high value items, much as has been proposed for the dual use of RFID and bar codes on items for some time to come. RuBee also has promising capabilities for smart asset management.

Thus, at present, we stand at the threshold of a very exciting period in the development of radio – and magnetic – identification technologies. With the finalization of the IEEE protocol standard in the second half of 2007, it is likely that we will see an upsurge of interest and investment in RuBee technology.

Already, RuBee has the support of leading technology providers, including:

• Epson
• Hewlett-Packard
• Intel
• IBM
• Motorola
• NCR
• Panasonic
• Sony

It also has drawn interest from leading retailers, including Best Buy in the U.S., U.K.-based Tesco, Metro Group in Germany, and France’s CarreFour. However, it is unlikely that RuBee will be, as one industry analyst put it, “the death knell” for RFID.

Rather, as veteran RFID analyst Pete Abell with IDC's Manufacturing Insights recently commented, the emergence of RuBee is proof that “the RFID world, moving forward, is not going to be a one-size-fits-all environment.” Steve Winkler, who is a standards architect for SAP, recently observed that: “There is enough room for peaceful co-existence and even a symbiotic relationship between the two technologies. RuBee can ride the coat-tails of RFID’s popularity to gain adoption, while RFID vendors don’t have to try to be the be-all end-all and can focus on the scenarios to which they are best suited.”

About the author:
David C. Wyld (dwyld@selu.edu) is the Robert Maurin Professor of Management at Southeastern Louisiana University, where he directs the College of Business’ Strategic e-Commerce/e-Government Initiative and teaches business strategy.

Market Update

Tuesday, March 27, 2007
By Benjamin Train

U.S. stock futures fell sharply following a spike in crude oil futures after the market close on Tuesday. U.S. crude for May delivery soared to $68.09 a barrel, up $5.18 on rumors about Iran, traders said. The U.S. Navy said it had no information to substantiate a market rumor that Iran had fired at a U.S. naval vessel in the Gulf. "Navy has nothing to substantiate that report right now," a Navy official said. "At this juncture, there is no validity to it." "We have no information at this time that indicates any incident taking place," said White House National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe. Crude moved back to around $65.61.

Nickel rose for a second consecutive day, and Copper prices were steady on signs of strong industrial growth in China. But the $GDM is showing signs of a stall today, and a pending decline in PMs began to show up on the spot Silver prices. The S&P 500 futures were down 6.10 points, below fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract.

Stocks stumbled Tuesday as investors grew wary when new data raised the possibility that the nation's weak housing market would seep into the broader economy and crimp consumer spending. Dow Jones industrial average futures were down 49 points and Nasdaq 100 futures were down 9.25 points in electronic trade after the closing bell.

PRINCIPLES OF ECONOMIC VALUE

PREFACE TO BÖHM-BAWERK'S BASIC PRINCIPLES OF ECONOMIC VALUE

Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Peter Schiff
President, Euro Pacific Capital

By omitting a few key words from their most recent statement, the Fed led Wall Street to the premature conclusion that the next move in interest rates will be down. With the economy clearly headed for recession, there is no doubt that the Fed would like nothing more than to do just that. However, given that it wants to pretend otherwise, and considering the damage it would do to the already shaky U.S. dollar, an actually rate cut seems highly suspect.

Rather than offering a true assessment of the current economy, the official statement that follows Fed meetings has become a political farce used primarily to placate markets. For the bond market and the dollar, the Fed pretends that inflation is still under control, and that the Fed remains poised to snuff out any inflationary sparks should they appear.

For Wall Street, the housing markets, and the economy in general, the Fed pretends that the economic expansion will continue, but shows mild concern that growth might falter.

If the Fed were to admit that the economy was in trouble, the stock market would sell off, led lower by a collapse in the dollar and a potential spike in long-term interest rates.

With its parsed language, the Fed preserves the pretense that all is well while simultaneously allowing for the possibility of future easing. So by validating the goldilocks scenario, but holding the door open to future rate cuts, they can have their cake and eat it too.

One of the biggest bones the Fed threw to the markets in its last statement was its failure to directly mention the problems developing in the mortgage market. This omission suggests that the Fed is not overly concerned with the subprime crisis, or the possibility of that weakness spreading into the broader mortgage market or the economy in general.

In other words, a problem isn't a problem until the Fed says it is. This ignores the fact that the Fed is reluctant to actually identify a problem, no matter how severe; for fear that such recognition alone might spark an even greater panic.

So with the apparent blessing of the Fed, Wall Street can now borrow a page from the Las Vegas promotional playbook and claim that "what happens in sub-prime stays in sub-prime." Unfortunately, like an out of work showgirl with a folder full of embarrassing photos, the problems with subprime will soon show up on everyone's doorstep.

Think of the Fed as a juggler trying to keep five balls in the air simultaneously. Those balls are the stock market, the bond market, the dollar, the housing market, and the economy. If the Fed tells the truth, all the balls will come crashing down.

So it says what it needs to say to keep them all in play. However, my guess is the first ball to fall will be the dollar, which sold off immediately following the release of the Fed's statement.

Compounding the problem is a recent report that China may no longer be willing to expand its foreign exchange reserves. This means the dollar ball is about to get a lot heavier. Once the dollar breaks down the bond market ball will be that much more difficult to keep aloft. Once it falls, the rest will soon follow.

The bottom line is that waiting for the next rate cut is going to be a lot like waiting for Godot. The Fed wants everyone to think one is coming, but will likely never deliver the goods. If I am wrong and the Fed actually does cut, expect the easing cycle to be extremely short-lived, as an embarrassed Fed will be forced by the bond and currency markets to quickly reverse course.

Wall Street mistakenly believes that the Fed's job is to keep the expansion going. In reality, the Fed's job is to take the punch bowl away from spendthrift American consumers and the leveraged speculators lending them money.

If the Fed were to actually do its job, they would accelerate the onset of the inevitable recession. Perpetuating a phony expansion only compounds the problems that a recession would help solve. However, by repeatedly spiking the punch bowl rather than removing it, the Fed merely guarantees a much bigger hang-over when it inevitably runs dry.

For a more in depth analysis of the U.S. economy and why it is in so much trouble, read my new book "Crash Proof: How to Profit from the Coming Economic Collapse." Click here to order a copy today.

More importantly make sure to protect your wealth and preserve your purchasing power before it's too late.

Discover the best way to buy gold at www.goldyoucanfold.com, download my free research report on the powerful case for investing in foreign equities available at www.researchreportone.com , and subscribe to my free, on-line investment newsletter at http://www.europac.net/newsletter/newsletter.asp

Money News - U.S Economy Update

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

WASHINGTON -The Federal Open Market Committee decided today to keep its target for the federal funds rate at 5-1/4 percent.

Recent indicators have been mixed and the adjustment in the housing sector is ongoing. Nevertheless, the economy seems likely to continue to expand at a moderate pace over coming quarters.

Recent readings on core inflation have been somewhat elevated. Although inflation pressures seem likely to moderate over time, the high level of resource utilization has the potential to sustain those pressures.

In these circumstances, the Committee's predominant policy concern remains the risk that inflation will fail to moderate as expected. Future policy adjustments will depend on the evolution of the outlook for both inflation and economic growth, as implied by incoming information.

Although most economists and market experts are voting on the side of the Federal Reserve keeping interest rates steady for the sixth consecutive time when the agency meets this week, options traders are beginning to say the Fed may cut rates three times this year as the worsening housing slump threatens the economy's growth.

Sources said options on Federal Fund futures at the Chicago Board of Trade show a 24 percent likelihood the central bank will lower its target rate for overnight loans to 4.5 percent from the current 5.25 percent.

With home foreclosures and defaults mounting, Bloomberg said traders in options anticipate lower borrowing costs than economists or futures contracts, the most widely used barometer of Fed policy.

Futures show rates will drop to 4.75 percent by year-end, and economists expect 5 percent. The February Consumer Price index rose 0.4%, which was "stronger-than-expected." The food index rose 0.8 percent in February, which follows a 0.7 percent increase in January.

According to John Williams' Shadow Government Statistics site we read that the "Net of methodological gimmicks that have been used in recent decades to dampen the reporting of inflation, February's Pre-Clinton CPI annual inflation (based on 1990 methodology) was 5.7%, while the SGS Alternate Consumer Price Measure (based on 1980 methodology) was 10.0%." Doug Noland of the Credit Bubble Bulletin at PrudentBear.com computes that "The CPI is now up 2.4% with Core CPI’s 2.7% increase making nine straight months above 2.5%." Bloomberg thinks that it was "Rising fuel, food and medical costs" that "pushed U.S. inflation higher last month." Hourly earnings adjusted for inflation fell 0.3 percent on average for a second month in February.

Paul Kasriel of The Northern Trust Company, who opines that perhaps we are just getting started in this housing bust thing, in that "In an average housing downturn, real residential investment expenditures decline by about 25% peak to trough." So, far, though, "through the fourth quarter 2006, these expenditures have fallen by only about 13%, or slightly more than half of an average housing recession."

One interest-rate expert was quoted as saying, "The fear is it spills into the economy, it spills into the banking system and creates a credit crisis."

Mr. Kasriel offers proof of economic fallout, he looked at the unemployment report and noticed that it has already started, in that "the participation rate (the labor force as a percent of civilian noninstitutional population) declined to 66.2% – the second consecutive monthly decline." "peaked at an annualized $553 billion in third quarter 2005 and was contracting at an annualized pace of $5 billion in fourth quarter 2006. The implication of all this is that an important source of financing for consumer spending has disappeared. Thus, growth in consumer spending is set to moderate as a result." "Consumer spending is 70% of the economy".

The appearance of the U.S. Comptroller, David Walker, on 60 Minutes and telling the sad tale of the coming economic collapse, has caused quite a bit of a stir. I am sure that he is correct down to the last decimal point.


From Taipan Financial News:
TFN Global Alert - 3/21/07 Eight times the size of the Magellan Fund!

China's New Government Fund to invests $400 billion in commodities…

Like a fat kid on a teeter-totter, the global economy is in a state of imbalance.Like a pudgy boy, the United States is consuming massive amounts of goods and building ever-larger trade deficits. The developing world is the skinny kid, legs kicking in the air, promising cake to the stout one because, after all, his family runs the bakery.

This metaphor is bolstered by the fact that emerging markets are following the Japanese path to first-world status: export-led growth. The baker just makes bread, lots of it, and will worry about balancing his books later.

In the late 1960s and early '70s the U.S. government ran a war in Vietnam and a war on poverty at home. This led to massive inflation -- some of you remember mortgage rates in the teens. Today, the U.S. government is running a never-ending war on terror that is estimated to cost some $1.3 trillion. We now have troops in 100 countries -- that's almost half the world, by the way.

Here is the debt as of 10:43 a.m. on March 19, 2007, according to the U.S. U.S. Treasury

Current 03/19/2007
Debt Held by the Public$5,032,628,085,890.53
Intragovernmental Holdings $3,801,827,726,066.37
Total Public Debt Outstanding $8,834,455,811,956.90

The U.S. economy runs at a 3% annual growth rate and makes about $13 trillion in GDP. But it owes $3.8 trillion to other countries.

IMF POSTS PAYMENTS DRAFT

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) posted its first draft of the sixth edition to the “Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual.” Among the revisions were accounting changes for gold loans, which are not publicly disclosed at present, stating that all gold loans should be broken out into their own category to avoid double-counting of reserves.

The Chinese economy runs at a 10% annual growth rate and is currently around $8 trillion in GDP. However, instead of owing half of annual GDP like the U.S., the Chinese have a surplus of 12% of GDP.

Plus, they own U.S. dollars. The dollar has fallen some 30% over the past few years. It will continue to fall simply because someone has to pay the interest on that $8.8 trillion, and it is easer for politicians to devalue than raise taxes.

The Chinese government's new investment fund update

If you were a mass exporter with a voracious need for basic commodities to churn through your factories, and had a driving need to diversify out of U.S. dollars, what would you be investing in?
China's central bank governor, Zhou Xiaochuan, said the country will stop stockpiling its foreign reserves.

Instead the Chinese will "cut a small piece of reserves" for a new agency to be set up for the management of its foreign reserves.

The word on the street is that the Chinese government will put $200-$400 billion into the new fund.
This would make it the largest investment fund in the world! In fact, it would be four to eight times the size of the Magellan Fund, which has $50 billion in assets.

"The Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) may soon launch zinc futures contracts, although the implementation date is unclear as the exchange is still awaiting final approval from the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), an official with the SHFE said." -Resource Investor

China is set to announce new policies to control refined copper imports for processing and finished product exports. The new policies are aimed at reducing energy consumption and combating high pollution in the copper processing sector, and would badly hurt imports by copper processing companies, industry insiders told Interfax. -Resource Investor

The way I see it, the second half of 2007 is shaping up to be the biggest bull market in commodities and energy ever.

The best way to play it is to buy the current dip in hard assets, get out of the dollar and into second- and third-tier commodities -- especially those you believe the Chinese have an interest in.

China forms company to spend FX reserves

Submitted by cpowell on Fri, 2007-03-09 17:25.
Section: Daily Dispatches

By Joe McDonald
Associated Pressvia
Yahoo News
Friday, March 9, 2007

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070309/ap_on_bi_ge/china_foreign_reserves;_...

BEIJING -- China is creating an investment company to make more profitable use of its $1 trillion in foreign currency reserves, the finance minister said Friday, in a move that could change the flow of billions of dollars in global markets.

Finance Minister Jin Renqing gave no details of how the Cabinet-level company might invest the reserves, which are believed to be mostly in safe but low-yielding U.S. Treasury bonds. He also did not say what portion of the reserves might be channeled through the company or when it would start to operate.

"We can achieve more profit from the investments," Jin said at a news conference. "We are now preparing the organization of this new corporation."

Analysts have speculated for some time that China would create an investment company, and officials have said repeatedly they want to make better use of the country's reserves.

Economists have suggested Beijing might allocate as much as $200-400 billion to the new company, which in a single move could create one of the world's richest investment funds.

"They want to be more aggressive than what they do with current reserves," said economist Mingchun Sun at Lehman Brothers in Hong Kong.

"They could invest in higher-yield products -- stocks, corporate bonds, maybe even commodities," Sun said. "Basically, the returns would be higher because the risk is higher."

Jin said Beijing would try to learn from the experience of other governments. He cited the example of Singapore's Temasek Holdings, which manages nearly $90 billion in government pension funds and other assets.

Temasek owns stakes in Singapore Airlines and Singapore Telecom, as well as in banks, real estate, shipping, energy and other industries in India, China, South Korea and elsewhere.

Spokespeople for Jin's ministry and the central bank and foreign currency regulator declined to give any other details.

A shift in China's investment strategy could change its purchases of Treasuries, affecting a market that Washington relies on to help finance multibillion-dollar budget deficits.

But Sun said that with the reserves growing by as much as $20 billion a month, Beijing could afford to keep buying U.S. government bonds while also channeling billions into new investments.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, in an interview this week on the U.S. television network ABC, rejected suggestions that changes in Chinese bond purchases could affect the United States.

Paulson said Beijing's entire holdings represent the equivalent of less than a single day's trading in Treasuries on global bond markets.

Chinese economists and media reports have suggested China might adopt more unusual investment approaches, ranging from stockpiling oil and other raw materials to spending more on social programs in order to encourage Chinese consumers to spend more and reduce dependence on exports.

The growth in China's reserves is driven by the rapid growth of its exports, which brings in dollars, euros and other foreign currency, and by the billions of investment dollars being poured into the country.

The surge in money flooding in from abroad forces the central bank to drain billions of dollars from the economy every month by selling bonds in order to reduce inflationary pressures.

The composition of China's foreign currency reserves is a secret. But economists believe that as much as 75 percent is believed to be in U.S. dollar-denominated instruments, mostly Treasuries, with the rest in euros and a small amount in yen.

Stephen Green, chief economist at Standard Chartered Bank in Shanghai, calculated that last year the central bank made a $29 billion profit on its Treasury holdings after paying interest on its own bonds and other expenses.

But even that represents a return of less than 3 percent on the $1 trillion in holdings.

By contrast, Singapore's Temasek says it has averaged an 18 percent annual return since it was created in 1974.