IEEE Pervasive Computing: Applications - Pervasive Computing Goes the Last Hundred Feet with RFID Systems

1536-1268/03/$17.00 © 2003 IEEE ! Published by the IEEE CS and IEEE ComSoc PERVASIVEcomputing 9 W hat if networked computers were as cheap as paper clips and could be attached to things as easily as a yellow sticky? We are about to find out, because such computers are being deployed across the world as you read this. They are, of course, Radio Frequency Identification tags—low-power, short-range communication devices that we can embed into everyday objects to track location, monitor security, and record the status of events or even environmental conditions. Conceptualizing them simply as ID tags greatly underestimates their capabilities, considering some have local computing power, persistent storage, and communication capabilities.