Feb 23
Last week, a gun shop in California introduced a new addition to its stock: A .22-caliber pistol that only works when the user is wearing the accompanying RFID-enabled watch. It’s being heralded as the "iPhone of guns."
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Feb 22
Back in 2010, we first talked about an interesting smart firearm that came from a company called Armatix. That gun was designed to fire only when the person was wearing a watch fitted with an RFID sensor inside. Without the watch on the wrist, the gun isn’t functional. The idea was to keep unauthorized users from being able to use the gun.
The Armatix iP1 gun was expected to hit the market in 2010 at a price of nearly $10,000. Well, fast forward four years, and the gun is now available in the US with the Oak Tree Gun Club in LA selling it. Plus, the cost has come down substantially.
The gun is a .22 caliber weapon with a 10-round capacity. The watch and gun are sold separately. The gun sells for $1399, while the watch, which is required to use the gun, sells for another $399. If there’s any real downside to the gun, it’s that a .22 caliber isn’t what most people want for home defense or concealed carry.
[via Washington Post]
Feb 20
Firearm safety is a big deal for every one around the country. People have to keep guns out of the reach of children and keep unauthorized users from getting their … Continue reading
Jan 27
Many New Yorkers are still mourning the news that the body of Avonte Oquendo, a non-verbal autistic boy, was found on the banks of the East River. To meet—and partially assuage—the grief, Senator Charles Schumer has an idea: let’s put tracking chips on autistic children.
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Jan 16
Bees populations are mysteriously dying worldwide, and that’s a problem: one-third of the world’s crops are pollonated by the black and yellow fellows. To try and figure out what’s causing the bee decline, Australia’s national science agency is strapping RFID tags on bees’ backs to detect changes in their movement. It’s the beenternet!
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Jan 13
When you run a hospital, you know that there are plenty of items to keep track of, ranging from the medicine at the dispensary, as well as the various equipment that lies throughout the building. Oh yeah, one very important thing that no one should overlook – hospitals come with beds, and with that, there are also plenty of linen to keep track of. This is a monumental task actually, and is there a better way of getting the job done to make sure that no one carts away with your linen? The answer could very well be in the affirmative, as there is a new scheme that will tag hospital linen electronically, allowing every item to be identified in theory.
Hospital Linen Tagged Electronically To Prevent Unwanted Losses original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Jan 03
Threaded fasteners haven’t changed drastically since they were invented ages ago. But now, General Motors has put RFID tags in the bolts used on engine assembly lines, turning simple hardware into tracking devices
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Dec 31
Last month, London reached a grim milestone: Six cyclists were killed within 14 days, sparking a massive "die-in" protest. London isn’t alone; 176 cyclists or pedestrians were killed in NYC last year. The rapidly rising death toll is spurring a race to build a technology to warn drivers before they hit someone on foot or bike.
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Dec 09
There’s a flood of new smartwatches and other wearable devices coming just around the corner, and every one of them will require a connection to your smartphone. Wireless NFC technology has already made things a little easier when it comes to pairing, but researchers at Disney want to make things even easier by just having you shake a couple of devices in unison.
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Dec 02
Just because a hospital is a place where lives are rescued to the best of the doctor’s abilities each day in the operation theater, not to mention it is a sanctuary for those who need to recuperate from a serious illness, it does not mean that it is a fully sterile platform. Actually, hospitals are pretty good candidates to be a breeding ground for dangerous bacteria. MRSA, a bacterial infection which has proven itself resilient to majority of the antibiotics out there, will run rampant in healthcare environments if given the chance. Of course, such infections can be easily stopped if hospital workers wash their hands on a regular basis. IBM intends to make use of technology by reminding them to wash their hands, all through the clever implementation of RFID-enabled badges.
Employees will use badges that have an integrated RFID chip, where this RFID badge will “talk” to sensors placed in different locations throughout the building. Should someone happen to walk into a patient’s room, and leaves without washing their hands, the sensor will detect the situation as such, and report to the central server. This means all staff members will be monitored of their respective failures, and hopefully, corrective moves can be made to improve the situation down the road.
IBM Introduces RFID Enforced Hand Washing Technology original content from Ubergizmo. 
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