You always remember your first time, right? That heady rush, the embarrassment that turns into passion, that sense that this, this moment right now, is what you’re living for. You could stay this way forever or die today – it didn’t matter. I think Bryan Adams said it best when he wrote:
I got my first real RFID sensing smartcard reader
Bought it on the Internet
Coded ’til my fingers bled
It was summer of ‘69
I just experienced that rush with the Touchatag and I’m ready to shout it from the rooftops: “Look out, world! I am using near-field technology to trigger actions on my Mac or PC using simple, web-based software and a small piece of fairly well-made hardware.”
Touchatag is an RFID and QR system that uses a web-based client to interact with your PC. The starter package with a reader and ten tags costs $39.95 and tags cost $24.95 for a pack of 25. 500 tags cost $474.95 but what the heck do you need 500 for?
When you bring the tags close to the reader it senses their unique ID and then triggers an action. Actions include sending an email, making a Skype call or, in the case of this clever app, changing the song on your media player. You can also use a Nokia 6212 NFC phone, essentially a phone with near field transmission built-in as well as use QR codes on the iPhone or Blackberry.The QR system isn’t nearly as compelling as the RFID system, though, so it’s not worth much of a look.
Obviously the coolest application is the RFID interaction. By simply waving a card or object in front of your PC you can shut everything down or trigger an action. Want to assign a houseplant to call your Mom? Use the Skype app. Want to open our bank’s website with a swipe of your hand? Easy peasy. I think the ultimate solution would be to set your co-worker’s computer to shut down whenever they brought coffee near the keyboard.
I would consider this a toy right now, however. I’m not sure it’s robust enough to run, say, a health-club membership system or a security system for an office. However, if you want folks to swipe their RFID cards when they come into an office, for example, you could feasibly use this as a makeshift solution. I’ve created a few triggers and you could feasibly add this to a PC close to the front door and sense when junior has come back from his or her barbarian warfare practice. The possibilities, as they say, are limited by the time and effort you choose to put into this kit.
Bottom Line
RFID is spooky action at a distance. It’s great fun and with a little tinkering I’m sure you nerds could figure something out. Let me know if you have any special RFID solutions you’ve created.
I’m sure its 100% secure. No way this is hackable.
Cool solution …
But am I the only one that keeps reading “douchebag” instead of touchatag … ?
no. it’s really bad. I keep looking at the word and thinking it spelled it wrong.
It amazes me sometimes that people will pour hours and hours of effort, and a heckofalot of money, in a product of service – and not step back to think about the brand.
As a researcher, how about doing some before launching?
Hey. What about using a douchebag as a touchatag to play a verbal insult at one of your buddies? The possibilities are endless!
We rigged up a RFID + PC system that would activate a series of electronic devices (TV, cable receiver, and floor lamp were the first three devices on my switch) when it was within 3 inches of the receiver (it had no effect if any of the devices were already on, and it had a toggle as to whether it was actively sensing or not). The receiver was embedded into one of those keyhook things that you mount on the wall, and the RFID card was put on my keychain so when I got off work, I’d hang up my keys and it would “bring my apartment to life.”
that sounds like it kicks ass
Awesome solution. Until you lose your keys and you can’t get your apartment to come one ;)
hah. Well, it does have a manual switch on it, and everything can still be controlled without the RFID switch in place; it’s just an “Easy Button” for when I get home.
Hmm, I’m actually using something like that now, without the physical tag. My browser is triggered to close if I accidentally click on a Paul Carr article.
touche!
touchebag!
Internet commerce 1969?
Taken from Bryan Adams Summer of ‘69 song
Next step, stick it in your arm. More predictive programming… sighhhh.
Every generation needs its CueCat.
LOL still have one in original package.
Me too – shipped from WIRED magazine!
nabaztag tag does this since 2008!
Everyone please watch X-Men and Minority Report again :-)
I’m not sure I see the point of this. Is it really faster to find a little physical dongle and wave it in front of a computer than it is to use a keyboard shortcut to do whatever action you want to trigger?
Speed isn’t the issue. Novelty is. You can’t sell a shortcut. A shortcut doesn’t get kids and housewives excited. You can sell a cool looking device with tags. Cool green tags get people excited. I would imagine this product would make a great gift.
There would be even more novelty if you embedded the tags in your right hand and forehead, and used them to verify all your credit purchases!
99 percent of RFID applications are really bad ideas.
I have implemented a mobile application using an RFID toolkit.
My project aims to improve on the consumer experience when using mobile devices to retrieve product information whilst shopping. It therefore utilises Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology and retailer’s merchandise data (simulated data, although Tesco recently released a groceries API, leading to real a implementation) to automatically identify products and retrieve information from retailers’ databases.
Having retrieved the product description, data is pulled from multiple data sources within the internet (Amazon, Yahoo Shopping) and filtered to present the user with the most relevant information (pricing, reviews, ratings). In essence this will help bridge the gap between products contained within the physical world and data retrieved from the virtual online media.
Nice way to mash your inventory for easy viewing!
You can have a look at the following document for more info on my project –
http://www.comp.leeds.ac.uk/cgi-bin/fyproj/reports/0607/Hollander.pdf.gz
Ofcourse, further ideas are also discussed such as displaying food recipes to the user after having scanned a specific food item. (The application would then suggest other food items to buy from the same shop in order to complete the recipe)
Violet already released one of these called Mir:ror.
Does exactly the same thing, in fact they have RFID in their Nabaztag too….
Yep, these guys are just copying it and making it a bit cheaper.
Of course it helps if you get to appear in a crunchgear article too, I guess.
Yes, the two RFID readers seam very similar since I even found some tags that works with both Touchatag and Mir:ror readers ! (=> they call them “Tricky tags”, on the ‘RFID Stock’ web-store).
I haven’t tried the tags with a Nabaztag tag yet. I guess they should work with the rabbit too.
Yes but…
One tag cannot be used endlessly. In fact, you can read a tag around 50 times (to confirm, I’m not so sure about the exact number) and then it becomes unreadable. So you can throw it in the trash!
A little bit disappointing…
Where did you make up the unreadable claim from ? Please post your source, if you have any
How does this differ from a Violet N400 Mir:ror Compact RFID Scanner/Reader?
So, does anybody know how to make this thing send an email when a tag is read?
Maybe some source code?
This application would be really cool.