RFID Journal: The Rifidi Edge Server can manage EPC Gen 2 RFID interrogators and RFID reader data, as well as information from bar-code scanners, sensors and other hardware.
By Claire Swedberg
Oct. 26, 2009—RFID software company Pramari has released an open-source middleware platform, the Rifidi Edge Server, that is free to download and use. The firm also offers support, consulting and training at a cost of approximately $5,000 for most small to midsize customers. Rifidi began beta testing the middleware on June 15 of this year, and released Version 1.0 on Oct. 26.

The Rifidi Edge Server middleware collects data from EPC Gen 2 RFID readers, filters that information and delivers it to systems that employ the data for business processes. The middleware works not only with RFID interrogators, but also with bar-code scanners, sensors and other hardware, such as cameras.

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Open PR: (openPR) - Out Board have been appointed principal global re-seller for the entertainment and presentation technology sectors by Ubisense, the Cambridge UK based leaders in precision real-time location systems (RTLS).

The move follows on from Out Board's substantial successes with their own audio showcontrol application of the Ubisense technology, TiMax Tracker, which tracks actors and performers around stage to automatically localize their amplified audio signature via real-time control of the TiMax2 SoundHub audio matrix processor.

Out Board have also supplied this highly versatile precision tracking technology to control other third-party audio showcontrollers such as the Meyer LCS system, and provided support to developments in other disciplines such as control of lighting, cameras, multimedia servers and advanced showcontrol environments such as the CAST BlackBox system.

Ubisense CEO Richard Green comments: "Out Board understand the language and dynamics of the entertainment technology industry, and they have the in-depth technical and commercial experience to fully develop and support these exciting new initiatives. Their well-established distribution network also gives them a truly global reach to help apply these skills, we're confident they're well placed to maximise the potential of Ubisense in this sector."

The Ubisense core RTLS platform employs a unique combination of angle-of-arrival (AOA) and time-difference-of-arrival (TDOA) analysis to deliver highly reliable and accurate location information to a resolution of 15cm (6") in three dimensions. Out Board add their own software application layers to provide real-time visualisations and application-specific showcontrol GUI's. A network of compact Ubisense sensors receives 6-8GHz UWB radar-frequency pulses from miniature tags worn by the performers, and the resulting real-time localization data is used to deliver either stepped or continuous positional control of external media peripherals via MIDI or ethernet.

Just as demand has rocketed for effective RTLS resources in Ubisense's core enterprise markets such as personnel or asset tracking and process control, so the entertainment industry has also seen a growing interest in this area. Out Board's Robin Whittaker remarks "People in our industry seem very tweaked by RTLS allowing them to now do things that were just not possible a few years ago. We know a lot of those people, and we're delighted to be in a position deliver them viable solutions to help open up these new possibilities."

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PR-inside: Fargo, ND – October 22, 2009 – Intelligent InSites Inc., the leading provider of real-time enterprise visibility and automation solutions that dramatically improve healthcare efficiency and patient safety, announced the inaugural Intelligent InSites Partner Summit will be held October 27-28 in Fargo, ND.

For the event, Intelligent InSites is bringing together the leading software, service, and technology companies that provide real-time locating and sensing solutions. Together with the company’s own InSites Enterprise Visibility Platform (InSites Platform), they provide the most comprehensive enterprise solution for workflow, patient and staff safety, and asset management for hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, and assisted living facilities.

During the event, Intelligent InSites will share vision, strategies, and new programs geared at accelerating the adoption of RTLS technologies throughout the healthcare industry. Several announcements related to partner programs, upcoming product features and enhancements, and a new best practices methodology and toolset will also be announced at the Intelligent InSites Partner Summit.

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Reuters: Savi Wins $6.6 Million Order From U.S. Defense Department for RFID Supply Chain Tracking Technologies Standards-based (ISO / DASH7) RFID Devices Facilitate Interoperability Among U.S. and Allied Defense Forces and Federal Agencies

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Oct. 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Savi®, a Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) company and provider of RFID-based supply chain products and solutions, has been awarded orders totaling $6.6 million for standards-based active Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tracking technologies and accompanying services under the U.S. Department of Defense's (DoD's) RFID III procurement contract. The RFID tags, which are affixed to cargo containers and other supply chain assets, comply with the ISO 18000-7 standard (also called DASH7), enabling near real-time supply visibility and interoperability with allied defense forces and government organizations.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080123/AQW081LOGO)

The U.S. Army Information Technology, E-Commerce and Commercial Contracting Center (ITEC4) issued the procurement orders utilizing competitive procedures under the RFID-III contracting vehicle, which is a multiple award, indefinite-delivery-indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract with a total value of $429.4 million. RFID III was established for active RFID hardware, software and engineering services, and is open to all U.S. military Services, U.S. Federal Agencies and non-U.S. defense forces.

"This initial order of DASH7 RFID devices marks the DoD's conversion of RFID products to an open global standard that will support multi-national interoperability and innovative solutions that can leverage sensor-rich networks," said David Stephens, chief executive officer of Savi Technology. "We're gratified to be both a long-term supplier of RFID solutions to the DoD, and now a pioneering supporter of its transition to standards-based technologies that will help provide war fighters with the right supplies at the right time to get the job done."

Savi received three orders with staggered delivery dates with the final deliveries due in three months. The contract includes orders for the Savi ST-654, which is an ISO 18000-7 compliant high-performance, data-rich active RFID tag widely used to track shipping containers, vehicles and other large and valuable assets; and, the Savi ST-621, (also ISO 18000-7 compliant), which is a lower-cost, license plate tag designed for quick commissioning that is ideal for tracking shipping containers, rolling stock and other conveyances. For the past dozen years, Savi has helped to build the DoD's In-Transit Visibility network, which is the world's largest active RFID-based cargo tracking system spanning more than 4,000 nodes across more than 40 countries. Savi RFID-based solutions also support other government agencies and international defense forces such as NATO, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, Poland, and others. RFID III calls for "state-of-the-art" active RFID products compliant with ISO 18000-7 that provide "logistics tracking, locating, and health monitoring of commodities and assets." Savi actively participated in the development of ISO 18000-7, and offers a reasonable and non discriminatory licensing program for patent-protected protocols included in the international standard. Several commercial companies have licensed Savi's technology, including companies selected for possible awards under the RFID III contract.

Savi is a founding member of the DASH7 Alliance, a broad coalition of technology developers, manufacturers, test laboratories and government organizations committed to proliferating the commercial use of wireless sensor networks based on the ISO 18000-7 standard. For more information visit www.dash7.org

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Information Week: Like Bluetooth, the Wi-Fi Direct standard will enable peer-to-peer device connections without the need for a Wi-Fi hotspot.

By Marin Perez, InformationWeek

The Wi-Fi Alliance announced a new specification Wednesday that will enable smartphones, laptops, and other electronics to connect to each other without the use of a traditional Wi-Fi hotspot.

The Wi-Fi Direct specification will enable devices to create peer-to-peer connections that have similar data transfer speeds and range as typical Wi-Fi. The alliance said the new standard will be faster than existing ad-hoc modes, and it could be used to enable laptops to quickly connect to a printer, as well as for consumer-oriented purposes like peer-to-peer game machine connections. Wi-Fi Direct devices will also be able to connect with existing Wi-Fi certified devices for one-to-one connections, or several devices can connect simultaneously.

The alliance, anticipating that devices with the new specification could find their way into corporations, has built in some security features such WPA2, as well as management options to ensure Wi-Fi direct devices don't become insecure bridges between the corporate infrastructure and other networks. The alliance expects to begin certifying Wi-Fi Direct devices in 2010.

"Wi-Fi users worldwide will benefit from a single-technology solution to transfer content and share applications quickly and easily among devices, even when a Wi-Fi access point isn't available," said Edgar Figueroa, executive director of the Wi-Fi Alliance, in a statement. "The impact is that Wi-Fi will become even more pervasive and useful for consumers and across the enterprise."

The new specification has the potential to displace other peer-to-peer connection standards, but other wireless transfer protocols have been boosting their features. The Bluetooth Special Interest Group has shown off the Bluetooth 3.0 standard, which offers faster transfer speeds than previous versions. Near-field communication is also gaining steam as a viable way to implement mobile payment systems, andSony (NYSE: SNE)'s TransferJet protocol offers wireless transfer speeds of up to 560 Mbps between devices.

Please also check another related article http://www.rft.com/images/docs/HIMSSrls_02-08.pdf for Peer to Peer Wi-Fi RTLS.

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Coolest Gadgets: Ekahau might not be familiar to many people, but it boasts the title of being the leading provider of High Performance Wi-Fi-based Real Time Location Systems (RTLS) in the market. Currently, they have just expanded their hardware portfolio with a new device – the T301W, a wristband tag that was specially designed to be used in applications that determine the precise location of people. Being small in size, it fits onto your wrist comfortably, making it the ideal device for use in hospitals. After all, knowing the real-time location of an adult patient, child or a visitor in hospitals is a requirement for ensuring patient safety and satisfaction.
Apart from that, the wristband tag would also be at home when used in other places including amusement parks, cruise ships and other hospitality venues – basically anywhere where there is a potential for children or adults to be separated from their group. This got me thinking as well – it would be great for tour operators to slap their ‘party’ with one of these each just in case the more independent minded tourists chart out their own trail, especially in crowded places. Businesses can also keep track of visitors to make sure they remain off-limits to sensitive areas, hence preventing unwarranted snooping around.

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Tech Target: Meru Networks has pioneered a new wireless LAN troubleshooting strategy that enables end-to-end user simulation in what resembles an out-of-band management system, and is the first in the space to offer such depth of monitoring and reporting.

"This new SAM, or Service Assurance Module, introduces this notion of a dial tone into the [wireless LAN]," said Andrew Borg, senior research analyst with Aberdeen Group. "It's a health check with very low bandwidth utilization … every hand-off of the data through all the layers of the network is being monitored for its health 24-by-7."

Meru's SAM platform takes advantage of a core differentiator in Meru's overall wireless LAN infrastructure: Its access points (APs) all operate in the same channel frequency. Most WLAN vendors take a microcell approach, and have their APs operate on different channels to limit interference. With Meru, the APs assign a MAC address to each client on the network, and that client is passed from AP to AP transparently. That way when a laptop is moved about an office, it sees just one giant AP rather than dozens handing it off across the network.

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Globe Newswire: ORLANDO, Fla., Sept. 30, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- PrismOne Group, Inc. (OTCBB:PMOZ), a provider of managed technology services to targeted vertical market clients with either a high number of employees, multi-locations or growth challenges, is pleased to announce that it has chosen Axcess International Inc. (OTCBB:AXSI), a leading provider of Dual-Active(TM) Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and Real Time Location Systems (RTLS) solutions, as the supplier of RFID technology for PrismOne's pilot of the company's Presence Response and Intelligent Systems Management (PRISM).

PRISM will enable real time, dynamic analysis of a building environment through the use of Presence tracking to modify environmental systems. PRISM will manage and control use-sensitive systems such as lighting, HVAC and other systems to maximize energy efficiency and lower a user's and subsequently a building's carbon footprint. PRISM will be integrated into PrismOne's web-based interface as an additional module and integrated with the existing communications and network modules.

Samir Burshan, CEO of PrismOne, states, "I was educated as an architect and feel very strongly about building sustainability. In our capacity to develop technology solutions, I wanted to provide a way to answer the frustrating questions of why lights in an empty space are left on, or an AC is cranked down to 72 degrees or a TV or stereo is on when there is no one there -- anywhere! RFID is just one component of PRISM but an important one. We didn't make this decision quickly. We wanted to find the right technology for our solution, and, after one year of searching, reviewing and re-reviewing our short list, we feel that Axcess is the best company to partner with to provide us that technology."

"Our MicroWireless technology automatically tells you where your personnel and assets are throughout a facility," said Allan Griebenow, President and CEO of Axcess International Inc. "We are uniquely qualified for presence determination because our wireless credentials and asset tags are very small, economical and reliable compared to other options. Interacting dynamically with the building's energy management system will mean energy will be used most efficiently. With such a rapid increase in demand for green building solutions, we are very excited to support the PrismOne effort."

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Wireless Developer Network: Reston, VA - Ekahau Inc., a leading provider of Wi-Fi-based Real Time Location Systems (RTLS), today announced a new Ekahau Site Survey (ESS, version 4.6), which adds time-saving site survey capabilities for 802.11n, as well as legacy 802.11a/b/g networks. ESS is the only tool in the market to combine passive survey and active end-to-end Wi-Fi network testing – a feature called Hybrid Survey. With a single site survey walkthrough, the passive testing will provide information on the wireless signals, while the active testing measures end-to-end connectivity status, packet loss, delay times and roaming history. This cuts the survey time to one-third when compared to competing site survey solutions.

Hybrid Survey quickly reveals hard-to-detect network design errors that are not seen by traditional site survey tools or Wi-Fi management software. Such errors may be caused by mis-configured security settings, Ethernet cabling and routing issues, as well as access point hardware failures, such as bridging failures and radio malfunctions. The packet loss and delay time measurements of the Hybrid Survey feature are increasingly important with 802.11n networks running VoIP applications, for example. At the same time, the passive measurements produce crystal-clear coverage and performance maps of the facility.

In addition to Hybrid Survey, the traditional passive measurements in the new ESS are more comprehensive: The new noise display allows instant detection of areas with high noise levels. In case of excessive noise levels, Ekahau Site Survey users also have the option to use the recently announced Spectrum Analyzer to further analyze and eliminate sources of noise.

“The message from the field is clear: Our customers and partners want to minimize the time spent deploying and troubleshooting Wi-Fi. The Hybrid Survey feature in Ekahau Site Survey 4.6 allows the user to completely verify the network with just one walk-through site survey.” said Jussi Kiviniemi, senior product manager at Ekahau. “The new ESS also demystifies Wi-Fi troubleshooting: simply take the laptop to the problematic location, and ESS will completely test the network – and tell you what’s wrong.”

Kiviniemi continued: “What further differentiates Ekahau Site Survey from its competition is its unique capability to use the collected site survey data for asset and people tracking applications (RTLS), just by adding Wi-Fi tags and the RTLS software. This means that ESS users are actually hitting three birds with one stone: during a single survey they perform passive as well as end-to-end testing, and calibrate the RTLS”. Ekahau RTLS is a Wi-Fi location tracking solution chosen by hundreds of enterprise customers in industries like healthcare, mining, and government for the purpose of asset tracking, staff safety, and process improvement applications.

Rick Murphy, course director for Wireless Training Solutions, and senior instructor of the CWNP Program added, “as the world’s authority on Wi-Fi network design and training, we of the CWNP Program stress the careful planning, implementation, and verification of wireless network designs. Wireless LAN deployment is subject to many pitfalls, especially today, with the high level of performance required by voice and video transmissions being carried over Wi-Fi. In addition, the new features offered by 802.11n make designing the wireless LAN more complicated than ever. We are extremely pleased to see our partner Ekahau release this new level of technology, which we feel will make manual site surveys faster, more comprehensive, and more accurate.”

Ekahau Site Survey 4.6 also brings improvements for 802.11n capabilities, and various usability improvements. Ekahau Site Survey 4.6 will be available at the beginning of November from Ekahau and its resellers and distributors. Reduced introductory pricing is available as of today, until the end of November. More information is available at www.ekahau.com/ess.

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GPS Business News: A French start-up named Insiteo and specializing in indoor positioning has concluded the initial phase of a founding round valued at several million Euros. Investment has been secured from venture capital firm Emertec and a small group of private investors, including Anne-Sophie Pastel, former CEO and co-founder of auFeminin.com, with the support of ACTA Finance.

“The increase in capital will enable us to equip our first clients, including a major site in Paris attracted by the benefits of the Insiteo solution,” said Arnaud Masson, President of Insiteo. “Ours is indeed a disruptive technology able to deliver to most existing phones a perfect continuity of location services in environments where GPS is unavailable, including commercial centers, tradeshows, and industrial sites,” Mr. Masson continued.

Insiteo’s technology is an infrastructure-based solution that combines A-GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, and, in some cases, FM radio to provide indoor, sub three meter positioning. “We’ve identified sites where our clients place a sufficiently high value on being able to deliver location-based information that they can justify a modest investment in site-specific infrastructure”, explained Stuart Strickland, vice president at Insiteo. “Unlike many RTLS systems – which, in some respects, this approach resembles – we do not rely upon any customized user equipment, so anyone with a phone can essentially walk in and participate”, he added.

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