Ten Best, Worst, and Craziest Uses of RFID

An anonymous reader writes "This top 10 rounds up what it calls 'the best, worst and craziest' uses of RFID out there — including chipped kids at Legoland, smart pub tables that let you order drinks, smartcards for sports fans, and chipped airline passengers. The craziest use of the tech surely has to be RFID chips for Marks & Spencer suits — you couldn't pay most people to wear one of them."

Unheard of!

[svunt]

I used to be a bartender, and one of the best things about the job is that the customers have to do the legwork. A bar where you can order while staying at your seat is a...um...restaurant? Table-service bar? This neat use of RFID is a lot like the bells Larry David insisted on in his restaurant in Curb Your Enthusiasm. What an amazing future we live in.

Well consider this

[The Creator]

As long as he does't have a chip on him you watch him irl when at LEGO-land. But now that he has the chip you can safely go to the parent longe and watch where he is on the KidLocator(tm) - and there he is, safely in plain site of everyone, where noone can hurt him, perhaps standing in line for a ride. You feel absolutely safe! Then 30min later you start to wonder why he is still in line, he should be on the ride by now. So you start to get a little worried, soon you decide to go check on him. So you go to the line and look for him, but all you find is his rfid-bracelet behind the trashcan...

Re:Unheard of!

[stevey]

The US is really good at this. Particularly useful when there's only two of you and the bar is packed with no space at the bar itself, because you avoid long gaps in the conversation while one of you goes to get the round in.

That is certainly true, but I find that I'd be more inclined to have table-service in a large group since there is a lot more effort required to remember the orders in a round, and to physically carry them back to the table.

Although, as a Scot, standing at the bar is one of the few times when it is OK to randomly chat to strangers with no real excuse/desire. Something that I missed when I was in American bars - you sit at your table, people fetch you drinks, and you don't end up randomly chatting to people at the next table. It feels more like drinking in your house with a friend or two.

Usual rubbish

[Bastard of Subhumani]

Wondering what good RFID was for transmitting orders to the bar, I decided to break with tradition and read TFA. And lo and behold "Orders are transmitted to the bar using ethernet over powerline". The only use of RFID is on some payment cards.

Re:Unheard of!

[shawb]

My question with this is... what does this have to do with RFID? The bar is set up with touchscreen menus at the table to order from. These may or may not be wireless and thereby use radio frequency for communications, but it is not an RFID bar.