There are numerous reports this morning in papers ranging from the Chicago Sun-Times to The Los Angeles Times about the EPC Symposium in Chicago, which is featuring a wide range of presentations by field testers of Electronic product Code technology, as well as the Auto-ID Center of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
"The symposium is intended to be a bit like a starting pistol for this new technology," Kevin Ashton, executive director of the Auto-ID Center, tells The Associated Press. "It's where we cross the line from research to reality."
However, while companies like Tesco, Wal-Mart and Procter & Gamble have enthusiastically embraced the new technology, there are reports that some companies are feeling pressured to implement it, and are concerned that they will end of sharing information with suppliers and competitors that they'd rather not share. In addition, red flags have been raised by privacy advocates, who believe that RFID technology that reads EPCs will be used to track people and their individual behaviors.
"The symposium is intended to be a bit like a starting pistol for this new technology," Kevin Ashton, executive director of the Auto-ID Center, tells The Associated Press. "It's where we cross the line from research to reality."
However, while companies like Tesco, Wal-Mart and Procter & Gamble have enthusiastically embraced the new technology, there are reports that some companies are feeling pressured to implement it, and are concerned that they will end of sharing information with suppliers and competitors that they'd rather not share. In addition, red flags have been raised by privacy advocates, who believe that RFID technology that reads EPCs will be used to track people and their individual behaviors.
- KC's View:
- We're not surprised that some companies feel pressure to implement this technology, but that, unfortunately, is the price of progress.
