Session 12 – Second session of Group Presentation

Finally, it has come to the end of TWC class!

In this session, the group presentations cover the topics of: 1) 3D-printing, 2) seasteading, and 3) exoskeleton technology. In the first presentation, it highlights the emergence and development of 3D-printing in creating real-world objects, which are suitable to our customized needs. Although the technology of 3D-printing is still in its early adoption phase, we have seen many entrepreneurial vendors venturing into this emerging technology. This presentation discusses about the possible impacts of 3D-printing in different aspects of our lives. One particularly interesting aspect is the fact that we could use it easily in the future, where we could print clothes or home utensils according to our needs without having to purchase it in the market. Through this topic of presentation, I have learned that we are not just playing God, but we have also disrupted the constant usage of traditional technology with the introduction of disruptive innovation such as 3D-printing.

The second presentation explores about the concept of seasteading, which basically means the lives of human a “floating platform” in the sea. This presentation is very unique in a sense that it touches on “rare concept” like seasteading, which is not often heard in daily conversations. It discusses how human can make use of different architectural technology to realize a hospitable living environment for human in the middle of the sea. I was very impressed by the custom video that the team has produced. In the video, it shows how relaxed and carefree the live of seateaders can be when they escape from the hectic lives of modern cities. This concept of seasteading also holds the future of urbanization, where human from modern cities could be allocated to some of the seastead islands to reduce the overpopulation of human in particular areas of a country. Basically, this presentation gave me the idea of how human could overcome natural barrier in creating a sustainable living environment that can be further introduced to our lives in the future.

The last presentation, which talks about exoskeleton technology, gave me a glimpse of how limited physical abilities could be upgraded with the introduction of stronger “external skeleton.” Just like an ironman suit, the term of exoskeleton presents a realm of breakthrough in overcoming natural limitation of human’s body. This presentation mentions about the implementation of such a technology to our daily lives in improving task efficiency and also to help physically-handicapped people. Army could now use less energy to same amount of work and could even save their energy for further usage when the situation becomes critical. The interesting part is when athletes start to make use of this technology in competition. When such external technology involves, there will be more “fairness” issues to discuss because the athletes are not competing with their physical abilities, but also with their exoskeleton equipment. Generally, this presentation gives me the understanding of how physical limitation of human could be further improved with the adoption of modern technology in our lives.

In conclusion, although this blog post marks the end of TWC class, it does not signify the end of visionary concepts that this class has taught me about. In fact, it means the beginning of practical application of such a technology into my lives, where most of the time, we should plan and prepare for the future, instead of being caught surprised when disruptive innovation emerges. The knowledge taught by TWC does not only serve for academic purpose, but it also presents significant knowledge to leverage our identity and personal values, which are definitely useful for our career and personal lives in the future.

To sum it up, I would like to give a rating of 9.999999/10 for this final session of TWC because it has really changed my perspectives in terms of viewing and anticipating changes in life. I hope that the facebook page of TWC could be sustained, so that we could be introduced to insightful discussions and insights of different TWC batches, which could expand our world views of technological innovation.

Session 11 – First Session of Group Presentation

Finally, after a ten-week long preparation, our team is finally able to present our group project on the topic of “aesthetic surgery”. Basically, the technology of aesthetic surgery originates from ancient Egypt where the ancient Egyptian King’s nose was inserted with bone and seeds after his death. Afterwards, aesthetic surgery is most likely used to revamp physical deformities after a significant turn of events. For example, Freed slaves in ancient India underwent surgical procedures to remove or cover the brands used to mark them as property. In addition, there are also surgical procedures to reconstruct the nose of ex-criminals.From the ancient history itself, we could have already seen how mankind try to play God in terms of “fixing” or manipulating its physical trait.

On the other hand, in the modern consumer culture, where judgmental view about physical appearance is widely pervasive, plastic surgery has become a tool to improve physical traits instead of just being used to repair a deformed look. Modern cosmetic surgery patients have “chosen” their “ideal face” through cosmetic surgery when they want to apply for ideal jobs or partners of life. Additionally, some patients might use it to improve their physical inferiority, so as to avoid social mockeries from peers and family members. Furthermore, aesthetic surgery is also used to symbolize the wealth of the surgery patients because it costs more than what the average person could afford. Therefore, In my subjective view, I feel that such significant trend portraits the selfishness and materialistic concepts of human in improving their lives and it will further extends the inequalities (between the rich and non-rich and between the physically-fake and physically-natural people). It is also very disappointing to know that many of us pursue the improvement of external look instead of internal personality, which is more valuable and sustainable in creating a satisfactory life.

The other teams have presented on stealth technology and green-building subsequently. In the former presentation, it covers about the improvement of stealth technology and its implementation in human’s lives, especially in term of its popular military usage. In addition, it also discusses about the social impact and the legal concerns that should be raised when such technology becomes more mainstream in human’s life in the future. From this presentation, I have learned how humans are trying to become more Godlike in term of achieving superhero ability and it also shows the notion of “technology is easy, human is hard” when such technology could be misused for sabotage and privacy intrusion.

In the other presentation, it has discussed about the development of green-building technology, where sustainable energy and architecture are used as the main reasons of the building development. In term of the existence of such green technology, it has given human the hope for the future of sustainable environment, where energy is used at its optimal level and environmental concerns are the most important factors in developing the habitat of human. From this presentation, I have noticed that although some of this great building perceives incredible hopes for the future of sustainability, it presents a big question to me in terms of the cost of implementation. Many of such green-building implements state-of-the-art technology that requires massive amount of development and implementation cost, As such, it might need to be scaled-down in the future to fit the mainstream needs.

All in all, this session of TWC has given me another insight to the limitless possibilities and breakthroughs of human’s invention and technology to overcome the limitations in life and to make their lives more controllable. As such, I would like to rate this session 9/10 for the inspirational knowledge imparted by classmates to me.

Individual Topical Review Paper Final Submission

Paper

From RFID to NFC: How Wireless Identification Technology Revolutionizes Our Lives[1] Erwin (erwin.2012@sis.smu.edu.sg), 1^st Year Student, Bachelor of Science (Information System Management), Class of 2016, School of Information System

Executive Summary

RFID and NFC are forms of wireless identification technology that has gathered international acceptance and pervasive usage in various sectors of human’s life. Such technology presents numerous possibilities in revolutionizing our lives and creating a more effective and efficient lifestyle for individuals and a more sophisticated business process for the corporate world. This paper explores the immense potentials of wireless identification technology that enables efficient process of exchanging information among users that could create a more intelligent and personalized living environment for mankind. In addition, there will also be discussions on the development of such technology from past to present with prediction of future implementation that could administer positive influence to the world.

Definition and Terminology

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) refers to a technology of storing and fetching data with electronic devices that consist of a small chip (RFID tag) and an antenna connected to the chip. The chip is able to communicate an amount of approximately 2,000 bytes of data by converting radio-frequency queries from an RFID reader and send back information collected from the reader. On the other hand, the scanned information can also be processed with particular applications, such as Point-of-Sales (POS) system and other analytical tools to provide more substantial information to users. Such RFID device functions similarly to a bar code, which provides a unique identifier for that object. However, it is more superior compared to a bar code: “1) it is possible to scan tags in motion; and 2) since radio waves can pass through most solid objects, the tags don’t need to be in direct line of sight of the RFID reader.” (Fuhrer & Guirnard, 2007, p. 2).

In addition to the aforementioned capabilities, RFID provides an opportunity to create a network of identifiable objects through a standard architecture defined in the Electronic Product Code (EPC) Network that actualizes the development of “The Internet of Things[2]”. To uniquely identify an object, EPC provides information regarding: 1) the manufacturer, 2) stock keeping unit[3], and 3) serial number or unique identifier of a particular object (BusinessDictionary, n.d.). At the same time, Physical Markup Language (PML) enhances the security of information stored in RFID tag by encapsulating and encrypting those data after being captured by RFID reader (Wikipedia, 2012). Lastly, RFID technology is also complimented with Object Name Service (ONS), which utilizes Domain Name System (DNS) to uniquely identify information about a product or service from the EPC (Wikipedia, 2012). All in all, RFID delivers promising abilities to create seamless global networks of physical objects through the amalgamation of EPC, PML, and ONS technology, thus enabling the identification and communication of seemingly unrelated entities through the “Internet of Things”.

Near field communication, abbreviated as NFC, is a form of contactless communication between devices like smartphones or tablets. Contactless communication allows a user to wave the smartphone over a NFC compatible device to send information without needing to touch the devices together or go through multiple steps setting up a connection. Fast and convenient, NFC technology is popular in parts of Europe and Asia, and is quickly spreading throughout the United States.

Near field communication maintains interoperability between different wireless communication methods like Bluetooth and other NFC standards including FeliCa — popular in Japan — through the NFC Forum. Founded in 2004 by Sony, Nokia, and Philips, the forum enforces strict standards that manufacturers must meet when designing NFC compatible devices. This ensures that NFC is secure and remains easy-to-use with different versions of the technology. Compatibility is the key to the growth of NFC as a popular payment and data communication method. It must be able to communicate with other wireless technologies and be able to interact with different types of NFC transmissions.

The technology behind NFC allows a device, known as a reader, interrogator, or active device, to create a radio frequency current that communicates with another NFC compatible device or a small NFC tag holding the information the reader wants. Passive devices, such as the NFC tag in smart posters, store information and communicate with the reader but do not actively read other devices. Peer-to-peer communication through two active devices is also a possibility with NFC. This allows both devices to send and receive information.

Comparison between RFID and NFC Technology

Theoretically, NFC is the subset of RFID because both technologies utilize radio waves as the means for identification purposes. As such, NFC inherits the capability of RFID, which features smart tags with its read or write operation mode (DifferenceBetween, n.d.). However, in addition to those functionalities, there are two other execution modes in the realm of NFC: card emulation and peer-to-peer (P2P). Such features enable new possibilities of developing numerous augmented-reality applications for smartphone and other NFC-embedded devices.

Although both technologies are technically identical, there is a distinct difference between them: NFC is only able to communicate within a short distance (less than 0.2 meter), while RFID has a much longer range (up to 200 meter) (Wikipedia, 2013). Therefore, based on this specification, NFC is more commendable to be used for secure payment or sensitive information transaction that requires tighter security control. On the contrary, RFID is conventionally used for generating identification procedures, which are then used for recording and tracking inventories, as well as initiating workflows (to start a process, create an alert, etc) (Kinsella, 2011).

To put it briefly, NFC is a more secure version of RFID technology because it is similar to RFID in terms of transmitting information wirelessly, but at the same time, NFC has a substantially shorter communication range as compared to RFID, thus enabling a better security feature for information exchange. As a result, NFC is more prone to be used in application that needs security function, while RFID is more pervasively utilized on wireless-tracking technology.

The Origin of RFID Technology (Reaz et al., 2009)

The emergence of RFID technology could be traced back to the primitive implementation of electro-magnetism in the early 1600s. During that period, the utilization of electro-magnetism technology was constrained to the usage of loadstone as compass, as well as the traditional method of outdoor-signalling with the reflection of mirror. There had been no significant breakthrough of such technology until Michael Faraday proposed about light and radio waves as a form of electromagnetic energy. Subsequently, Scottish physicist, James Clerk Maxwell, published his theory on electro-magnetism, which was one major impetus for the development of radar in World War II.

The military usage of radar for targeting enemy’s position was the first modern application of wireless identification technology with electro-magnetism principle. Thereafter, commercial usage began to prevail in the 1960s onwards, especially after Richard Clench from Radio Corporation of America (RCA), developed an electronic identification system that was considered as a major breakthrough of the century. Afterward, in 1991, the world’s first highway electronic tolling system, which uses RFID readers, was proudly established in Oklahoma. The implementation of such device signalled the advancement of RFID research, which has expanded the functionality of RFID reader in the 20^th century. Currently, RFID reader utilizes receiver design, transceiver design, integrated circuit design, and many other sophisticated technologies.

The Origin of NFC Technology (The NFC Forum, n.d.)

The success of RFID triggers the development of NFC technology, which uses the same principle as RFID, with a shorter communication range to enhance its security feature. In 2004, Nokia, Sony, Philips co-established the NFC Forum to advocate the standards of NFC and to educate business about such technology. The standards defined by the group must be strictly abided by manufacturers of NFC-compliant devices, so as to ensure the universal compatibility and usability for every NFC-powered device.

In 2004, the NFC Forum actualized the first set of specification for NFC tags, a small-chip, similar to a sticker that holds information, which can be read by any NFC compatible device. Soon after, in 2006, the NFC forum established the standard for “smart” posters containing NFC tag, so that it can be administered as an informative poster for leveraging interactivity with NFC-device users, who want to obtain additional insights of their interest. As an illustration, when museum-guests passed by a famous piece of artwork, they can scan a smart poster with the image of the artwork to obtain additional cognition about the relevant object.

Following the trend, Nokia introduced the first NFC-compatible cell phone (Nokia 6131) in 2006. Subsequently, the advancement of such technology encompasses various types of NFC-application from cashless payment method to interactive sharing of videos, games invites, and website link between smartphones and other NFC devices. Adding on to its success, Android, one of the major mobile-OS developers, launched its first NFC phone, the Samsung Nexus S, in 2010. Currently, NFC markets are most prominent in Asia, Europe, and Japan, followed by the United States, which is also experiencing accelerated growth in this area. With such immense growth of NFC adoption in the US, it is forecasted that the technology will soon progress into a prevailing form of cashless transaction and information exchange mechanism in the United States.

Current Situation: Applications of Wireless Identification Technology

Blood-tracking System in Hospital (Fuhrer and Guinard, 2006)

In most blood transfusion cases, misidentification of blood type is the most dominant cause of transfusion errors. According to report by Sun Microsystems Health Department, such errors are often committed during bedside check-up prior to the transfusion because hospital staffs manually interpret the medical information of patients with their bare eyes, thus inducing delinquency in the analysis process. Furthermore, the likelihood of committing errors is increased by the unconscious condition of patient that hinders them from specifying their medical information accurately during the process of operation.

To tackle such problem, several identification technologies can be used for automating the process of these check-ups. Barcode and RFID technology are two of the most pervasive systems that can be implemented to realize the check-up automation. It is not possible to utilize barcode technology because barcode readers require unhindered line-of-sight to accurately scan the barcode. As such, RFID is potentially the practical solution to the situation as the range of identification is significantly longer than barcode and it can be operated even with an obstructed line-of-sight between the tag and the scanner.

Several hospitals have administered RFID technology to increase the accuracy of blood transfusion process. RFID tags could be attached to each bag of blood that is distributed at the hospital. The smart RFID label could store identification number and blood type of each bag of blood, thus enabling a more secure method of increasing the consistency and accuracy of information for each blood-transfusion. The unique ID could be mapped into the hospital database containing the history of the blood, such as the blood donors, the designated purpose, and the recipient of the blood, once it is transfused.

During a blood-transfusion process, the medical staff will obtain a patient’s id by scanning the RFID-embedded wristband of the patient and compare it with the bag of blood’s identification number, to check whether the blood transfusion is designated to the correct patient. The information from the patient and the bag must be correctly mapped based on the information from the hospital database before it can be utilized. Therefore, such comprehensive process of conducting blood transfusion could assure a more effective, efficient, and accurate assignment of blood to each patient, thus minimizing the risk of patients receiving wrong type of blood.

Attraction Recommendation System in Theme Park (Chieh-Yuan and Shang-Hsuan, 2011)

Theme park, in general, has been facing strong competition from its substitute entertainment industries, such as zoo, national park, and other recreational venues. In order to address such issue, there must be a tremendous improvement in the quality of customer service that can cater to a wide range of customer demographics and preferences. Due to the advancement of RFID technology, one can develop sophisticated customer analysis system that aggregates the riding preferences and the relevant timestamps with RFID system and then store such information to the database of the theme park. Subsequently, this set of customer data will be categorized based on customer demographics, patterns and timeslots of visiting, thus creating an eligible customer segmentation that can be used to recommend relevant rides and attractions for different group of customers.

To realize the customer analysis and recommendation system, every customer visiting the theme park will be given an RFID-embedded wristband with a unique electronic product code (EPC) for identification and information-storing purpose. In addition, every entrance and exit of each ride will be connected with RFID readers, thus allowing an automated scanning of customer information, which will then be transferred to the Ride Information Server and the Route Database Server of the theme park. Furthermore, queue management process is enhanced with the implementation of such system as the number of customers in the queue of each ride is analyzed in real-time through the RFID technology, thus enabling a better crowd-control for customers in the theme park.

The effort to personalize the customer service of theme park is reinforced by the addition of public information booth with RFID readers at each location of rides, food courts, souvenir shops, and information centre, thus enabling dedicated route recommendations service for each customer. To obtain route suggestion, customers can scan their RFID-embedded wristband and input their preferred individual options at the booth. Afterward, there will be an automated transfer of the customer information, the booth location, current time and customer’s preference to the Route Recommendation System, the core component of customer analysis and recommendation system, which will generate relevant route recommendations to the customer based on the queue information retrieved from the Ride Information Server and the visiting sequences obtained from the Route Database Server. In the end of the process, the route recommendation will be redirected back to the public information booth, thus completing suggestion of rides and attraction for customers.

NFC Payment System in University (Miraz, Ruiz, and Gómez-Nieto, 2009)

One of the most noteworthy benefits of NFC system is the ability to facilitate cashless payment process with its identification features. Although NFC technology is able to provide unique identity for each NFC-enabled device, it still needs a middle-tier application for handling the business process, such as authentication and pin management of each transaction.

Figure 1. NFC Payment Process. Retrieved from “University of Things: Application of Near Field Communication Technology in University Environments” by Miraz, Ruiz, Gómez-Nieto (2009).

Figure 1 describes the process of a mobile NFC payment process that can be implemented in a university: 1) User scans its NFC reader (e.g. mobile phone) to the NFC payment writer to start the transaction; 2) The NFC payment writer directs payment information (e.g. total price, transaction date, etc) to the NFC reader; 3) Upon receiving the payment information, the middle-tier application on the NFC reader will perform vibration cue authentication, which prompts the user to input pin-value in a vibration-based security setting. Generally, the security features comprise of: i) pin management system that continually refreshes pin number through periodical renewal and randomization process, which prevents the leakage of pin value, ii) an authentication process that further ensures the legitimacy of pin value with vibration-based input setting, iii) the Database (DB) encryption method that conceals important personal information, such as pin number and payment information with advanced hashing algorithms, thus empowering the authentication procedures.

4) After the completion of authentication process, the payment information will be stored into the database/registry, where the information can be further analyzed for obtaining the insights of consumer buying behaviours. 5) At the end of the transaction, a message indicating the success of payment process will be sent to the user’s NFC reader. The aforementioned NFC payment process could be implemented in the context of university environment through the payment in: i) university cafes and restaurants, ii) vending machines and printing/photocopy services, iii) various stores in the campus, iv) shuttle bus service in university, v) Reservation of school facilities (e.g. gym, project room, sports facilities, etc).

The NFC-based application could be used as a payment method in the university environment is many and varied ways, such as 1) Payment in university cafes and restaurants, 2) Payment in photocopy services and vending machines, 3) Payment in stores located in the campus. 4) Payment in university transportation (bus, train, and bicycle). 5) Reservation and payment of sports facilities.

Security Concerns of Wireless Identification Technology (Haseslsteiner and Breitfuß, 2006)

Eavesdropping

Eavesdropping is committed when an external party taps into an NFC/RFID transaction of other users’. Due to the nature of NFC/RFID that uses wireless network interface as the means for exchanging information, eavesdropping is critical issue to be addressed. When two devices transfer data via NFC/RFID, they utilize RF frequency for identification purpose. To attack on a transaction, an external party can simply use an antenna or an NFC/RFID reader to receive the transmitted signals of the ongoing transaction. Through simple procedures, the attacker can retrieve the transmitted information out of the stolen RF signal. In addition, such type of security breach can be committed more easily because the required equipments are conveniently obtainable by the public.

To prevent such attack, one can establish a secure channel, in which the transmitted information is encrypted, so that only an authorized device can decode and acquire the information. In addition, the maximum range of the wireless technology should also be adjusted according to the sensitivity of information in the transaction. As an illustration, for a cashless payment process, an NFC system can only be detected in a maximum range of 10 cm, thus reducing the possibilities of eavesdropping attack.

Data Corruption

In addition to eavesdropping, an attacker can also distort the package of information, which is being transmitted on a transaction. Such attack occurs when an external party interferes with the communication of an ongoing transaction, so that the information will be corrupted when it reaches the receiver. To address this issue, some NFC/RFID devices are empowered with the ability to detect data corruption attacks and impede the attack before it strikes on a transaction. Additionally, secured channel of communication could also be established to authorize the transaction among the intended parties that should receive the information.
Interception and Man-in-the-Middle Attack

Figure 2. Man in the Middle Attack. Retrieved from “Security in Near Field Communication (NFC)” by Haseslsteiner and Breitfuß (2006).

In addition to data corruption attack, an interception or man- in-the-middle attack presents higher threats towards NFC/RFID system. As shown in figure 2, Eve acts as the “Man-in-the-Middle” of the information exchange between Alice and Bob. In a secure transaction, Alice and Bob will have to decide on an encryption key to be used for the transaction. However, because Eve is in the middle of the transaction, she is able to create another transaction key for both Alice and Bob, thus enabling her to eavesdrop on the communication, and also to modify the data being exchanged on the transaction. Although this type of security attack is more difficult to execute, it should also be prevented with active-passive pairing of the devices used on the communication. It means that one device becomes the receiver and the other becomes the sender, instead of both devices receive and send information concurrently, thus hindering the external party that manipulates data in the process of information transfer.

Future Consideration: Personalized and Intelligent Living Environment

The possibility to embed such technology into almost every object facilitates the creation of “the internet of things” that realizes a more personalized and intelligent living environment for mankind. The future of such technology in creating “the internet of things” could be observed in the fields of healthcare treatment, travel industry, and most importantly, in seamless connectivity of daily activities.

As illustrated by the video of Microsoft’s Health Future Vision (“Health Future Vision”, 2011), healthcare treatment becomes much more efficient through real-time exchange of information that is facilitated through the NFC/RFID system. Through a wireless internet connection, patients are able to transfer their recent health information to doctors by scanning their NFC/RFID reader on a health-diagnosis device that has an NFC/RFID tag. Subsequently, doctors are able to receive the patient’s information and give feedbacks accordingly through the same method of communication.

Travel industry could also benefit from NFC/RFID technology. The conventional way of using a physical bar-code/QR-code embedded boarding pass presents a significant risk if the card is lost before passengers pass through the checkpoint. Newer method of travel identification, which transfers a soft-copy of QR-code boarding-pass to passenger’s mobile-phone, also faces limitation if the mobile-phone runs out of battery. Those limitations could be resolved by integrating the authentication process into an NFC chip embedded on a mobile phone, thus allowing the mobile phone to act as identification method even when it runs out of power.

The most significant benefit of NFC/RFID could be seen in alleviating efficiency of daily activities, which include improving productivity and adding variety of services for entertainment purpose. By tapping NFC-enabled mobile-phone into a smart NFC-tag connected to a computer, a user can activate the pre-loaded workspace layout, thus improving the efficiency of work. In addition, mobile phone could also act as an electronic business card that could share information simultaneously by “bumping” it to another mobile phone.

On the other aspect, NFC-enabled mobile phone could act as an integrated “smart-key” that can give access to important utilities, such as fund-transfer, car or house key and electronic wallet. Additionally, it could also be used in marketing activities as shown by the emergence of “smart-poster” that can give promotion or additional information on a certain product or service. Eventually, NFC system could load a sequence of activities on a single-tap, thus allowing the decrease of time-consumption for daily activities (“A Day in the Life of NFC”, 2012). As an illustration, a user with NFC-enabled mobile phone could simply tap its mobile phone on a smart NFC-tag to switch on light, air-conditioner, smart-television, simultaneously. Therefore, wireless identification technology could present a personalized and intelligent living environment, in which productivity and entertainment activities are conducted in an effective and efficient manner.

Disruptive Innovation to Current Technology

With the convenience provided by wireless identification technology, one could foresee that syncing and exchanging of information would become more efficient and automated. By utilizing the technology, transaction among users could be done without manual process of authorization as what current technology requires the user to do. NFC chip embedded on mobile-phone could possibly create cashless payment system on-the-go as shown by the technology of Google Wallet (“Google Wallet Training Video”, 2011). Google Wallet is also able to store multiple credit cards or loyalty cards and other promotional information on a mobile phone, so that user does not need to carry along massive numbers of cash or cards on their physical wallet. As such, this type of application could disrupt the traditional method of cash and cashless payment (via credit card), and integrate all the payment information in a single NFC chip stored on a mobile phone.

In addition, it also offers efficient information exchange among different users and this information could be transferred via the cloud to create the “internet of things”, which seamlessly synchronize information from different tools, devices, or other resources. The internet of things is driven by the convergence of wireless technologies like RFID, GPS, NFC, and Wi-Fi, which is able to measure, report and monetize a growing number of transactions in the physical world. In the future, product delivery could be done automatically through a GPS-controlled vehicle (“Self-Driving Car Test: Steve Mahan”, 2012), which locates the delivery address through GPS and with NFC-enabled device. Therefore, further research on wireless identification technology could present disruptive threats to the current trend of information delivery and transaction execution process.

Wireless Identification Technology: Bringing Equality to the World

The relationship between equality and identification technology might seems far-fetched, but with more thought invested onto innovative application, the differences among human can be marginalized to create a more equal living environment. As capitalism becoming more prevalent in the modernized or even the developing nations, the multi-related roles of monetary-capital cannot be underestimated. Histories have shown how small countries with limited number of population could outperform stronger nation in the economic sector with the advancement of the nation’s economic system.

However, corruption possesses serious threats to global economic system by illegally using embezzling public funds for personal interests. Such disaster could be minimized with a more advanced technology on global economic system that could be realized with wireless identification technology. In the future, cash notes could be empowered with RFID chip that enables a more secured feature of transaction, and also creates possibilities of tracking global movement of assets and cash with wireless identification technology. Therefore, such innovation could deliver promising possibilities to decrease corruption rate by tracking on the international transaction of public funds, and thus it creates a more sustainable environment for helping the poor without major hindrance of corruption.

Conclusion

Although wireless identification technology creates numerous possibilities for human to develop beneficial tools and devices, there are still many untapped potentials that could be further implemented with the advancement and research in the relevant field of technology. With its ability to track, identify, and enable seamless exchange of information, RFID and NFC could revolutionize the way we do things by minimizing redundant authorization procedures or manual process that could hinder efficiency of a process. In addition, such technology could also generate a more equal living environment by tracking important assets that are potentially impactful to the global economic market through real-time integrated updates of information. All in all, this topical review paper revisits the promising benefits of wireless identification technology, which could revolutionize the lives of human by controlling and understanding the flow of information synchronized globally through the cloud, thus such technology could deliver a more personalized and intelligent living environment to the world.

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[1] This paper was reviewed by Zhang Yuxuan and Kieu Viet Anh

[2] The Internet of Things is a world where physical objects are seamlessly integrated into the information network, and where the physical objects can become active participants in business processes (Haller, 2009).

[3] Stock Keeping Unit refers to warehousing item that is unique because of some characteristics (such as brand, size, color, model) and must be stored and accounted for separate from other items (BusinessDictionary, n.d.).

Session 10 – Technology Assessment and Forecasting

As usual, this session started with some inspiring quotations that helped us grasp the lesson’s objective. However, I felt that those inspirational statements emphasize too much on the merit of planning for the future, yet forgot to address the importance of mindfulness in the present. Why do I say so? In the reality, works piled up like nobody’s business. We can have dreams and goals in life, but surely, we must be mindful in tackling critical problem in the present, and gradually, achieve bits and pieces that will actualize the future. As an undergraduate, I also have one big plan about my future. However, the priority is always to complete all the assignments successfully first before digressing my focus to dream about the future. Otherwise, I would have quit school to realize my dream instead. Therefore, it is important to balance out between priorities in the present and milestones of the future. As such, we are able to stay on track in completing daily task, and also progressively advanceto the dream that we want to accomplish.

Moving on, I was inspired by the concept of strategic-foresighting, in which we should “work backward from the future instead of projecting the future from the present”, but I would like to challenge such notion for its practicality. Having an end goal in mind before planning the steps of implementation is certainly beneficial, but one should not neglect the lesson from the past and the ongoing trend of the present. We must consider what other people have done regarding similar project as ours. That’s what we called as a case study. Furthermore, one must also manage the gap between expectation and reality, especially when the quality and quantity of resources are not adequate to optimize the project outcome.

As an illustration, in planning for my CCA’s concert, I always start from the concert date and quantify it backward to specify the number of practices and projected milestone needed per week. More often than not, those plans were the best-case scenario, where we expect the performers to commit fully on the schedule. However, performers will often fall behind the projected timeline due to different level of commitments and skills, etc. As such, we will often seek guidance from seniors, alumni, and instructors, who have had more experience in organizing similar event. Therefore, in term of project planning, I think that (1) managing expectation, (2) learning from the past, and (3) adapting to the present, are as equally important as strategic-foresighting because those factors bridge the gap between foresight and reality.

On the other hand, the video about “Future, Technology and the Next 50 years Megatrends” also stimulated my thought about the realization of science-fiction technology in the next century. Among those emerging technologies, the future of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) technology inspired me the most. Gesture Interface and Augmented Reality redefine new HCI possibilities that enables “touchless” interface to maximize interactivity with various electronic devices. Combining such technology with the latest invention like “Google Glass”, we could process enormous amount of information just by waving our hand on relevant object, which would then give us all the insights we want. Those technologies will definitely generate the new few “big things”, which could disrupt the current usage of multi-touch screen interface, and in turn, increases the convenience and productivity of life.

In addition, there is also another interesting video about “Tracking the Future – Global Trends” that pointed out several important values associated with “F U T U R E”:

F a s t = Fast moving world, frugal world as the result of economic crisis.

U r b a n = The migration of population from villages to cities.

T r i b a l = The forming of groups with commonalities through the internet.

U n i v e r s a l = Change is happening all over the world all the time.

R a d i c a l = The change is so fast, and so pervasive that it becomes radical.

E t h i c a l = Corporations focus more on it codes of conduct and business ethics as world shifting out from global economic crisis.

Although the concept of future is well summarized in his explanation, I could not see a very practical illustration of the claim that he has made. For example, in the part of E t h i c a l, although there might be an increasing awareness of having a good business conduct, it doesn’t mean that business will definitely do it willingly, as those commitments may just because of the required business regulatory. However, his explanation provoked my insights about the significant of global changes that might just happen in an incredibly fast phase that only those who have prepared for it could survive.

The aforementioned problem links us to the concept of “foresighting”, which basically means to anticipate, to prepare a set of tools and strategies to address issues that might happen in the future. Important factors to consider in the foresighting strategy are namely critical drivers, agent of changes, or any possible shocks/ wildcard that can be used to deduce future events or possibilities. The concept of foresighting also reminds me of the traditional “freeze-unfreeze-free” model, where changes of development plan are made only when it has gone through certain amount of implementation period or any disaster happen in the timeframe of implementation. Therefore, it is essential for anyone of us, who wants to manage our lives better, to learn the ability of basic foresighting, thus we could anticipate future trends and identify potential tools to solve it.

All in all, this session of TWC gave me a unique perspective of future assessment and forecasting, which stimulate me to think more maturely in terms of the readiness in anticipating future challenges. However, I think this session could be improved by introducing more real-life implementation of concept, such as the use of two blank sheets of paper in planning for future plans and work backward to see how the current condition could be the stepping stone into future. Therefore, I would give this session 9/ 10 for giving me so much inspiration on planning and anticipating for the future.

Session 9 – Emerging and Future Technologies

How were innovations born? Why is there new innovation? What are the drivers of emerging technologies? In this session of TWC, we discussed on the topic, “Emerging and Future Technologies,” which addressed the trend of emerging technologies and how are they come about in shaping the future of the world. This session mostly talked about out-of-the-world ideas or concepts that might not have existed in our lives, yet they might be crucial or disruptive if they are realized in the future. In addition, we also explored about the reasons behind R&D of emerging technologies, which might not produce practical product, yet those researches are still largely being conducted in the market.

As usual, there were several quotes of famous people given on each session of TWC. For this session, we started with George Bernard Shaw’s quotes, “You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not?’” This quote gave me inspiration on the usual reaction of human when they encountered new concept that are not yet feasible and keep questioning on its feasibility and practicality, yet forgot to imagine the abundance of possibilities that could be explored as supporting technologies become more sophisticated throughout the time. The video of “claytronics” that was used to explain such occurrence was also a new line of ideas that are not yet possible, but they are not totally impossible as the science of nanotechnology continues to develop breakthroughs in the realm of science and technology of microscopic element that might realize such concept in the future. If every individual begins to doubt on every single emerging idea, we would have not had new inventions being produced in the future.

For this particular matter, I was being inspired by the professor, especially during the discussion about “Google glass” when some of the class members, including myself, “over-questioned” about the practicality of google glass, but we did not realize the fact that it is still a prototype. Consquently, when I reflected on this matter, most of us, as skeptic humans, also questioned about the practicality of tablet when it was first launched by Microsoft and subsequently popularized by Apple’s iPad. The benefit of such technology might not be obvious in the introductory stage, but as marketing efforts and more upgrades are being done, those technologies will eventually become major disruptive innovation to human’s life. Therefore, we should always give more chances to emerging ideas and technologies, and talk about how to make it feasible instead of questioning whether it is feasible or not.

As such, imagination is extremely important in the heart of invention, where possibilities are not limited by anything, but imagination. We might not have “science-fiction” level of scientific knowledge or technologies, but we must not forget about limitless possibilities that can be brought by the power of imagination! The things that struck me the most is when I watched the video about “plastic technology” and the speaker could actually visualize the timeline of breakthrough in plastic technology from being a unique innovation to being a disruptive innovation that could even bring the internet to our contact lenses. Therefore, it is important to have imagination in the process of receiving and perceiving about the possibilities of new ideas and innovation.

Although imagination is important, we should not become a crazy imaginer that forgets about balancing imagination with current feasible technology, as stated in the discussion about the drivers of development of emerging and future technologies. When imagination is combined with technological know-how, new innovation will surface, but there should always be certain research framework to follow when it comes to translating imagination into reality. Probably, the best way to realize imagination is through the confluence of “four smarts”, where there are the convergence of smart people, ideas, money, and partnership in the process of converting ideas into real product. On the other hand, emerging technologies should also be driven by market opportunity and need, as shown by the marketing ability of Steve Jobs, in introducing the Apple’s iPad, as compared to Bill Gates when he pioneered the invention of tablet. Clearly, Steve Jobs, as an innovator, could align the technical specification of new technology with practical market demand, thus creating the overall practicality/survivability of emerging technologies in the market.

All in all, we should be reminded that “if you can imagine it, you can make it happen.” This quote is totally logical in terms of perceiving the boundary of emerging of technologies. However, I would like to add on the point that we should also align imagination with practical market needs, so that new technology will not just be another surprising element of life that holds no significant impact in improving the life of mankind. Thus, we could actually imagine a new line of innovation; as well as sustain it in the long run to benefit the overall quality of human’s life.

Overall, I grade this session for 9/10 for emphasizing the importance of imagination in the process of creating innovation for our lives.

Session 8 – Energy and World Change

This session of TWC covers the topic of Energy and World Change. Ever since industrial revolution, the world has been using unsustainable source of energy, which has a massive negative impact to the environment and consequently, damaging health and lifestyle of mankind as well. It has been a major challenge to change the world’s perspective from the current unsustainable fossil-fuel based energy intensive economy to environmental and sustainable clean and green approach. Therefore, significant attention needs to be given to stop such detrimental cycle of using unsustainable source of energy, thus improving the efficiency and sustainability of energy usage of the international community.

As mentioned in the class, consumption of fossil-fuel energy has been rising rapidly due to heavy usage of developed or populous nations, such as United States, China, and Singapore. If everyone consumed as much energy as those countries, the world’s oil reserves would be depleted in nine years. As such, the world needs to shift from fossil fuel-based energy intensive economy to environmental sound and sustainable and green approach in the future. Therefore, it is extremely important think of new and innovative ideas to create such future for the global nations before the dependency on unsustainable energy creates the next man-made disaster to the world.

The possibility of using sustainable energy has been more than possible as development in environmental technology improves throughout the time. From basic usage of individuals in family (e.g. solar panel in Germany’s household) to nation-wide usage (e.g. three gorges dam that spans the Yangtze River in China), sustainable energy proves to be more credible and feasible for ensuring energy security of the future. Besides creating sustainable source of energy, there has also been increasing trend of emission trading, which aims to provide economic incentives to reduce the emission of pollutants, which is mostly caused by fossil-fuel based energy. Furthermore, transportation tool, which is the main area of fossil-fuel usage, has been widely moved into energy-saving technology that reduces the dependency on fossil-fuel. The invention of biomass technology also provides new hope for sustainable energy because of its regenerative availability, but its utilization as a source of energy rather than a source of food, has been widely argued among the public. All in all in the long run, unsustainable usage of fossil-fuel based energy will be replaced slowly by disruptive innovation of green energy that can create the future of sustainable environment for mankind.

In the process of moving into a green economy, substantial supports from government, as well as committed leader are significantly required for realization of the sustainable energy usage. In terms of economy policy, government is able to implement taxation and extra charges for the externalities caused by specific factories with amount of pollutants produced. Such implementation, though may be effective to control the usage of unsustainable energy, has limitation as economic deterrent might be too small to hinder large corporation with huge budge to stop producing excessive pollutants. As such, voluntary agreements and compulsory standards should be implemented to the international market for controlling the extent of fossil-fuel usage globally. In addition, education is also equally important to instil an understanding and awareness to such a global crisis in energy, which will, in turn, create generation that promotes green technology in the future.

In this lesson, particular examples that attract me the most are the “Germany’s solar experiment” and “Desertec: Solar power for Europe from Africa”. Those two videos inspired me in term of the possibility in sustainable energy investment for the future. On the other hand, solar panel experiment in Germany also showcases the importance of leader in triggering the green initiatives, which lead to the creating of policy and innovative ideas in implementation green technology for the general public. However, with such huge potential of sustainable energy, there could be possibility of future monopolization of energy, whereby nation with such ability to generate sustainable energy will dominate and create economic advantages over other nations, thus creating a bad impact on the society. Therefore, besides leading the implementation of sustainable energy, policy and regulation should be equally produced to control the framework of future sustainable energy development.

Overall, I would like to give 9/10 for this session of TWC as it gives me introductory insights to the possibility of sustainable energy of the future with the invention of environmental and biotechnological technology. Further improvement could be done by specifying more case studies in the local context of Singapore, so that it can help us understand more about the significance of the concept taught.

TWC Individual Topical Review Draft

The topic for my individual topical review will be based on the topic: “From RFID to NFC: How Wireless Identification Technology Revolutionizes Our Lives“

Executive Summary

RFID and NFC are a form of wireless identification technology that has gathered international acceptance and pervasive usage in various sectors of human’s life. Such technology presents numerous possibilities in changing the way we do things, which creates a more effective and efficient lifestyle for individuals and a more sophisticated business process for the corporate world. This paper explores the immense potentials of wireless identification technology that enables efficient process of exchanging information among users that could create a more intelligent and personalized living environment for human. In addition, there will also be discussions on the development of such technology from past to present with prediction of possible future implementation.

Background/ Introduction

– Definition of RFID and NFC technology

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) refers to a technology of caching and fetching data with electronic devices that consist of a small chip (RFID tag) and an antenna connected to the chip. The chip is able to communicate an amount of approximately 2,000 bytes of data by converting radio-frequency queries from an RFID reader and send back information collected from the reader. On the other hand, the scanned information can also be processed with particular applications, such as Point-of-Sales (POS) system and other analytical tools to provide a more substantial information to users. Such RFID device functions similarly to a bar code, which provides a unique identifier for that object. However, it is more superior compared to a bar code: “1. it is possible to scan tags in motion; and 2. since radio waves can pass through most solid objects, the tags don’t need to be in direct line of sight of the RFID reader.” (Fuhrer & Guirnard, 2007, p. 2).

In addition to the aforementioned capabilities, RFID provides an opportunity to create a network of identifiable objects through a standard architecture defined in the Electronic Product Code (EPC) Network that actualizes the development of “The Internet of Things[1]”. To uniquely identify an object, EPC provides information regarding: 1) the manufacturer, 2) stock keeping unit[2], and 3) serial number or unique identifier of a particular object (BusinessDictionary, n.d.). At the same time, Physical Markup Language (PML) enhances the security of information stored in RFID tag by encapsulating and encrypting those data after being captured by RFID reader (Wikipedia, 2012). Lastly, RFID technology is also complimented with Object Name Service (ONS), which utilizes Domain Name System (DNS) to uniquely identify information about a product or service from the EPC (Wikipedia, 2012). All in all, RFID delivers promising abilities to create seamless global networks of physical objects through the amalgamation of EPC, PML, and ONS technology, thus enabling the identification and communication of seemingly unrelated entities through the “Internet of Things”.

– Difference between RFID and NFC Technology

NFC duplicates RFID’s feat by reading smart tags with its read/write operation mode. But in addition to read/write capabilities, NFC has two other modes, both of which involve dynamic, two-way communication:card emulation and P2P (peer-to-peer). That’s where smartphones and other NFC-capable devices come into play.

Near Field Communication (NFC) is a standards-based, short-range (a few centimeters) wireless connectivity technology that enables simple and safe two-way interactions between electronic devices, allowing consumers to perform contactless transactions, access digital content, and connect electronic devices with a single touch. RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) is an automatic identification method, relying on storing and remotely retrieving data using devices called RFID tags. An RFID tag is a small object that can be attached to or incorporated into a product. RFID tags contain silicon chips to enable them to receive and respond to queries from an RFID reader/writer. In short, NFC is an extension of RFID technology. RFID is capable of accepting and transmitting beyond a few meters while NFC is restricted to within 4 inches. RFID has a wide range of uses while NFC is usually used in cases where security is needed.

– Difference between RFID and Barcode

Barcode readers require a direct line of sight to the printed barcode; RFID readers do not require a direct line of sight to either active RFID tags or passive RFID tags. RFID tags can be read at much greater distances; an RFID reader can pull information from a tag at distances up to 300 feet. The range to read a barcode is much less, typically no more than fifteen feet. RFID readers can interrogate, or read, RFID tags much faster; read rates of forty or more tags per second are possible.

Reading barcodes is much more time-consuming; due to the fact that a direct line of sight is required, if the items are not properly oriented to the reader it may take seconds to read an individual tag. Barcode readers usually take a half-second or more to successfully complete a read. Line of sight requirements also limit the ruggedness of barcodes as well as the reusability of barcodes. Since line of sight is required for barcodes, the printed barcode must be exposed on the outside of the product, where it is subject to greater wear and tear.

RFID tags are typically more rugged, since the electronic components are better protected in a plastic cover. RFID tags can also be implanted within the product itself, guaranteeing greater ruggedness and reusability. Barcodes have no read/write capability; that is, you cannot add to the information written on a printed barcode. RFID tags, however, can be read/write devices; the RFID reader can communicate with the tag, and alter as much of the information as the tag design will allow. RFID tags are typically more expensive than barcodes.

Historical Perspectives

– The origin of RFID technology

In early time, electro-magnetism and electricity were limited to observation of electrostatic discharge and the magnetic properties of loadstones. Early applications probably included making light with fire, use of mirrors for signalling and use of loadstone for navigation. scientificunderstanding progressed very slowly until the 1600s. In 1846, Michel Faraday proposed that light and radio waves are a form of electromagnetic energy. In 1864, the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell published his theory on electro-magnetism. In 1887, the German physicist Heinrich Rudolf Hertz confirmed Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory and discovered electro-magnetic waves (radio waves). In 1906, Alexanderson presented the first continuous waves (CW) generation and transmission of radio signals. The birth of radar occurred in the early 20th century. The first use of radar was during World War II and its development was mostly done in the Radiation Laboratory at MIT. Radar uses radio waves to determine the position and speed of an object.

According to Jeremy Landt’s (Transcore’s chief scientist) inspection, the commercial activities of RFID began in the 1960s and 1970s, where developers, inventors, companies, academic institutions and government laboratories were actively working on RFID. A number of companies were also developing RFID technology. Among them, Raytheon’s Retag in 1973 and Richard Clench of RCA’s development of an electronic identification system in 1975 were major advances. The 1980s became the decade for full implementation of RFID technology, though interest developed somewhat differently in various parts of the world. The world’s first open highway electronic tolling system opened in Oklahoma in 1991. It was the first system installed on the Kansas turnpike, using RFID readers that could operate with a different protocols as well as existing tags. Research and development was very fast from the 1990s with new technological developments expanding the functionality of RFID reader. For the first time, useful microwave Shottky diodes were fabricated on regular CMOS integrated circuits. This development permitted the construction of microwave RFID readers that contained only a single integrated circuit. In the late 1990s, RFID readers were used in supply chain management and article tracking applications that grew rapidly. Now RFID readers are using receiver design, transceiver design, integrated circuit design, network engineering and many more technologies.

– Current Situation

– The revolutionary implementation of RFID and NFC in

Hospital
Patient Identification System. Many health professionals are concerned about the growing number of patients who are misidentified before, during or after medical treatment. Indeed, patient identification error may lead to improper dosage of medication to patient, as well as having invasive procedure done. Other related patient identification errors could lead to inaccurate lab work and results reported for the wrong person, having effects such as misdiagnoses and serious medication errors. In order to cut these clinical errors, to improve patient care and security and also to improve administration and productivity, several RFID-based patient identification and tracking pilot projects have been launched during the last two years. For instance, in New York’s Jacobi Medical Center, in the Birmingham Heartlands Hospital or in the German Saarbr¨ucken Clinic Winterberg.
All patients admitted to the hospital are given an RFID-based wristband resembling a watch with a passive RFID chip in it. This chip stores a unique patient ID number and some relevant medical information such as the patient’s blood type, in order to speed treatment. To ensure patient privacy and to avoid that medical records are improperly disclosed, further medical data are not stored on the devices but are rather stored in a secure database that links the unique patient’s ID with its data. The caregiver uses a handheld computer with an RFID interrogator (an RFID-enabled PDA) to read the data encoded on the patients ID bracelets. Over a wireless LAN connection, the hospital staff can access the patient’s encrypted confidential medical history as well as treatment record and can obtain information on which drugs and what dosages the patients will require. Patients will also be able to check their own records by scanning their wristbands using information terminals.
Blood tracking. A recent report points out that mis-transfusion errors (i.e. blood transfusion of the incorrect type or blood given to the wrong patient) are unacceptably frequent and serious. As quoted in, “in the transfusion environment, misidentification is the most prevalent cause of transfusion errors that result in death”.
According to, mis-transfusions typically result from an error made during the bedside check just prior to transfusion. Studies have documented that such errors are most likely to occur among surgical patients. Currently the bedside check is done by humans using eye-readable information, and in operating rooms this task is particularly difficult. Indeed, blood is often given under circumstances of extreme urgency and distraction. Patients are unconscious during the transfusion and cannot state their name, and caregivers in the operating rooms may not “know” the patient as well as nurses on non-surgical floors.
To address the issue of the bedside transfusion check one should take advantage of new technology. Two machine-readable technologies are candidates for the automation of these checks: bar code technology and RFID. Barcodes are unsuitable for bedside checks because they require line-of-sight so that a handheld laser can read a flat surface with the
code. This constraint represents an important practical obstacle, especially in operating rooms where the patient is covered with surgical drapes.
RFID technology does not have the practical problems of bar codes, and recently several hospitals have deployed pilot programs using this technology to track bags of blood to record transfusions and ensure that correct blood is given to each patient. In our smart hospital as described in, each bag of blood arriving at the hospital gets a self-adhesive RFID label. This chip has memory for storing a unique identification number and information on the contained blood type. These numbers are also saved in
a secure database containing details about the blood’s origin, its designated purpose and, once dispended, its recipient. When a nurse wants to prepare a blood transfusion, she uses an reader-equipped PDA to read the data encoded on the blood bag’s RFID chip and on the patient ID bracelet. The data from the patient and the bag must match before the blood can be used. With this solution the overall process of managing blood bags is eased and less time-consuming. Moreover the risk of patients receiving the wrong type of blood is minimized.

Tourism theme park
Like any other industry, theme parks are now facing severe challenges from other entertainment competitors.To survive in a rapidly changing environment, creating high quality products/services in terms of consumer preference has become a critical issue for theme park managers. To fulfill these needs, developers can formulate system with a route recommendation system that supplies theme park tourists with the facilities they should visit and in what order. In the proposed system, tourist behaviors (i.e. visiting sequences and corresponding timestamps) are persistently collected through a Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) system and stored in a route database. The database is then segmented into sub-groups based on the similarity among tourists’ visiting sequences and time lengths. Whenever a visitor requests a route recommendation service, the system identifies the sub-group most similar to that visitor’s personal preferences and intended visitation time. Based on the retrieved visiting behavior data and current facility queuing situation identified by the RFID system, the proposed system generates a proper route suggestion for the visitor. A simulation case is implemented to show the feasibility of the proposed system. Based on the experimental results, it is clear that the recommended route satisfies visitor requirements using previous tourists’ favorite experiences.

University
Scenarios described below show some of the many possibilities of NFC technology in the University ambient:
University Unique Identification. Any student or teacher can have on their NFC enabled phone their University Unique identification in an easier, more secure and cheaper way than the current student’s cards. There is a clear benefit from having a device that allows you to authenticate for any university, anywhere, so you can access all kinds of services, whether they are payment, access or identification services, and all in an easy way and in any situation.
Payment services in the university environment. The NFC-based applications in which this technology could be used as a payment method in the university environment are many and varied. We may highlight, among others: 1) Payment in university cafes and restaurants, 2) Payment in photocopy services and vending machines, 3) Payment in stores located in the campus. 4) Payment in university transportation (bus, train, and bicycle). 5) Reservation and payment of sports facilities.
Resources control and management. NFC systems can be devoted to the management and control of the available resources at universities, e. g. libraries, spaces dedicated to teaching, laboratories, computer rooms, etc. We can even control the assistance of the students to class and teachers compliance of the course schedule and responsibilities. NFC systems can be devoted to the management and control of the available resources at universities, e. g. libraries, spaces dedicated to teaching, laboratories, computer rooms,etc. We can even control the assistance of the students to class and teachers compliance of the course schedule and responsibilities.

– Issues and Opportunities

Benefits of RFID and NFC:

Wireless identification and communication technology (i.e. RFID and NFC) presents limitless possibilities for developers in innovating breakthrough applications for enhancing the convenience of mankind in accessing daily activities. Such identification technology enables ease of tracking and exchanging information between the user’s device and RFID or NFC readers, which will create avant-garde of inventions for human. Common examples of the breakthrough are the widely-used public transportation card that allows rapid transaction between the card and the RFID-reader only by tapping the card into the reader. This kind of application has been the most basic form of application of technology, but there are some other potentials, which allow more effective and efficient control of information.

In term of agriculture, livestock can be identified and tracked through RFID technology. In United Kingdom, there are prominent instances of RFID usage in identifying pig by wearing RFID-embedded collar on the pig’s neck. This technology enables automatic feeding-system, which could correctly give the right amount of food to the farm animal. Once, a pig has consumed its portion of meal, the cage will automatically locks out its food with the identification of its RFID collar.

Such tracking and identification ability could be further expanded into the realm of social media technology, where certain features of social media platform can be triggered immediately when users scan their RFID-embedded device on the reader. Such technology has already been implemented by WESC, Coca-cola, and Chromaroma, where each of their applications enables real-time sharing of information through cloud RFID-device that sends signal to share information via the cloud to individual’s social media account. At the first glance, this type of implementation might be insignificant, but it can further be developed into source of information for data-mining and analytics that can bring immense opportunities to users.

The benefit of data-analytics has been acknowledged by enormous number of big companies. IBM, the leading IT company in US, has implemented RFID-technology in the retail sector. It has developed business process and application, which enables the storing and tracking of unique product identification codes through the usage of RFID, so that the retail store system can automatically check the availability of certain products. Such application also allows useful insights to be used with marketing strategy, such as seasonal-related promotion, which is analysed by specific buying behavior of customers monitored by RFID technology.

Drawbacks of RFID and NFC:

Security Concerns

RFID tags can be read without your knowledge

Since the tags can be read without being swiped or obviously scanned (as is the case with magnetic strips or barcodes), anyone with an RFID tag reader can read the tags embedded in your clothes and other consumer products without your knowledge. For example, you could be scannedbefore you enter the store, just to see what you are carrying. You might then be approached by a clerk who knows what you have in your backpack or purse, and can suggest accessories or other items.

RFID tags can be read a greater distances with a high-gain antenna

For various reasons, RFID reader/tag systems are designed so that distance between the tag and the reader is kept to a minimum (see the material on tag collision above). However, a high-gain antenna can be used to read the tags from much further away, leading to privacy problems.

RFID tags with unique serial numbers could be linked to an individual credit card number

At present, the Universal Product Code (UPC) implemented with barcodes allows each product sold in a store to have a unique number that identifies that product. Work is proceeding on a global system of product identification that would allow each individual item to have its own number. When the item is scanned for purchase and is paid for, the RFID tag number for a particular item can be associated with a credit card number.

Privacy Concerns

The growth of RFID has led to some concerns about the potential privacy issues of the technology. Typically, smaller RFID chips contain a unique identifying number for use with a corresponding database, but a third-party scanner could pick up that number and allow someone else to use it for tracking purposes. A powerful enough RF scan pulse could read the tag from a short distance, possibly allowing someone to scan you without your knowledge; however, without the corresponding database, they would be unable to look up any personal information encoded in the system, but could still possibly use that unique identifier to monitor your movements.

Health Issues

As with any foreign object that enters the body, implantable RFID tags could pose health risks. These chips are extremely small to minimize trauma, but injection sites still may become infected, and the chips may also work their way to the surface of the skin over time. In addition, a powerful enough RFID pulse could damage the chip, possibly causing irritation or trauma to the surrounding tissue.

– Overcoming the Limitations

Major drawbacks of RFID have been acknowledged and overcome with the upgraded version of the technology along the year. With the advancement of such technology, many of the readers have been fortified by extra layer of security measures to prevent illegal scanning of RFID information within the RFID range. In addition, RFID chip has also been supported by its upgraded version of NFC, which shorten the range of signal, so that it will decrease the possibility of being illegally tapped on.

Future Considerations

– Personalized and Intelligent Living Environment

The future of RFID and NFC lies on their tracking and identification technology, which enables two-way exchange of information between the reader and the chip. With major focus in creating a better living environment, this type of technology enables a more personalized and intelligent living environment to improve well-being and productivity of users. One major example of future implementation can be seen in the medical sector as shown by the video of Microsoft Future Vision, which simulates future application of identification technology. Patients are uniquely tracked by doctor through the cloud via the information gathered from the patient’s NFC or RFID embedded device. Such personalisation does not create more efficient user experience only, but it enables a sophisticated usage of real-time information exchanged between the user and the doctor, which is the interpreter of the information.

– Disruptive implication to current technology

With the convenience provided by wireless identification technology, it can be predicted that syncing and exchanging of information will become more efficient and automated. By utilizing such advantage, transaction among users can be done without redundant process of authorization as what current technology requires the user to do. NFC chip embedded on mobile-phone could possibly create cashless payment system on-the-go as shown by the technology of Google Wallet. On the other hand, it also offers easier data transformation among different devices and those information can also be transferred on the cloud to create the “internet of things”, which seamlessly synchronize information from different tools, devices, or other resources. Therefore, further research on wireless identification technology can present disruptive threat to information-exchanging devices, which still present inefficiency in their process.

– Bringing equality to the world through a more collaborated identification technology:

The relationship between equality and Identification technology might seem far-fetched, but with more thought invested onto innovative application, the differences among human can be marginalized to create a more equal living environment. As capitalism becoming more prevalent in the modernized or even the developing nations, the multi-related roles of monetary-capital cannot be underestimated. Histories have shown how small countries with limited number of population could outperform stronger nation in the economic sector with the advancement of the nation’s economic system. However, corruption possesses serious threats to global economic system by illegally using public funds for personal interests. Such disaster could be minimized with a more advanced technology on global economic system that can be realized with NFC or RFID devices. As embedded in the new version of US notes, RFID chips enables a more secured feature of cash notes, and also creates future possibilities of tracking global movement of assets and cash with wireless identification technology. Therefore, such innovation will deliver promising possibilities to decrease corruption rate by tracking on the international transaction of public funds, and thus it creates a more sustainable environment for helping the poor without major hindrance from corruption.

Conclusions

Although, wireless identification technology creates numerous possibilities for human to develop beneficial tools and devices, there are still many untapped potentials that might be developed with the advancement and research of RFID and NFC technology. With its ability to track and identify, as well as enables seamless exchange of information, RFID and NFC could revolutionize the way we do things by minimizing the redundant authorization, or manual process that could hinder its efficiency. In addition, such technology could also generate a more equal living environment by tracking important assets that are potentially impactful to the global economic market through real-time integrated updates of information. All in all, this topical review paper revisits the promising benefits of wireless identification technology, which could revolutionize the lives of human by controlling and understanding the flow of information synchronized globally through the cloud.

Glossary

[1] The Internet of Things is a world where physical objects are seamlessly integrated into the information network, and where the physical objects can become active participants in business processes (Haller, 2009).

[2] Stock Keeping Unit refers to warehousing item that is unique because of some characteristics (such as brand, size, color, model) and must be stored and accounted for separate from other items (BusinessDictionary, n.d.).

References

Object Naming Service. (2012). In Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved March 5, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_Naming_Service

Physical Markup Language. (2012). In Wikipedia. Retrieved March 5, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_markup_language

What is stock keeping unit (SKU)? definition and meaning. (n.d.). In BusinessDictionary.com – Online Business Dictionary. Retrieved March 5, 2013, from http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/stock-keeping-unit-SKU.html#ixzz2MaYfSCqD

Fuhrer, P., & Guinard, D. (2007). Building a smart hospital using RFID technologies. GI-Edition. Lecture Notes In Informatics (LNI), Proceedings, 133.

RFID Security Issues (2012). Retrieved from http://www.thingmagic.com/rfid-security-issues

What is RFID? – 10 Examples of RFID Applications (Sotchott, 2011). Retrieved from http://www.simonsothcott.com/2011/11/what-is-rfid-10-examples-of-rfid.html

RFID Privacy: An Overview of Problems and Proposed Solutions (2005). Retrieved from http://simson.net/clips/academic/2005.IEEE.RFID.pdf l

TWC Group Project Outline

Title: Is the current advancement in aesthetic surgery heading in a negative direction?

Executive Summary

This report sets out to investigate the direction of the advancement in aesthetic surgery. We trace the progress of aesthetic surgery through time – the background and rise of aesthetic surgery, where it is today and its intended effects, and explore where this technology is heading. We will explore the ongoing debate over the multi-faceted pros and cons of the aesthetic surgery for the individual, for the society, as well as its impacts on the progress of technology and mankind as a whole. We then come up with solutions to the problems we foresee.

Background of Aesthetic Surgery – A Look at the How and What

History – How Aesthetic Surgery Came About

Plastic surgery started as early as 600 BC, where a Hindu surgeon reconstructed a nose using a piece of cheek. By 1000 AD, rhinoplasty was common, due to the barbaric custom of cutting off the noses and upper lips of one’s enemies. In the 16th century, Gaspare Tagliacozzi, known as “the father of plastic surgery,” reconstructed noses slashed off by swords during duels by transferring flaps of upper arm skin. This procedure was also used to correct the saddle nose deformity of syphilis.

The term plastic surgery, from the Greek “plastikos” (fit for molding), was coined by Pierre Desault in 1798 as a label for procedures to repair facial deformities. The invention of anaesthetic aided the practice of plastic surgery in the 19^th century. Plastic surgeons further honed their skills during the 2 world wars, then applied their techniques to victims of birth defects and automobile and industrial accidents. Today, advertisements and marketing campaigns drive the industry of plastic surgery.

Aesthetic Surgery In Its Various Forms – What Aesthetic Surgery Is

Endoscopic lifting technique

Surgical procedures used to stretch skin on the intended area for one to look younger. However in recent time, precision tools have improved recovery time as well as changed the conventional method. Now, precision tools make micro incisions in our face, then the tissue is shifted back in place where it was. This gives the patient a more natural yet youthful look as it restores the tissues to its original position.

Laserwash Technology

With the introduction of lasers, very precise surgeries can be performed, such as mole removal, tattoo removal, red or brown skin spots. This is groundbreaking because it can rid a user of natural born “defects” in appearance that causes misery as a result of bullying.

Current Situation – A Look at Where We Are Today

Impacts of Aesthetic Surgery

Good

It can alleviate mental illness
People have freedom of expression.
Wealthy people need to spend their money somehow
if the person had a car crash or was burned in fire, the might have a cosmetic surgery to improve their appearance.
Cosmetic surgery can improve an individual’s subjective well-being only when other people’s attitude towards them are improved.
Physiognomy: A person’s facial features or expression, esp. when regarded as indicative of character or ethnic origin. Having the ‘right face’ gives you a higher chance to get the desirable job or marriage.
Medicalisation of the body. The use of cosmetic surgery as “medicine” to treat people with inferior physical traits. E.g. Breast augmentation helps ladies with small breast to reduce their emotional pain by giving them the “ideal” size of breast.
Fake breasts are experienced as symbols of social status.
Improving social status of women.
A form of treatment for BDD (Body Dysmorphic Disorder) → a condition characterised by an excessive preoccupationwith a perceived or imagined physical defect.
Improve the appearance and well-being of women
A solution for “anti-ageing”

Bad
1. it shows us what a spoilt race we are
2. People go into debt copying celebrities
3. People take what can be good to the extreme
4. It can be very dangerous, if their surgery fails, the consequences are serious. They end up looking like a monster. Some pictures can be seen from:
http://pinterest.com/chrispeters87/cosmetic-surgery-the-good-bad-and-ugly/
5. Some media even promote aesthetic surgery, they mislead audience and make they believe aesthetic surgery is acceptableNumerous medical implications

– It can heal physical deficiencies, but might not be able to heal the emotional pain. E.g. Ladies suffering physical disfigure from family violence can have their face fixed, but the emotional pain behind the suffering will still prevail.

Looking Into The Future

How aesthetic surgery progress from now on hinges on the interaction of three entities in the marketplace – the patients, the providers, and the technology available. In this section of the report, we envisage the possible

future applications of plastic surgery – how consumers may change their expectations of aesethic surgery, how aesthetic surgery may be abused in the marketplace etc, as well as the
advancement in the technology of aesthetic surgery itself – the emerging technologies in the marketplace that may or are already starting to revolutionize the field.

1. Bionics (plastic surgery in this case covers regenerative medicine and robotic prosthetics)
2. Genetic engineering -> designer babies and engineered athletes.
3. Scarless wound healing – burn, trauma victims and surgery patients to health without a scar
4. Genitalia Redesign -> total freedom to choose gender, the detachment of gender and sex -> confusion/chaos, or a more equal world?
5. Face Transplantation -> emergence of a black market for criminals on the run
6. Wings -> Part animal/part human -> a world that allows people to indulge in their unhealthy fetishes
7. Microfat grafting
8. Structural tightening
9. Smart lipo technology

10. 3D technology -> possible consequences: minimizing of danger -> even greater popularity and acceptance of plastic surgery?

Our Humble Recommendations
-Under construction-

References

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/542448_2

http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s6545.html

http://www.randomhistory.com/2008/08/31_plastic.html
http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s6545.html
http://www.aestheticsurgerycenter.com/face/

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/4775214/plastic-surgery-most-popular-in-south-korea.html
http://dianoracorsini.wordpress.com/2012/04/29/cosmetic-surgery-good-or-bad/
http://www.apa.org/monitor/sep05/surgery.aspx

http://debatewise.org/debates/1442-is-cosmetic-surgery-good-or-bad/

Gender, Globalization and Aesthetic Surgery in South Korea)

Fake Breast and Power: Gender, Class, And Cosmetic Surgery)

Contemporary Cosmetic Surgery

Designing ‘older’ rather than denying ageing

http://www.cosmeticbeautydirectory.com.au/featured/what-lies-ahead.html

http://www.drbaxter.com/blog/future-file-top-ten-predictions-plastic-surgery-and-anti-aging.html

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/542448_2
http://www.cosmeticbeautydirectory.com.au/featured/what-lies-ahead.html

http://www.3dmd.com/3dmd-redefines-the-future-of-plastic-surgery/

Session 7 – The Biobusiness Revolution II

Session 7 – The Biobusiness Revolution II

Brief Overview/Summary

This session of TWC covers about Agribiology, Environmental Life Sciences and Industrial Biotechnology (Past, Present and Future). It is the continuation of previous lesson, which focuses more on healthcare and biomedical science.

This week, we explore more about the advancement of biotechnology in:

a) Farming and crop-production (agribiology)

b) Solving environmental problems (environmental life sciences)

c) Enhancing industrial production efficiency (industrial biotechnology)

Interesting Observation

– Food Security

Food Security is a condition where all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life (FAO).

As mentioned by Mahatma Gandhi, “There’s enough on this planet for everyone’s need but not for everyone’s greed.” Inequality – the most unsolvable problem that relates to the core of humanity, which is selfishness. Since the start of this lesson, we have already been exposed to Yali’s question about the inequality of the world. Throughout history, mankind has always been focusing on expanding its own wealth as long as they have enough resources or technology to do so. However, as they get richer, they didn’t realize that the other parts of the population are suffering because of their selfishness in the process of expanding wealth. This kind of situation reminds me of some of the biggest corporate scandals like Enron, Bhopal incident, and Minamata case, where major corporations are just looking for shortcuts and became socially irresponsible towards the environment and society.

Therefore, I hope that by focusing on developing technology that could revolutionize food production and improving the fulfillment of basic human’s needs, we could have a more sustainable living environment in the world.

– To GM vs to Not GM

Genetically Modified (GM) Food refers to food generated from genetically modified crops, whose DNA has been modified to enhance their growth and resistance to pests. Basically, GM Food increases the efficiency of food production and it can be further utilized to enhance food security (a condition where all people have sufficient and safe access food) of the world. It can happen because GM food enables faster and larger production of crops thus increases food supply with lower cost to less-developed areas.

However, there have been ongoing critiques on the impact of GM food towards health issues, as mentioned by the second presentation of the week on “Gene VI”, which might result in “unintended phenotypic changes” to human body. However, as what the professor has discussed, such scientific research lacks credibility because it needs more than a decade time to more accurately identify the potential risks of GM Food. Furthermore, such emerging risk is also a normal trend of emerging technology, where researchers develop current technology by overcoming its shortcoming, thus creating a more sophisticated version of the innovation.

Key Take Away Point

– The power of nature vs the power of technology

In the progress of achieving sustainable development, mankind has been challenging the role of nature by unraveling more scientific mysteries and creating more sophisticated technology to supply for human needs. Basically, our beloved nature is not able to sufficiently supply the exponential growth of human needs because of the natural cycle of production and the disruption of human to the nature. One particular example: my parents have always been reminding me to not consume our favourite fast food because of the chemical substance involved in the process of the food production. I still remember a video, which shows french fries that could last for a few months without being put into fridge. Such simple evidence posts a credible question to the effect of human intervention to the natural cycle of food production. Does human sacrifice its own health to get a more efficient food production for enhancing sustainable development? Probably, we need more time to answer such question.

– Recycling the unrecyclable

I was particularly inspired by the prof’s statement that one day we may develop efficient home bioreactors for converting household biological wastes into energy. It may sound like a science-fiction scenario, but when such scenario happens to the real world, we would have created a sustainable living environment. The feasibility of such event could be triggered with the advancement of biotechnology in utilizing biomass energy. There has already been company with technology that can convert trash into electricity with pyrolysis process. We should not be surprised to see a mini version of such pyrolysis system converter that can be catered to the context household environment. If such cases, probably the dirtiest place in the earth could be the richest countries because of the enormous amount of “resources” that could be converted into electricity.

Personal Ratings for Session

I would like to rate this session 9 / 10 because it has given more lots of new insights about the development of biotechnology into food supply and daily activities. I hope that there can be more explanation on daily application of related topics in the future lessons.

Individual Topical Review Outline

The topic for my individual topical review will be based on the topic: “From RFID to NFC: How Wireless Identification Technology Revolutionizes Our Lives”

Executive Summary

The popularity of RFID and the emergence of NFC
RFID and NFC: creating an intelligence and personalized living environment
RFID and NFC: disruptive, controversial, yet potentially beneficial to solve world problems and minimize inequality

Background/ Introduction

Definition of RFID and NFC technology
Difference between RFID and NFC Technology
How do they prevail over QR code and Bar code?

Historical Perspectives

Identification technology before RFID
The origin of RFID and NFC technology
Evolution of RFID and NFC technology

Current Situation

– Stakeholders of RFID and NFC technology:

Consumers
Business user
Producer/Manufacturers
Government

– The revolutionary implementation of RFID and NFC in:

Retail industry
Hospital
Tourism theme park
University

Issues and Opportunities

– Benefits of RFID and NFC:

Convenience
Tracking ability
Analytics

– Drawbacks of RFID and NFC:

Privacy and Security issues:
Identity theft
Loss of privacy
Loss of confidential information

– Solutions to the problems:

More sophisticated security features on the device
The implementation of law and legislation to regulate the technology
Education and Awareness of using RFID and NFC

Future Considerations

– Personalized and Intelligent Living Environment

– Disruptive implication to current technology

– Solve Bringing equality to the world through a more collaborated identificatitechnology:

Monetary tracking system: preventing corruption to minimize income inequality
Disaster relief or donation system: ensuring trustable and measurable actions and outcome of global donation or disaster relief initiatives
Healthcare implementation: tracking, identifying, and providing accurate support to the needy

Conclusions

Describe briefly how RFID and NFC will revolutionize the way we do things
Describe briefly how it will eradicate world problems and bring more equality through identification technology

erwinG20twc2013

"You can say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one" – John Lennon

Session 12 – Second session of Group Presentation

Session 11 – First Session of Group Presentation

Individual Topical Review Paper Final Submission

Session 10 – Technology Assessment and Forecasting

Session 9 – Emerging and Future Technologies

Session 8 – Energy and World Change

TWC Individual Topical Review Draft

RFID tags can be read without your knowledge

RFID tags can be read a greater distances with a high-gain antenna

RFID tags with unique serial numbers could be linked to an individual credit card number

Privacy Concerns

Health Issues

TWC Group Project Outline

Session 7 – The Biobusiness Revolution II

Individual Topical Review Outline