More from the convergence zone

_Inescapable Data_ has some very interesting points. Sometimes, though, they paint with a really broad brush...more Popular Science than Scientific American if you will. One such topic they get _almost_ right is RFID. They talk about RFID as a breakthrough technology, and differentiate it from bad old UPC barcodes as unique. In fact, RFID is one of a cluster of identification technologies called AIDC technologies. RFID alone isn't the inescapable data panacea that Stakutis and Webster say it is. But they come close, and close enough that absolute laypeople may get interested enough in the idea to study it...and Stakutis and Webster won't be proven wrong in the general, either. They just don't go far enough, it seems to me, in talking about the unit identification technologies as a whole, and how they apply to life, commerce, both business-to-business and consumer, and to our philosophical underpinnings (remember privacy? that was something we used to have before data, neh?). I suppose I shouldn't kvetch. They, like all of the mainstream media, are harping on RFID when they should be looking deeper. So it isn't just Stakutis and Webster, but most reportage that is a little shallow on RFID.