RFID - there's a piece in a recent magazine (don't ask me if it's Forbes or Newsweek or BusinessWeek or Fortune or Red Herring or NetEconomy or eWeek or WirelessNews or WirelessWeek or RCR or even the WSJ or more...I read them all) about WallMart using RFID..."...when it reaches a penny a tag". Clothing and other retail stores are adopting this, faster than you can say "bluetooth". One company, StitchNetworks (funny name!) has a business based on this. Others areas that will be technologically enabled include: supply chain management, m-commerce and general retail efficiency. It will help reduce "shrinkage" too - but not the swimming pool kind.

Some retailers (like The GAP) are piloting TI's RFID tags for supply chain management and point of sale solutions, but Prada is demonstrating a less mundane application of the technology: Prada is trying to create a next-generation, high-tech shopping experience that will encourage its customers to keep buying high-end items. In the Prada implementation, an RFID tag is attached to each clothing item. The store may have additional plans to implement the tags into store processes, but the only announced application is a trigger from the tag to start a product related, touch screen application in the dressing room. The tags can also be used to aid the floor salespeople. Theoretically, an employee on the store floor with a mobile device can associate the product ID with related product information on the handheld device.