It is essentially about making master and transactional data, about any item or service, accessible to all partners in a supply chain, potentially including the consumers. By master data, is meant data that is “relatively consistent across time [...]”, like production date, expiration data and other Meta data. Transactional data is data about when and where. Like when did the wholesaler receive, it and when did it ship from here.

Off course transactional data, and production dates already exists, and is often shared between trading partners, but this initiative is not just about sharing of information. It is a globally defined standard, across businesses, 100% compliant with the identification standards defines by GS1 (EAN International and the Uniform Code Council). The goal is to make this technology easy accessible and understandable, so essentially everyone will adopt and take part in this network.

Ok, all this could sound a little sleep provoking, but it really is far from. Think off the consequences such an enormously wide collaboration could have on close to all businesses, and for curious minds. It would (help) ensure correct data through all the supply chain, it could provide leapfrogging supply chain visibility throughout virtually all its steps, and for tracking fetishists like me it would provide me the ability to see where this laptop I am writing on right now, has been,…when. Other more classical examples could be to see which cow the milks come from.

All this would probably require RFID as a prerequisite, as this would mean more precise real-time data. At least the latter examples would require unique identification codes. In the future a lot of the administrative task could be taking care of by ubiquitous computing in correspondence with the GDSN and RFID. Alex Renz from Microsoft gave us a very good example of this, at a “brain dump” session, to help with our thesis.

Imagine an empty supermarket shelf, with an RFID scanner. The shelf reads no more products, so a computer checks the stock, with the aim of alerting the personnel to fill the shelf up (we are not at a point where robots should do this ..yet, although something like this already happens at pharmacists here in Denmark.). Anyway, the computer sees that there is no more products in stock, and alerts the supplier and places an order. The supplier then checks it own stock, and if there is any, then the order could be processed as soon as possible, if not another order could be sent to their supplier, and so on. The even better scenario could be, for the supplier to first check if there already is any delivery of this product going on. If so, then prioritize the customers, and maybe so, a part of the order in delivery could be shipped to our supermarket, to decrease the out-of-stock time. The (still human) driver will then be alerted that he should take a turn to drop by our supermarket on the way. All this with only very little human intervention. The humans could instead spend their time drinking coffee and picking their noses.

Ahh, I would like to see the alternative ending to Battle start Galactica, where also Galactica is hit by a stray missile, and the rest of the episodes show the cylons building an optimal society.

Everybody has probably heard about the intelligent refrigerator, but there is more to it that than of course. I have tried to sketch out a home as it could look like in exactly 16 years.

The drawing illustrates where RFID readers could be placed, in order to ease the everyday life for the lazy consumers.

1. The smart refrigerator, which probably don’t need much introduction. It will be able to tell you what is inside, and tell you which item you need to throw, because of reached expiration date. In my refrigerator I normally just look for thing that are green, and throw them out accordingly, but the new method would be able to limit the smell by warning you before the products turn green. Essentially this fridge will be able to propose dishes, and even order products from your local retailer. These functionalities are not just limited to the fridge, but could might as well be provide by your other food storage closets. Like for instance behind your sofa pillows, where I find a lot of delicious snacks again and again.

2. Kitchen appliances like the oven and microwave will also have a reader in 16 years. You can then scan the packaging, and the oven will adjust the temperature accordingly. Maybe even propose different cooking styles, and let you choose the one you want. And maybe the oven will even have a manual functionality so you can decide yourself :O.

3. Bedroom closet readers can tell you the content. Actually all closets could essentially be able to tell you the content, but I just took this as an example. If you are a sloppy dresser, it can help you to suggest what to wear from the content. It could also warn you about the decreasing amount of clean shirts, or socks. Or maybe tell you that there is no more ironed shirts, while the smart ironer don’t have a report about the shirt, after the last wash. I want my closet to be able to tell sarcastic remarks about other peoples clothing when I have friends coming by.

4. The smart medicine cabinet. I don’t know how normal it is to have a medicine cabinet in your home. In Denmark I don’t think that this is very normal, but maybe among elderly people it could be. This could be able to remind you to take your medicine, and warn you if you remove the wrong glass. It could also warn you if you are low on something, or describe to you how to doze your medicine.

5. Washing machine and dryer. Next to the smart fridge the smart washing machine is the most popular among predictions about future consumer use of RFID. The washing machine could automatically adjust the temperature and type of soap, by the content you fill into it. It could also warn you if there is a red sock in the mix of otherwise white sheets. Personally I want a precise count on how many socks I put IN the machine, and how many I take OUT. Maybe by then, the ancient mystical phenomena about disappearing socks can be solved. I am convinced it has something to do with Stonehenge and the Yeti… And again I am trying to fit Scientology into this theory.

6. The door. This is quite simple, and has many uses. Readers in the door can detect the entering of new products into you home and act accordingly. In a previous entry I suggested that it could detect a new DVD and throw it into your digital library. It could also tell you if your cat has left the house. And by having readers by all your doors it could tell you which room the stinky animal was in at the time. I am imagining a voice activated command like “Computer, engage triangulation of furry lifeform location”. If you have a chip in your hand yourself like some people are starting to already, the door could warn you if you were about to leave the house without your keys. And again with readers in every door, by knowing your location the music or light could act accordingly.

7. Another smart shelf in the living room. Although CD’s is on the rebound, there will still be opportunities to do fantastic impulsive music or movie shopping, often while struggling with a hangover, in some music store Saturday afternoon. Maybe you could just buy some cover like thing, with a tag on it, and when you put that in your shelf, your local media center would download the music accordingly, knowing that you now have the rights. And when you are borrowing it out to someone, the music could then be deleted, or otherwise made unusable (Only for grandparents off course, because some guys will make a hack which 80% of the population will use, to make you keep the music). This is just one use of the smart shelf, and maybe not the best. We all know that music will not exist in 16 years due to heavy inner ear damaged caused by the very harmful 6th generation mobile phone waves.

Beside the home’s own central computer where all the private meta information is stored, and used, there will be a global accessible database with product meta information. Like we have domain name servers today, there will be object name servers, knowing where to locate information about your products. Some information might be available to everyone, and some only to the owner of the product. Maybe there isn’t enough memory on the milk bottles RFID chip to tell you about the nice life of the cow, which milk you are drinking. But then the smart fridge could ask the ONS, about who has information about this unique product. The ONS will then answer back with an URI to the manufacturer which has a video of the happy happy cow. And maybe you could earn money by providing access to your buying behavior reflected by your actual products. The TV channels could use this information to broadcast commercials especially directed to you, which your TiVO would then cut away anyway.

This will all happen just decades before a giant fluctuation in the space time continuum, opens a gate to a perpendicular dimension. From here super intelligent monsters will enter our world and enslave mankind and use us for a front line attack on their arch-enemy 1 googolplex light-years away. But while all of this happens, my smart closet will shout sarcastic remarks about their so incredible unstylish tail.