Recently spotted some RFID devices being employed by Vodaphone in Wellington, New Zealand on bus shelter posters (the side panel backlit posters as illustrated above). The idea was simple:

• Point your bluetooth enabled phone at the poster and wait until the animated arrow on the poster changes from red to green.
• Follow the instructions to download a free gift.

The posters (also called electronic wave posters), are a technology that have been developed by Daï Nippon Printing in Japan. This compounds my less than enthustiastic opinion of RFID as anything more than a passing fad (although I hope I’m wrong). Bravo to the advertising industry to giving us more of the same and undoubtedly managing to find new ways to get private information from us in the process.