A Tiny Revolution

RFID tags is in the news again as more and more retailers are beginning to use them in their stores. The latest is Marks + Spencer - now perhaps the rest will follow?

This summer, Marks & Spencer will start tagging suits at 120 UK stores. The labels will do the same job as a bar code at the checkout, but will also improve distribution; "smart" shelves will know when stocks are running low.

A future where every box of eggs and pint of milk comes with a microchip is being predicted. "It will happen," says Raghu Das, the chief executive of IDTechEx, an independent RFID consultancy firm in Cambridge. "But we think that day is decades away because it's harder to justify the cost of tagging low-cost items. It's just too expensive to start putting silicon chips on every piece of throwaway packaging."

Read in full: 'New advances in microchip technology are creating a tiny revolution'

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