RFID Music Player

frazzydee writes "I know what you're thinking, RFID tags used to play music? Well, it turns out that we don't need to take out our tinfoil hats this time, because it turns out that are some constructive uses for the same RFID tags that we have all come to loathe. Since RFID tags can hold 1 kilobyte of data, somebody who goes by dividuum found that (s)he could use the tags combined with a reader to store and play back music. Dividuum used SID files- the same format used on Commodore 64s- and programmed everything in C. Pictures of the RFID device are available here."

Speak for yourself

[That's Unpossible!]

the same RFID tags that we have all come to loathe

I don't subscribe to slashdot groupthink.

I don't loathe any technology, only those that abuse it.

I don't loathe RFID tags

[stratjakt]

Only some of the potential uses.

I used an RFID card to get in and out of a city admin building all last week on site, it was much better than having to fumble for a different key for the umpteen different doors.

Technophobic dorks. Invasion of privacy, and all the other paranoias you have are all social problems, not technical ones.

Don't bitch about the tech, bitch about the people who would misuse it.

Nobody Really Loathes RFID

[Anonymous Coward]

Outside of the slashdot tin-foil hat crowd, I don't think anybody is getting really worked up over glorified barcodes.

It's just a technology like just about everything else. It doesn't automatically make it evil just because some bad guys might use it or there is "potential" for abuse.

Seriously, the RFID is evil meme is dead. Learn to deal with it.

Re:1 kb

[rbarreira]

Do you really think the Commodores had a wav or mp3 format, or the capability to play it?

Re:I don't loathe RFID tags

[Morlark]

Well said, this is exactly the sort of thing that we need to be hearing more of. People talk of their privacy being invaded, and their freedoms and rights being breached, but this isn't the fault of the technology, it's the fault of the people that use it.

Re:pretty cool but...

[flyingsquid]

The information technology which kept police states like the USSR, Third Reich, and Saddam's Iraq going was good 'ol fashioned paper. Written records of people's history and whereabouts don't sound as nasty but they were plenty effective.

Exactly...

[spoco2]

I do hate it when someone takes it on themselves to speak for everyone... why they couldn't have said 'which many have come to loathe' or 'which many have privacy concerns over' etc.

Personally I think they're kinda cool... and coming from a data and human interaction focused business such as I am in, the things they can do to the betterment of people's experiences of things is supurb.

Few understand RFID; dismissing debate won't help.

[jbn-o]

I think very few people know what RFID is, so it isn't meaningful to judge if most people are "getting worked up" over RFID.

Your examination leaves much to be desired, besides. RFID gives us opportunities to do things (including tracking at a short distance and publishing uniquely coded RFID tags) which we couldn't do with barcodes, so RFID is not fairly described as "glorified barcodes". Calling it "just a technology" and "evil" reads like an attempt to marginalize anyone's ethical critique of RFID rather than engaging in fruitful rational discussion of how it works and what the social implications are. Hardly the work of someone presenting insight for others to glean.

Given this, I think your post is quite overrated (currently at +2 insightful).

An actual usefull use

[interstellar_donkey]

I know this is slightly off topic, but it occurred to me that RFID tags could actually be useful in terms of music.

The value of music (or video, or software, or any other intellectual property) isn't so much in the media it's stored on, but in owning the license to legally play it. As it stands, when somebody purchases music, be it on a CD or in mp3 format, maintaining the license to the work can be a pain.

CDs can break or be scratched to the point of being unplayable. Hard drives can be erased accidentally. Owners of the copy write do their best to prevent users to copy media because despite many users otherwise benign intent to transfer media to a different format or to archive owned media, there is no guarantee that they aren't copying the work for a more nefarious purpose.

Enter RFIDs. They're cheap, there portable and they can be owned. A person simply purchases the RFID for a work, and then that RFID is scanned any player in any format before the work can be played.

Taking your mp3 player filled with music you own on vacation? Simply wave it over your box of RFID tags, and viola! The player knows you are legally entitled to play the songs you copied onto it.

You could make as many perfect digital copies as you like of your CDs or even DVDs and it wouldn't matter. As long as the player is able to check the RFID tag for ownership, the media will play.

Granted there are some problems. As they are small, RFID tags would be easy to lose, and all sorts of issues come up when you consider online purchase of media where physical objects like RFIDs can't be used. But it's an idea, nonetheless.