RFID Tag Technology Suffering from Excessive ‘Cute’

The BBC has an article today about the evolution of RFID tags. They can now hold more complex information than simple product bar codes and people are doing increasingly clever things to enable normal household goods to interact over the internet. One example of this is Nabaztag wi-fi rabbit, a cute gizmo that can read RFID tags and communicate with the internet. Now some book publishers are adding RFID tags to their books, so that when the book is waved in front of the rabbit it starts to ‘read’ the book out loud – well, stream a recording of it being read from the internet anyway. Cute. But that’s not all. It seems the Rabbit, which according to the website is ‘good for lovers’ (coff), has a PR guy whose last name is Kitten. Maybe this is just a coincidence, or maybe the sinister Rabbit Corp forces every staff member to change their names to be cute just like their product… Hmm… if I ever join them I’d be Mr Fluffy.

Happy 50th Anniversary Lego!

Well thanks to Google and today’s hella cute logo, I just found out that today is the 50th anniversary of the Lego brick. Wow. To me Lego is one of those things that is ‘just there and always has been’, and since it hasn’t really changed since its conception (unlike television sets) it seems like a very real part of the world. At least that means I’m not that old… When we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the iPod then I’ll be upset!

Oh, and my favorite Lego? Well that has to be the Star Wars Snow Speeder – original edition. Whoever came up with the genius idea of mixing Lego and Star Wars should get a frikkin’ medal or something. Or at least a bonus.

easyCat Love – no easyCar Love…

For some reason when I’m feeling down these cat photos always cheerz me up.

Why am I down? Fighting with easyCar again as they do their usual trick of telling me a car is available for the period I want to book it, only for me to find when I actually go and book it that it’s not available. Grr. Luckily Hertz came to my rescue, combined with a lovely little Virgin Atlantic flying club special deal. Yayz!