Printing receipts using Blackberry

Create new applications and print from multiple BlackBerry® smartphone models or Windows Mobile® devices and terminals to Zebra® mobile or stationary thermal printers by creating new apps using the ZebraLink™ Multiplatform Software Development Kit (SDK). The SDK includes source code samples, documentation and on-phone demonstration modules that make creating custom applications—with embedded support for Zebra printers—clear-cut and straightforward. The possibilities are endless – create apps to print field service records, tracking tags, point-of-sale receipts, healthcare specimen labels, etc.

Android Apps website

This is one of sites for Android applications. http://www.androlib.com

12th ECR Conference

The 12th ECR Asia Pacific Conference is happening on 4-6th Oct 2010. Registration is RM580 per pax. Speakers include from Nestle, Giant, Accenture and many more.Topics include rfid, supply chain and how to be more responsive to consumer demand. Venue is at Crowne Plaza Mutiara KL Hotel, Malaysia. Website http://www.ecrap2010.org

Sabah Forestry going rfid

The Sabah Forestry Department is going high tech to keep track on the of movements of logs from the forest where they are felled right to the point where they are sold.

The department will start tracking logs harvested from 11,000ha of Yayasan Sabah forest concession areas this year, its director Datuk Sam Mannan said.

He said the use of radio frequency identification (RFID) log tracking system would also complement the department’s implementation of reduced impact logging (RIL) from this year.

“The use of RFID technology will ensure accountability and prevent so-called leakages in the production and disposal of our logs,” he said.

He said the use of the RFID technology would also spell more efficiency in tracking logs harvested from Sabah’s forests.

The RFID system would see barcode tags being placed on each log with details such as their size and species being recorded using hand-held devices that would transmit the details to a database.

Apple vs rest of Smartphones

NXP G2iL+

RFID is on the cusp of moving beyond automation of manual data entry to collect status about the object itself. In simple terms, RFID is moving beyond the “what or where” of the object into the realm of “how is the object?”.

A good example of this new realm was presented at the IEEE RFID conference, where RFID was being used to collect the status of a beverage glass. (An abstract of the paper by Rahul Rahul Bhattacharyya of MIT Auto ID labs is online.) Conventional RFID can provide the identity and approximate location of a beverage glass, but eventually, RFID will also indicate if the glass is full, empty, or the proverbial half empty or half full.

NXP Semiconductors (formally of Phillips electronics) is entering this realm of providing the status of an object by releasing a new tag IC, dubbed the G2iL+. One of its features is to provide the status of an object using tamper detection. Up to this point, some tag manufacturers have provided status using tamper destruction where the tag is rendered inoperable after tampering. Tamper destruction in tags can work in certain applications, but if you can’t read this type of tag, you never know for certain if the tag has been tampered with or if you can’t read the tag because of some other issue, such as RF interference, antenna failure, or reader failure. Tamper detection lacks this ambiguity because the tag remains operational and conveys the tamper status with data conveyed to the reader.

Malaysia Airlines (MAS) customers using the newly launched Apple iPad MHkiosk will get a waiver on the administrative fee for travel during the six-month pilot project period.

MAS charges an administration fee of RM30 for domestic destinations and RM60 for international destination, said its managing director and chief executive officer Tengku Datuk Azmil Zahruddin after unveiling the kiosks.

The initial five kiosks are stationed at KL Sentral and the national carrier expects 10 per cent of its customers to use the MHkiosk for their transactions, he said.

Customers going to the KL Sentral office, which serves about 900 customers a day, can now book and purchase flights, search for flight schedules and flight status, check-in as well as choose their preferred seat via the kiosk.