Author: atmasphere

Joining the ongoing dispute between U.S. tech companies and China, the world’s largest chipmaker says it won’t develop applications based on Chinese encryption standards for wireless computing. [CNET News.com – Communications]

Retailers’ mandates for adoption of radio frequency identification technology mean suppliers have their work cut out for them. [CNET News.com]

• Define rules for where to tag a case. Consumer goods suppliers like Clorox and Black & Decker need guidelines for tag orientation by product category–such as “place tag in upper-right corner of the case when it contains liquid products in round bottles.” Industry rules will cut testing time and consulting costs.

• Deliver source-tagging infrastructure. Suppliers like Dow Chemical and Eastman Kodak need RFID infrastructure that works in high-speed production environments. The reason: Suppliers will only recoup compliance investments if they push RFID into manufacturing facilities–which would allow them to realize benefits like better inventory management across the distribution network.

• Provide better interfaces between readers and applications. Right now, suppliers need an additional layer of RFID middleware–from vendors like OATSystems, Savi Technologies and ConnecTerra–to get the right data from readers and into applications like warehouse management. The drawback: added expense and integration overhead for overtaxed RFID compliance teams.

A number of leading mobile companies have submitted a application to the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to apply for a mobile top level domain (TLD). [PalmInfocenter]

The participating companies are Microsoft Corp., Nokia, Vodafone, 3, GSM Association, HP, Orange, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Sun Microsystems. These companies and others that will join over the coming months represent software developers, device manufacturers, network operators, infrastructure providers and content providers.

Under the terms of the memorandum of understanding, the companies intend to form a registry company to manage the distribution of the new mobile TLD names. The mobile TLD would be designed to enable efficient application and network services and reliability for mobile customers and service providers. The registry company will seek participation of additional, members to ensure broad customer and industry input.