My Phone Can Read and Write RFID Tags

Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID)  is a special case of NFC.  The tags themselves are passive devices. Beaming energy at them in the right way turns them into little transponders that use the energy to transmit back information that's been stored in them.  It's technology that's used in everything from tags to track wayward secondary-school students, to the transponders you clip on your visor that governments use to bill you for travelling on toll roads.

NFC grew out of RFID, so Android devices that can talk to one another over NFC can also read RFID tags. You can download apps from the Google Play Store that'll do that.

What would you pay? But wait. There's more.  You can also download apps that will write RFID tags. Over beer, a week ago, Kevin Fenzi told me he'd done it.

"Where do you buy tags?" I asked him.

"Oh, pretty much anyplace. Amazon, for example. But wait, I probably even have one in my backpack."

Sure enough. And they're little, re-writeable stickers. Whuf.

In short order, I downloaded the right apps, and wrote one that said, "Launch Waze."  (Waze is a navigation app that Ryan Fortman and Patrick McCarron convinced me to install, that helps me avoid traffic jams.).

After I wrote it, I  rubbed it against the back of my phone, and -- Boom! -- there's Waze. Since it's a sticker, I could stick it on the dashboard or the steering wheel of my old Volvo, and launch Waze without having to navigate through menus while driving.

I can also put other things on the same tag. For example, I could turn off wireless, which I'm not going to receive in my car anyway.

Other tags, stuck up in appropriate places, could trigger other custom environments. Next morning, I showed it to Steve Cutbirth, our support/customer-service honcho, and he got so excited that he took me over to show his team. They started talking about putting stickers on airplanes that would let service techs download custom diagnostics.

One of the team, Rob Lane, said he already has a Samsung Galaxy on order, which will let him do things like that. I look forward to getting together when it arrives so we can trade tips.

Meanwhile, I ordered a batch of tags from Amazon.