In this issue:

• Stop & Shop Customers Use Speedpass to Pay and Save
• TI Develops ISO/IEC 14443 RF Payment Platform
• Real Revenues, ROI, Right Now at RFID Boot Camp

Stop & Shop Customers Use Speedpass to Pay and Save
Stop & Shop and Speedpass Network have joined forces to offer the newest generation of Speedpass(TM) in three Greater Boston Stop & Shop supermarkets. Shoppers are now able to use Speedpass -- the same little black wand incorporating TI-RFid technology that Exxon and Mobil stations and McDonald's restaurants in the Chicago area accept for fast, automatic payments. Stop & Shop is the first supermarket chain to accept Speedpass and its new features. These features allow customers to 1) link to the store's membership card, 2) link to a personal checking account, 3) instantly enroll for a free Speedpass device onsite, and 4) manage their Speedpass account online. These new enhancements help get customers in and out fast and provide a new level of convenience for Stop & Shop customers.

With one simple wave of the Speedpass device, Stop & Shop customers can now check out and get the store's card savings instead of swiping both credit and membership cards. For those who prefer paying by check or debit card, Stop & Shop customers can now link their checking account to their Speedpass with the added security of requiring customers to enter a PIN. Speedpass customers will continue to have the ability to link their credit or check card to their device.

To make getting a Speedpass even easier, Stop & Shop customers can now enroll and get a device on the spot. Enrollment takes less than five minutes and customers can instantly use their new Speedpass in the store. There is also a new "My Account" feature at www.speedpass.com that enables customers to manage their account online, view their Speedpass purchases, change their payment method and soon take advantage of additional store savings and promotions.

To read the full press release click on the following link:
ExxonMobil News Release 021203

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TI Develops ISO/IEC 14443 RF Payment Platform
TI-RFid has developed a highly flexible and secure ISO/IEC 14443 Type B technology platform for proximity payment transactions. Samples of the low-cost standards-based Proximity Coupling Device (PCD) reader module are currently available to key customers and Proximity Integrated Circuit Card (PICC) chips, fully compliant with ISO/IEC 14443 Type B, parts one through four, are also in development. Chip samples are expected in early Q2, 2003.

The ISO/IEC 14443 standard, endorsed by American Express, Mastercard and Visa for contactless payment applications, allows for increased security due to a faster rate of data exchange, as required for financial transactions. This enables storage of transaction information directly on the chip and secure transmission of the data over the contactless interface.

The new platform is easy to implement and highly scalable to meet the current and evolving needs of the wireless payment market. The chip features a flexible and configurable memory architecture and file system that support multiple applications, and dynamic encryption capability using National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) approved Triple DES and SHA-1 crypto algorithms. The chip can be packaged into various forms from ISO 7810 cards to custom three-dimensional tokens, using TI’s extensive expertise in custom token manufacturing.

TI launched its RF wireless payment technology in 1997 with the introduction of the ExxonMobil Speedpass™, which now has more than 6.5 million active users in North America. TI’s new ISO/IEC 14443 platform is designed to support a range of payment systems used in the market today, while offering a migration path to the future. Target markets include financial institutions, public transit, hospitality, vending, quick-serve restaurants and general retail.

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Real Revenues, ROI, Right Now at RFID Boot Camp

Texas Instruments is kicking off its sponsorship of RFID World with a day-long workshop for VARs and Systems Integrators to learn more about RFID technology and the hot industries that offer the best business opportunities. The RFID Boot Camp is designed for both executives and engineers/IT managers to gain a ground-floor view of RFID technology, an overview of the business models for applications success in five industry sectors, as well as educational sessions to help guide VARs and Systems Integrators in achieving real revenues and ROI, right now.

For more information and to sign up, go to www.rfid-world.com/rfid or
call 1-800-608-9641.

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Distributor Profile: R. Moroz Ltd.

1) What primary opportunities do you see for RFID today?

In Canada we are seeing growth in the following areas: Manufacturing (Work-in-process), Asset Tracking, Animal Identification, Security and Access Control, and Marketing.

Security	Marketing	Marketing

Interest in RFID and real-life applications are gaining momentum. Decision-makers are not just educating themselves, but are also putting together budget proposals for RFID applications, gaining approval and actually implementing the technology.

Recent applications include:

• Automotive – We helped a top-tier automotive seat manufacturer track build pallets throughout the production process using TI-RFid’s low frequency disk transponders on the pallets and Series 2000 LF readers (with stick antennas) on the production line. The solution allows correct tracking of work orders and maintenance of quality control checks. Shipping pallets are also tracked using the same tags and readers to ensure that the finished product on a particular pallet is correctly identified, while the movement of each individual pallet is monitored to ensure its whereabouts.
  
• Naval – We’ve recently assisted a naval engineering company with a solution to identify submarine valves using TI-RFid Tag-it ISO 15693 inlays and Bancolini B30 handheld terminal readers. The packaging flexibility and reliability of the inlays, along with the convenience of a portable hand-held reader enables the operator to consistently perform periodic maintenance and performance checks on this high-value asset.
  
• Finance – We are currently working with a Canadian-based financial institution to provide ISO 15693 HF Vicinity Card / Badges for security and access control at the company’s conferences. These badges will be used to monitor access to the conference and record attendee participation in the various sessions. The staff will be using FEIG HF gate antennas readers as well as hand-held readers.

2) How are you helping your customers adopt RFID?

We work with our current and potential customers to help them better understand RFID technology and its benefits through the use of evaluation kits, presentations, seminars, and hands-on demonstrations of equipment, either at customer facilities or at R. Moroz. To further expand interest in RFID, we also coordinate presentations, seminars, and in-house workshops, and work closely with industry associations and organizations.

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Feature: Retailers' Top Five Questions About RFID

Here are the top five audience questions at the RFID panel discussion at the National Retail Federation's (NRF) Big Show in New York City along with our answers:

1) Who pays for RFID, the retailer or the manufacturer?

One of the major barriers to RFID adoption for item-level tracking is that it requires a significant investment from both retailers and manufacturers. Retailers must deploy readers and an infrastructure to manage and act on the data the readers gather, and manufacturers must adapt production lines to embed or affix RFID tags to every item. We expect that retailers will drive the adoption: they have one-time costs that offer a near-immediate payback in operational efficiencies, while manufacturers face the ongoing costs of RFID-tagging every item.

2) How can retailers manage the data generated by RFID?

Most of the emphasis in the industry centers on the cost of the tag or new efficiencies for supply chain and ERP software vendors. But to actually capitalize on the data coming from RFID tags, retailers need a data infrastructure that can gather, analyze, and act on data in real time at the fringe of the network -- an inversion of the normal data warehousing strategy. Data management powerhouses like Teradata and Oracle must act quickly to either ramp up their own RFID data infrastructure efforts or snap up niche RFID data specialists like Matrics and DataBrokers.

3) Which segments of retail will be the first to adopt item-level RFID?

The vision of every CPG item in the supply chain containing an RFID tag is compelling, but it's a decade away. While most retailers should pilot supply chain applications using RFID tags on cases and pallets now, only those that sell midpriced items and control their own supply chains should consider item-level RFID tags today. The need for supply chain efficiency and lower stock-outs on the shelf make specialty apparel retailers with vertically integrated manufacturing -- like J. Crew and The Limited -- a natural fit for item-level tagging.

4) What standards are important in evaluating RFID?

You can talk about tag frequency, but the most important standards story is in the data. With growing support from the Uniform Code Council, EAN International, and with industry giants Wal-Mart and P&G conducting pilots, the Electronic Product Code is gaining momentum as a standard for next generation product identification.

5) What are the implications of item-level RFID for consumer privacy?

RFID tags open up immense sources of data on products, but consumer groups like CASPIAN are already protesting against the collection of additional information on consumer buying patterns. To put consumers' minds at ease, retailers must follow the same privacy best practices in stores as they do online: tell customers what they're using collected data for, respect their choices to opt out, and always give consumers value for the information collected.

by James Crawford
Retail Analyst
Forrester Research, Inc.

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