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Apple Computer has filed a patent which uses RFID to greatly simplify the process of setting up and configuring a wireless home network, which, as anyone who has done so will say, can be a daunting task.

Semiconductor and RFID hardware manufacturer Impinj announced yesterday that it had raised $19 million in a private funding round, bringing total venture and strategic investment in the seven-year-old company to $98 million. The company will use the funds to pursue opportunities in item-level tagging.

RFID reader companies Alien, CAEN, and ThingMagic made a point yesterday to announce their planned integration of Intel's new Gen2 reader chip into their reader products. That chip, the R1000, was itself announced yesterday by Intel, and is expected to herald the introduction of cheaper and smaller Gen2 RFID reader technology.

Intel today announced the release of a fully integrated Gen2 RFID reader chip, the R1000. The new chip, which is slated for volume production within weeks, may represent a major technological milestone for RFID as it preciptates a dramatic reduction in the cost and form factor of reader technology.

The Wall Street Journal has published another story about RFID adoption. Appearing in Saturday's edition, the full-page piece is likely to be perceived as more balanced than the damning Wal-Mart's Radio-Tracked Inventory Hits Static, which ran a few weeks ago and elicited major pushback from the RFID industry.

A new system co-developed by AeroScout, Cisco Systems, and Emergin at the University Hospital of Ghent lets nurses use IP phones and the hospital’s WiFi network to receive RTLS location data plus patient blood pressure, electrocardiogram images, and other medical data collected by patient monitoring equipment.

AMR Research analyst John Fontanella notes how many manufacturing processes can already achieve near perfection through Six Sigma principles, while logistics processes have much greater room for improvement. RFID, asserts Fontanella, will help change that, improving logistics by offering much higher levels of accuracy.

Document and records management company Recall Corp. says its new RFID-based audit system is an industry first. It not only makes complete audits of millions of records practical, it can help firms meet a variety of documentation requirements mandated by regulations like SOX, HIPAA, GLBA, and FACTA.

Attendees at the inaugural Asset Management Conference & Expo in San Diego heard first-hand accounts of how RFID and other technologies can improve asset utilization and maintenance applications.

AeroScout and Ekahau separately introduced new RTLS tags in the approximate size and shape of cards that can be used for ID badges and other applications. The new tags include several other innovations: Ekahau's has a 60-character LCD screen, and AeroScout's has two programmable call buttons.