As long as printed RFID is struggling to overcome serious technical and economic difficulties, other alternatives to identify objects stay in focus with several research groups and companies.
One approach is to use conductive patterns and read them with a small, handheld device, connected to the IT infrastructure. One early example of a commercial product using this approach was the Hurra Fussball game, nearly 3 years ago.
PEDOT:PSS structures were printed by Printed Systems in Chemnitz onto paper cards, the reading device was connected via USB to a computer. After inserting a card, a connection was established with a defined web site, where the company Menippos hosted the game itself. This concept was tried later for a direct marketing concept by the German Post AG, but after a pilot trial last year, this work was discontinued in March 2009, and Printed Systems stopped working in April this year.
Menipposs
The company Menippos, however, independently developed another technology to integrate conductive patterns into paper cards and launched a product based on this last fall. It is again an interactive computer game, called My Super Pets. One of the leading companies in the field of trading cards, Upper Deck, signed a worldwide exclusive technology license agreement to use and further develop this technology for interactive trading cards and trading card games in December 2008.
Menippos are currently working with prototypes of printed batteries, displays and even loudspeakers and will bring these to new products in the next months and years.
Nicanti
Another approach in the spotlight is through the company Nicanti. It was founded by VTT, the leading research center in Finland, together with Kiian, a printing ink manufacturer from Italy, and Itaca Nova, a nanotechnology developer, in 2007. The technology is based on an electrical coding, that can be printed onto nearly every surface and can be hidden. The reader is a small device, the size of a common memory stick, and the platform is completed by an IT infrastructure that can be adapted to the specific needs in the application.
One of the beauties of the concept is infrastructure requirements are little, and the inks are available for several printing technologies - including the ones used typically in the packaging industry, like flexographic and gravure printing. If invisible coding is needed, Nicanti offers inks based on carbon nanotubes.
