Do cowboys use Apple iPhone or Android Based G1 Mobiles?

Yes I know the title sounds stupid, or at least a bit weird. Just let me explain first, then perhaps we will make sense of it.

I just bumped in news concerning new RFID (radio frequency identification) chips proposed for livestock tracking.

This new product has been announced by NXP (formerly known as Philips Semiconductor), a few days ago.

What's the fuss about, somebody could ask.
RFID were made to track goods, and I cannot deny that cows, sheeps, chickens are goods as well as shoes, VCRs, vacuum cleaners, mp3 players. Consumer goods (and similar) tracking is mainly (but not only) storing and shipping related.

So I asked myself: are there more reasons for tracking goats, turkeys or pigs?

I thought about livestock tagged by RFID (radio frequency identification) and the first thing that came to my mind was related to "mad cow" disease.

If an animal (say a cow) is found positive to a disease, there are good chances that other bovines coming from the same farm are ill as well, thus tracking all of them by means of the RFID is a piece of cake. This is perhaps the most obvious, let's see a few related issues, then we will have a look at some other applications.

The first purpose is tracking the livestock and meat from breeding to the supermarket, or using another definition I liked very much: "Tracking from the pen to the pot".

RFID replaces cattle marking for identification. How is it used ?

Farmer tags a cow after its birth, insert the RFID in the farm database, and the whole "history" of that cow is recorded on the database from date of birth, parents (yes they also have a dad and a mum), vaccinations, diseases, feeding rate, you name it!

The only problem is that as soon as the cow leaves the farm, the database (and the PC storing it) can not travel with the poor thing!

So next step is: expand RFID capabilities, duplicating database infos into the tag it self.
We were talking about the cow leaving the farm, and in fact, one of the problems is that very often the country the cow is born on is not the same country the rump steak is gobbled down (yes believe me, I do know it sounds crude, but it clearly explains the problem).

That's where ECC law based on ISO 11784/85 comes to play.
Plainly speaking the same RFID tag must be readable and writable by all transponders the RFID is coming across along the cow life (and after life for a little while..). In the European Community directives and standards concerning livestock tracking have already been issued, and more complicated and sophisticated one are under work. Their main concern is defining protocols and formats to make data stored on a RFID available directly and off-line. One example is ISO 14223, whose final target is enabling improved stock tracking as well as reliable import/export control on international markets. It also handles herds and flocks by means of an anticollision feature.

Ok, going back to RFID livestock tracking possible applications, I found some more interesting ones:

Illness warning
Installing a transponder near a feeding station, it is possible to monitor feeding frequency of an animal. If the frequency decreases, a warning is raised, since loss of appetite is one possible disease symptom.

Pigeon Racing
I knew you were going to love it!
Yes, pigeons are tagged for fraud protection at pigeon races.
Next question is : can they be doped as well ?

Identifing Stray Animals
Yes, I can tell you are almost there....

Ok the cattle is out there in the prairie:

• Yesterday: imagine somebody like Clint Eastwood, on a Appaloosa horse, wearing boots with spurs, holding the reins in one hand, a lasso in the other......
• Today: imagine somebody like Brad Pitt, on a Mercedes Suv, wearing an Armani suit, a Mobile equipped with a Bluetooth connected transponder in one hand, the other on the steering wheel...

Now, do you still thing this title was weird?

Read More :
HTRC11001TDatasheet