RFID (McGraw-Hill Networking Professional) 1st Edition

Easy read and tells of the history of Barcodes and RFID. Great for beginners to learn the basics.

This book provides an interesting and sometimes entertaining discussion of the history of automated identification, and a simple and accessible introduction to enterprise resource planning and the management of supply chains. This book also provides a nice if quick survey of recent and prospective applications. The UPC/EAN bar code system's history and operation are well-described.However, if you're looking for a well-organized, comprehensible introduction to the technology of RFID, you will be disappointed. Mr. Shepard doesn't appear to understand some key distinctions -- for example, the difference in operating principles between 'inductive' systems operating at frequencies of KHz to MHz, and 'radiative' systems in the UHF and microwave bands -- and his discussion of technology focuses almost exclusively on low-frequency technology without explicitly noting this fact. I don't know how anyone who wasn't already familiar with the technology would understand most of the discussion of modulation and coding techniques. He implies that public key cryptography is used to secure RFID communications, which is absurd for passive tag applications given the computational demands of that approach. Mr. Shepard also fails to clearly distinguish between applications that are readily achievable with today's technology and those that would require revolutionary improvements or are just flat physically impossible. So if you're interested in history, pick up this book; if you need to design or implement an RFID system, get Finkenzeller's handbook, which is less accessible but much more thorough and technologically astute.

If you want a fluffy, executive-level overview of RFID, save yourself $60 and read an inflight magazine article about it. This book's relevant content is about the same.Fully 1/3 of the book is taken up by a glossary and a list of acronyms, both of which are very clearly regurgitated from previously-published material. The author didn't even bother to cull out the terms that are utterly not relevant to the topic, not mentioned in the text, and not interesting to the target audience. To further pad the book, it's printed with large type on thick paper, with photos of things like container ships to illustrate such highly technical points as "container ships are big." The price is bulked up by adding a hardcover binding, which is inappropriate for a book of this type.It's obvious to me that this book was a moneymaker for the publisher because they could get it on the shelf fast, so anyone looking for ANY book on RFID wouldn't see much besides this one. You know why it was so quick to write? Because there isn't much actual content in it. Thank goodness there are a few other books on the shelf now, so others won't get stuck with this one like I did.

Clear, lucid, and to the point.An excellent introduction to RFID for both managers and engineers.

I hate to say this, because it sounds so hokey in a book review, but this is one book I couldn't put down. Well obviously I could put it down, and I did. But I didn't until after I had read the first 54 pages, Part I of the book.Part I of this book talks about some applications of RFID that is stretching the limits of the technology as it exists today. He gives a series of examples of how RFID might be used in the future, along with a history of machine identification in the past. Perhaps my interest comes from the years I worked in that area. But that was some time ago, and RFID was just beginning. Now I see the applications he describes and immediately I think of several others. This kind of overview of where we are trying to go is rare in a technical book, and greatly appreciated.Part II of the book is a description of the current state of the art in RFID. Here is a detailed description of who makes what that you can use to implement what was thought about in Part I.He finally concludes with a short what-if story about a suspect container on a ship headed to an American port. This is straight out of not the headlines, but the comments made by John Kerry during the debates. This is a technology that is coming, that is needed.

A year ago I was only occasionally reading about RFID, and primarily in networking and technology publications. Since then there has been a rapid increase in the frequency of articles on this topic in publications from IEEE Spectrum to the Wall Street Journal. I felt that I needed to quickly get up to speed not only on what RFID is and how it works but, more importantly, what its impacts are, and will be, strategically. Shepard's book satisfies all these needs admirably.This volume provides loads of good information that provided not only the content I was looking for but also a context within which to fully understand the implications. A further bonus was frequently being entertained with real world anecdotes which amplified and clarified the detailed information.This book will satisfy the engineer who needs a thorough overview of RFID-related technologies as well as the manager needing to understand how RFID is and will be influencing business processes and decisions. No matter what your role, if you find the term "RFID" coming up during your day and would like to be on top of the subject-read this book now.