Inside and Kovio add NFC support to ultra-low-cost printed RFID tags

“Consumers, while they shop, will be able to interact with smart labels on products and smart posters to receive product details, promotional offers, coupons, loyalty points, nutritional information, and other useful information to enhance their retail experience,” says Inside Secure.

Kovio printed silicon
KOVIO: The firm's 'Printed Silicon' technology prints RFID tags with metal nanocrystal powder and ink

Inside Secure has announced that NFC phones powered by its MicroRead and SecuRead NFC controller solutions are now able to read next generation, ultra-low-cost RFID tags and printed labels developed by Silicon Valley start up Kovio.

Kovio’s ‘RF Barcodes’ use printed silicon ink and thin film technology to enable RFID tags to be directly printed onto product labels and packaging, posters, promotional literature and coupons. The technology is expected to make it possible for NFC phones to be used to interact with everything from FMCG supermarket products to promotional flyers and more for just a few cents per unit. “Printed silicon electronics combines the intelligence and functionality of silicon semiconductors and the low-cost manufacturing paradigm of graphics printing,” says Kovio.

“Using a mobile phone or other device powered by Inside MicroRead or SecuRead NFC solutions, consumers, while they shop, will be able to interact with smart labels on products and smart posters to receive product details, promotional offers, coupons, loyalty points, nutritional information, and other useful information to enhance their retail experience, as well as interact with social media, web sites and other internet-based services,” explains Inside Secure.

“Kovio has achieved a mobile marketing breakthrough with a technology that enables these RF barcodes to be produced so inexpensively that retailers and major brands can use them on everything they sell, opening the door to a level of mobile brand interaction that has only been dreamed of,” says Inside’s Philippe Martineau.

“Our goal is to connect the online and physical worlds together through our RF Barcodes, and today we have received a huge boost in achieving this goal with the support our technology has received from Inside Secure,” adds Amir Mashkoori, president and CEO of Kovio. “With the wide availability of NFC mobile phones and other NFC-enabled devices capable of reading our RF Barcodes through Inside’s NFC technology, we hope to create new opportunities in brand marketing and advertising at the item level, and thereby enable a new communication medium for retailers and brands to interact with consumers at the point of sale.”

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