Print magazine + RFID = hyperbole
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted Mar 23rd 2009 3:27PM
posted Mar 23rd 2009 3:27PM
Adding to an exclusive -- but growing -- list of things that were just as well off before running headlong into RFID technology, the next issue of France's Amusement Magazine is billing itself as the "first ever connected to the Internet!" The PR we received for this bad boy asks some questions: "What if a magazine... could consist of paper, ink, electronic components and digital content all at the same time? What if the contents of a magazine could go on living forever in cyberspace? What if the difference between written and digital text finally becomes one in the same?" May we add one more question to the list? How about, "why can't you just throw in a CD-ROM / DVD-ROM like everybody else?" Or maybe, "What am I supposed to do with this?" If you're a Francophone with a Violet Mir:ror laying around, hit that read link. PR after the break.
March 2009
Paris, France
World Premiere: Official launch of the first magazine ever connected to the Internet!
AMUSEMENT magazine n°4 is equipped with an RFID tag connecting it to the web
The result of a joint effort between Violet and GS1 France, AMUSEMENT readers will have access to interactive online content available exclusively to them.
This issue marks the very first magazine born into Internet of Things era.
What if a magazine of merely 700g could consist of of paper, ink, electronic components and digital content all at the same time? What if the contents of a magazine could go on living forever in cyberspace? What if the difference between written and digital text finally becomes one in the same?
Violet and GS1 are pleased to announce the official launch of the first Internet connected magazine : Amusement. This magazine quarterly is equipped with an RFID tag, allowing it to connect to the internet and access additional exclusive content online. But this innovation goes further still: AMUSEMENT acts as irrefutable proof that the internet and printed press are no longer separate entities but intertwined extensions of one another.
How does it work?
As of March 17th, AMUSEMENT is available exclusively at specialty store Colette in Paris, and as of March 20th, at select stands and sales locations throughout Europe and the United States, (In the Uk Amusement is available at Barbican for instance).
An RFID tag is fixed in the middle of page 2 of AMUSEMENT magazine. As soon as the reader touches the magazine's tag to the RFID Mir:ror scanner, a request is automatically sent to the Violet server which orders the Mir:ror to trigger certain actions or have certain digital applications appear.
Promotion of AMUSEMENTS latest issue
The first edition released will include access to the following digital applications online: a video game designed by the artist Messhof, an interactive multi-user device by Digital Shadow, an interactive installation by Factoid (Pierre Nouvel, Valère Terrier) and The Tone, a 3D video by Gkastere and wallpapers by Philippe Jarrigeon. Accessible from anywhere, the magazine's online component will continue to enrich with each new issue. For the editor, the launch of this I-magazine offers a brand new way to connect with his readers. Since each magazine comes with its own email address and in-box, it's possible for the editor to engage in a direct and contextual discussion with his readers. (The magazine will only respond to questions/comments made by the user themselves)
Abdel Bounane, Publications Director for AMUSEMENT magazine states « I believed this magazine to be a new genre all in itself, considering the relationship our paper had with dematerialized information. With the launch of AMUSEMENT magazine, we had hoped to rework old press technology into the Internet era by offering a real object-magazine. One year later, by connecting our publication to the web, we have demonstrated that it is still possible to redefine the paper magazine for our generation.
For Pierre Georget, CEO of GS1, "These publicly-available applications are shining examples of the latest ways in which we can use RFID technology, ways that have already been tested and approved in the BtoB world. Each year, the cost of RFID components decreases which contributes to the development of added value and innovative services for the consumer. This initiative is the extension of actions already taken in stores."
According to Rafi Haladjian, co-founder of Violet, "The dematerialization of music and videos is forever growing. The Internet of Things reveals a new economic model where the Internet itself is becoming a thing, indistinguishable from all the other objects in our daily life. This example of a magazine enriched by its connection to the Internet will apply to all other objects as well. In the same way that electronics replaced the majority of once mechanical objects, the Web becomes pervasive and implements itself in ordinary things". He adds, "There is no longer a need to consider all things digital as a separate sector from other economic and industrial activities or to think they have been designed to replace them. With the accession of the Internet of Things, the Digital becomes a means to add value and create new services and business models in all industries."
Isn't this basically the same idea as the Cuecat? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuecat
Anyone remember :CueCat? No? Well, that's kinda my point. Of course, RFID has other benefits here. Kinda like barcodes and scanners. At least the little Mir:ror rabbit is a bit more adorable, albeit useless. Here's yet another solution in search of somebody who thinks there is a problem.
BTW, is there something about doomed products with colons in the name?
Erik Teichmann does.
Yeah, yeah... so I'm a slow typist.
So you need to buy an RFID reading doohickey in order to connect to the internet and see the online part of the magazine? Here's an idea, why not publish an URL on the page that you can type in with no extra hardware needed?
solution without a problem...
Lame.
This was always my confusion with the hype around RFID. What exactly are the shortcomings of UPC (especially Matrix UPC) that RFID supposedly fixes?
@Matt: Because an RFID can be read without needing a line-of-sight to the tag. That means it's a lot quicker to read it when they are embedded in palettes of stuff. No messing around looking for the tag.
I agree with wjousts. I have a :Cuecat...but I hacked it for use with Delicious Library. Printing URLs makes way more sense to me.
Although I like this RFID idea, I don't think they are there yet... I want a RFID detector that works all over the house, like WIFI, so I know where I left my car keys.
By the way Engadget... "How about, "why can't you just throw in a CD-ROM / DVD-ROM like everybody else?""......... Why aren't you blogging from your typewriter?
Not enough font support
acme got +1000
why can't you just throw in a CD-ROM / DVD-ROM / Mini-Disk like everybody else?
Mini Disk + Slot loading drive = sadness
Buy a holder, or make one from an old AOL CD or something, or stop buying mac minis.
But i just want my optical media to be as small as my computer!?
check this out sir:
Fuck off.
I hope you enjoyed that.
"RFID"...these chips are going to be put in any and everything.
Just wait until it finds it's way into hunter killer robots! You'll be able to pick how it kills you from any RFID enabled device!
Press A for decapitation, B for dismemberment and C for liquidation.
I don't know about the rest of you but I'm all for RFID!
Well, here's the problem. Stuff that exists on the internet doesn't exist forever, it exists until the server is shut down. We see it over and over again, DRM auth server style.
Now, a MAGAZINE lasts forever, IF you take care of it.
And frankly, there are places where I can take a magazine, where I can't take an online version.
You can carry a magazine to the crapper.
You can take a woodworking magazine into your shop (not a good place for PCs).
You can carry a magazine on a hike.
You can read you magazine during a power outage (provided you have a light source...uh...FIRE)
For as smart as these "inventions" try to be, they sure are dumb.
There's a market for washable small toilet LCD's I swear, are you listening chinese/korean peeps?
Absolutely brilliant riposte, my good man!
WIN!
this is pretty cool...wait...
...this is the fleshlight page
I take that comment back.
Quick, where's my cuecat reader?
+1 on the reference.
The Epitome of a Hyperbole?
I have to agree in this case - print the URL and call it good.
But there are cases where an RFID tag works much, much better than a regular barcode. I work at a public library (see my siggie line) and the trend is going towards replacing our barcodes and security strips with RFID tags. The difference between the two is *fantastic*. When a library uses RFID tags, computers can check in books as they are being dropped in the return bin, and then give the patron a receipt showing everything that was returned. With the normal barcode system, there is literally no way to do that, and you end up having to check in each and every book by hand, usually hours after a patron has dropped them off.
And checking out a book is amazingly simplistic with RFID tags in comparison with barcodes. The librarian in me salivates every time the phrase RFID tag is used. Don't pay attention to that drool coming down my chin - it's normal, promise.
Havs
http://nonfictionlover.today.com
Over here you don't leave until the returned book is scanned, you'd be an idiot since if you don't return it you pay 200 fine and there's no way to confirm you did.
Of course I don't visit libraries much any more since they made laws that tossed privacy in the fascist bin, so my info is dated.
A wait & see kinda thing......