Art gallery uses RFID to convert visitors to customers

This one goes out to all of you shy would-be patrons of the arts. Granite State MetalWorks, an art gallery and studio in Littleton, N.H., is making use of RFID tags to convey information about the individual pieces to visitors and potential customers. Using the Art-FID system from Sapago, the RFIDs are placed beside works in the gallery, and visitors use a pen-shaped tag reader in combination with a Dell Axim handheld to read a piece's unique ID number and call up its information. While this would be a convenient system on its own in that ars gratia artis sort of way, let's remember the business end of art and realize there's an ulterior motive here — gallery owners hope to convert more visitors into customers by removing the often uncomfortable act of having to ask curators or staff about pricing.