What's up with Sega's RFID card reader?
Okay, Engadget readers. You managed to get to the bottom of the Sony Blu-ray demo mystery. Now, we're counting on you to solve another one. What you see pictured here is Maxell's Picochet RFID card reader. It's been out in Japan for a couple of years, and has been marketed for such mundane tasks as reading time cards for beleaguered salarymen and storing healthcare records in hospitals. However, the card has just cleared the FCC, and according to Sega's documentation (yes, that Sega, they filed on this), the version sent in for testing is going to be Sega-branded, and is planned for use with " devices prepared by Sega." Now, last time we checked, Sega isn't exactly making a whole lot of devices anymore. So, what are they planning to do with this thing? Is it for a PC version of the company's popular Sangokushi Japanese arcade game, which uses RFID readers as part of the gameplay (possibly, given that there are console and PC versions of the game for platforms from the PC to the DS)? Is it a Wii or PS3 peripheral? Or is Sega going into the industrial RFID business? It's a mystery, dear readers; one we're confident you can help us solve.
