Emirates Investment buys stake in CBS

Emirates Investment and Development has acquired a 25% stake in RFID specialist CBS Technology for an undisclosed sum, reports The Star.

With this acquisition, Emirates Investment is now one of the substantial shareholders of Mesdaq-listed CBS. Chairman Buti Saeed Al Ghandi says: "If you had to pick up just one technology that could really make a difference to businesses, it would have to be RFID."

The potential use of various radio frequency identification (RFID) technologies has created some discussion in California among policy-makers, the tech industry and privacy advocates, says Mercury News [registration required].

This debate centres on several pieces of legislation being considered in Sacramento that would ban the use of RFID, including high-security contactless smart cards, in many state government agencies and programmes.

While the intent is to protect the security and privacy of those who have personal information stored on RFID chips, many provisions in the Bills are misguided and ultimately unnecessary. If passed in current form, the Bills would stifle innovation in California and create laws that focus on hindering a technology instead of punishing bad behaviour.

RFID technology may soon give medical professionals at Hualien's Yu Li Hospital the ability to track a portion of its 2 500 mentally ill patients, reports Taipei Times.

Yu Li Hospital is working in conjunction with Chunghwa Telecom to develop RFID bracelets that will help detect and locate patients in the event they have a fall, an accident or go missing, said Yu Li's director of medical affairs, Hu Tsung-Ming.

In addition to locating patients, the bracelets will come with a sensor that measures each patient's body temperature and beams back the information to the hospital's computer system. They will also contain a panic button for patients to press if they need immediate help, Tsung-Ming said.

Luggage at Heathrow Airport will be electronically tagged in an attempt to deal with the thousands of bags that go missing from Britain's largest airport, says the Guardian.

Computer chips in bag labels will emit a signal detailing the owner's name and destination. In theory, sensors could be pointed at a mound of bags and a baggage handler will be able to download the details of every piece of luggage in the pile.

RFID has been tested at other UK airports, with passengers, rather than bags, tagged. Manchester Airport has carried out a six-month trial, where tags were attached to boarding cards to prevent delays caused by passengers going missing when boarding planes. It will also allow airports to detect people in unauthorised areas.