The IFF Smart Box Container is a shipping container which contains an RFID scanner and a GPS unit. So now not only can you find out what is inside the box while it’s in transit, but where the thing is located. Only a prototype at the moment, but I can see this tech gradually leeching its way down to common or garden luggage. It’ll come to something when your luggage has got more brains than you, eh?
German scientists have developed the “IFF Smart Box”, a container equipped with a scanning device that can check its contents by means of RFID. The data are forwarded to a small computer unit. A software combines them with the current geographical location determined by a GPS receiver. Various sensors can be integrated in the box, too, in order to measure parameters such as pressure, temperature or vibration. The information is transmitted to a database by mobile radio.
