A Billion Little Pieces - (Infrastructures) by Jordan Frith (Paperback)

About the Book

"RFID (radio frequency identification) has been deployed in the billions to track objects through the global economy and is used to manage and monitor public transportation systems, store identifying information in biometric passports, communicate sensor information about infrastructure and food safety, power contactless "smart" cards, and provide essential identification functions for the growing Internet of Things. RFID tags can be as small as a grain of rice and sown into clothing or embedded in packaging--even inside animal and human bodies. They are found in credit cards, key fobs, car windshields, your T pass, consumer electronics, the walls of tunnels--and yet, most people are unaware of their presence. This book will be the first to look at RFID as an invisible suite of mobile technologies that makes up an integral piece of the development of networked infrastructure, mobile payment, and the global economy. Frith takes on the subject from multiple angles, including the history of the technology, industry, its role in the Internet of Things, big data, surveillance and privacy concerns, and mobile infrastructures"--

Book Synopsis

How RFID, a ubiquitous but often invisible mobile technology, identifies tens of billions of objects as they move through the world.

RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) is ubiquitous but often invisible, a mobile technology used by more people more often than any flashy smartphone app. RFID systems use radio waves to communicate identifying information, transmitting data from a tag that carries data to a reader that accesses the data. RFID tags can be found in credit cards, passports, key fobs, car windshields, subway passes, consumer electronics, tunnel walls, and even human and animal bodies--identifying tens of billions of objects as they move through the world. In this book, Jordan Frith looks at RFID technology and its social impact, bringing into focus a technology that was designed not to be noticed.

RFID, with its ability to collect unique information about almost any material object, has been hyped as the most important identification technology since the bar code, the linchpin of the Internet of Things--and also seen (by some evangelical Christians) as a harbinger of the end times. Frith views RFID as an infrastructure of identification that simultaneously functions as an infrastructure of communication. He uses RFID to examine such larger issues as big data, privacy, and surveillance, giving specificity to debates about societal trends.

Frith describes how RFID can monitor hand washing in hospitals, change supply chain logistics, communicate wine vintages, and identify rescued pets. He offers an accessible explanation of the technology, looks at privacy concerns, and pushes back against alarmist accounts that exaggerate RFID's capabilities. The increasingly granular practices of identification enabled by RFID and other identification technologies, Frith argues, have become essential to the working of contemporary networks, reshaping the ways we use information.

About the Author

Jordan Frith is Associate Professor in the Department of Technical Communication at the University of North Texas.