RFID

Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) is ranked among the top 10 of dominant future technologies. RFID technology is being used now for access control cards, tagging of returnable items, production and assembly tasks and will penetrate other market segments soon due to lower costs and more functionalities. Integration of sensor functions in RFID-tags will also give a lot of potential for future applications in healthcare, food packaging, security & safety etc. 

http://www.futuretechnologycenter.eu/content/RFID.php 

The beauty of RFID tags is that they are passive, requiring no power source of their own. Instead, they derive the small amount of electrical power they need from the radio waves emitted by a tag reader. In a way, the reader is like a radio version of a torch, lighting up tags that it comes near and revealing the information they contain. But there is nothing to stop self-powered devices using the same frequencies and protocols to send and receive all kinds of digital information.

Examples of the implementation of RFID include: (RFID Business Benefits )

• Logistics & Tracking 
• Asset Tracking 
• Personal Identification 
• Payment Systems 
• Workflow Processes 
• Healthcare 

In the future smart appliance could use RFID tags to adjust their behaviour, e.g. a smart washing machine could adjust wash cycles and temperature based on the contents of the clothing items present, a smart refrigerator could create shopping lists of items that have expired based on the information provided by the RFID tag of the item in the refrigerator.