it was supposed to be an european meeting about rfid, working on an european paper. but europe was just in the title. mostly people on stage were german, talking about their political plans, their industrie and their ideas. as the guy from hitachi tried to tell something about how they do it in japan, nobody seemed to listen to his arguments, as he stated the development has to be consumer driven. if you dont take their interest into account you don't need to talk about a universal standard.

an english chap, who was set there it seems to fulfill the role of staffage, was first listening to the discussion for a while, got the microphone to ask: what are we talking here. is this supposed to be a meeting to create a paper which is significant for the whole of europe, or just for germany?

their paper, a european policy outlook on rfid actually mirrors the same notion. when i read it first i thought nah, it's maybe just me, but after the event i don't have that many doubts: it tries to tell me that the only one who work with/on rfid and are leading the market are the germans, it will be them who will set the world standard - or at least the european one; they say they consider to take consumer interest into account, but maybe and for sure later on and that they like their retailers. ||reminded me of the dijkstra conference report, 1976)

in the end, they just ruminated what they have already said in studies dating back mostly to 2003 - 2004. sadly i even can't exclude the chap from the consumer protection agency. (in the end his braveness wasn't rewarded, as on the presentation day their group got cut down to the minimum, were presenting last when most people where already on their way to the airport.)

the self satisfaction of the other german players was that strong, that even the dumbest examples survived and just had a chance to be erased, when the dislike was thrown in the messengers face with strong emphesis; before he could run for cover. sadly that seldom happened. it was a closed club, mostly of smugness men on stage. i fear even during the years to come the story of the " intelligent fridge" will be told, also that rfid functions as an anti theft device in a shop, forgetting frequenzy, water and oil. a german way to deal with doubts i learned is the following: "but i am sure they work on that", "you get tracked by so many ways, why do you still care" or if that doesn't help: "it won't come for the next ten years."

it was cute to see that the size of their rfid tags still has the size of a metro ticket, at least, but also the size of somehow a boarding card.

actually you learn already in kindergarden not just to deal with concepts of surveillance and control, as one bureaucrate said as an example why he doesn't have a problem with tagged employees, but also that by repeating something that is wrong doesn't get right; even not if you say it 10times.
i can't deny the impression, that the so called big german industry still holds their government on a tight dog lead; few has been learned of the standardization process of osi, gsm and umts.

i am not sure if other countries do the same during their presidency, but i have to say, i am glad this german episode is over. i don't want to get more of swift; and as fuzo news of today suggest, brussels already sent out a wake up call. welcome portugal ...