Jack Schulze and Timo Arnall made this stunning video by using a specially-made LED wand, long-exposure photography, some animation, and a metric ton of patience. I, on the other hand, will be using the next few moments, my eyes, and an ounce or two of amazement to appreciate the supposedly paranoia-inducing beauty of RFID. [PopSci]

Perfect for your next Furry get-together, the mood cards will make the bushy tail wag about in pre-programmed ways. Alternatively, a Wii Nunchuck is used to shake things up with manual control.

Thank you, Wei-Chieh Tseng, I’m completely lost for words and that doesn’t happen often. [Nowhereelse via Engadget]

Basically, you can program certain controls or sounds into the paper radio. Say you’re an artist who wants to bring attention to a local radio station — you program that into the RFID chip, and then when the paper radio is draped on any speaker equipped with an RFID reader, it’ll change the station to the one you picked. Or you can have it broadcast short messages; Matt suggests a particular environmentalist star of 30 Rock might program in warnings to turn off your lights when not in use. It’s a very particular usage, but the radios themselves look so cool that we don’t really care if they’re 100% practical. [MocoLoco]

The film Nearness explores interacting without touching. With RFID it’s proximity that matters, and actual contact isn’t necessary. Much of Timo’s work in the Touch project addresses the fictions and speculations in the technology. Here we play with the problems of invisibility and the magic of being close.

Nearness is interesting and everything, but it needs some personality. I mean, where are all the rolling balls and drinking birds? [Nearness via Boing Boing via Neatorama]

Basically, you wave a keycard to lock and unlock the data on the drive. That’s great, but while I’m hesitant about RFID cards after lousy experiences with my Amex’s ExpressPay chip, the Hard Drive Secure’s specs made me weary for other reasons:

• Includes 2 security keycards (1 user keycard, 1 master keycard) in credit card format
  which will lock and unlock the drive for use.
• Controlled access using RFID technology (Radio Frequency Identification) for data security. The 2 included RFID keycards are AES encrypted.
• USB 2.0 interface – connects to any modern computer
• Reliable and fast data transfer
• High quality aluminium enclosure with optimal internal airflow management
• No cooling fan – no noise!
• Compact design, only 15.5 x 14.8 x 4.3 cm, saves space on your desk

“No cooling fan.” How reliable is an external hard drive with no cooling fans? Or is it that this drive is so secure because your data will be inaccessible after it melts down? Either way, the Hard Drive Secure is available now (though strangely sold out) with a steep $US500 price tag. [Freecom via EverythingUSB via GadgetReview viakCrunchGear]

The fingerprint ID also, of course, can theoretically act as a security device so that only you can activate your phone. There’s also haptic (physical) feedback when you’re hitting things, as well as using the touchscreen as an RFID reader. None of the three are really mindblowing in themselves, on the surface, but if implemented intelligently might make for a big step forward in the iPhone product line. [Macrumors via Boy Genius]

And I’ll be damned if it doesn’t work perfectly. Alongside a static photo, this e-passport displays a rotating photographic avatar when placed near a power source. OLED-Info thinks the card is pulling power from an RFID reader, but given that the display is full-fledged 320×240, 260k colour OLED panel that’s playing video, I tend to think there’s a more powerful type of inductive charging going on here. [OLED-Info—Thanks, Ron!]

It sounds a little sci-fi at first, but it’s not: RFID tags are powered by electrical signals converted from electromagnet waves emitted by a nearby sensor machine. The thing is, the amount of electricity involved here is tiny, and Nokia’s system won’t even have a base station—it’ll draw from ambient electromagnetic waves, meaning Wi-Fi, cell towers and TV antennae. Nokia hopes to harvest about 50 milliwatts—not quite enough to sustain a phone, but enough to mitigate drain, and slowly charge it while switched off.

Current prototypes only gather about 5 milliwatts, which is essentially useless, and scientists and industry experts just don’t see the technology maturing to the point that Nokia wants it to, at least in the near future. But the company’s researchers are standing strong:

I would say it is possible to put this into a product within three to four years.

If you believe them, this is pretty exciting: maybe not as a primary charging mechanism, but as a battery extender. [Technology Review—Image from Technology Review]

Essentially, the magazine hoped to bridge the gap between print and web media by using an RFID chip to link related online content. By using a USB RFID reader, the Violet mir:ror, I was able to scan the chip and access additional content through my browser.

The general effect? I’d be lying to say it was much more than a novelty, but that doesn’t mean the idea is bad. Amusement linked about 5 pieces of online content, including media clips and even a flash game, through the RFID chip. This part works pretty well. Going instantly between a magazine and a playable game is pretty neat.

What didn’t work for me was that the RFID signal isn’t really tied to individual stories. You can’t just flick a page and have related content pop up. You wave the chip by the mir:ror (I obviously ripped it out for convenience), then a link pops up. You wave it again, and another link pops up. There’s not much rhyme or reason to it, which is probably more a limitation of the technology than a flaw with Amusement’s design, but it made the experience ever so less futuristicy than I’d hoped.

Still, Amsuement is on to a decent idea here if publishers are able to iron out the kinks. And as for the magazine itself, I wish it were reprinted in English. The inspired layout and design more than rival my favourite gaming magazine, Edge. [Amusement and Violet]

The Nabaztag, known for reading you the news and playing back podcasts, has come out with a new kind of reader: The Violet Mirror RFID reader.

Designed to be “so simple a two-year old can use it,” this RFID Mirror—which comes with a mirror, two programmable micro-rabbits and three Ztamps RFID tags—is supposed to recognise different objects you show to it and also perform certain tasks you’ve assigned to the Ztamps via USB on your computer. For example, waving your umbrella over the mirror will make it tell you the weather, scanning your wallet in front of it will get your bank-statements e-mailed to you, or flashing that photo of you and that hot cheerleader will automatically send a text-message to your wife to let her know you’ll be late for dinner. [ThinkGeek via i4u via Endgadget]