Bar codes and scanner can do the job, but they’re not that smart, not as intelligent as smart tags, according to researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.

Attach a smart tag to a can of peas, a head of lettuce or a box of detergent and it will become alive with electronic information, such as its exact location, shelf life, directions for use, and recycling. These tags will be part of a network of smart labels containing tiny microchips, wireless antennas, and even batteries as flat and flexible as a business card, according to MIT.

Where bar codes can only identify 100,000 manufacturers and types of products, these tags of the future will identify more than 268 million manufacturers, each with more than 1 million products. Furthermore, smart tags use wireless radio frequency enabling them to be read from any angle where bar codes must be scanned head-on, as stated in a special feature in ‘The Christian Science Monitor.’

MIT Auto-ID Center is developing the key technologies such as the 96-bit electronic product code that will be placed on each tag to identify the item, along with a Product Markup Language that will give details about the product.

Devices such as handheld computers, cell phones as well as store shelves and doorways will be incorporated with scanners that will be able to retrieve the information from the tags.

MIT is working with about two-dozen companies and industry organizations, the likes of Motorola, Alien Technology, Gillette, and Wal-Mart. MIT will define the framework and its partners will contribute to the microchip, wireless antenna, and battery to make the smart tags.

Head of the Auto-ID Center Kevin Ashton told The New York Times, "We are pretty sure we know how to make tags for less than five cents each. But the cost would have to drop further, probably to around a penny, to be practical in supermarkets, known for their razor-thin margins. If the price drops, radio-frequency readers built into the shelves of the supermarket or the shopping carts may someday sense each tagged item and keep track of each shopper’s expenses."

(Additional sources The New York Times and The Christian Science Monitor)