By Kim Tae-gyu
Staff Reporter
A group of drunken males order a bottle of whiskey at a bar late evening and detect it's taste unusual enough and suspect its authenticity.
For now, they just complain to the bar's manager that the liquor tastes different. While thinking that it a fake spirit, they cannot prove it.
However, things will change abruptly thanks to cutting-edge technologies dubbed the radio frequency identification (RFID) tags that will soon be here.
``Starting next year, we plan to recommend local distillers incorporate RFID chips to their 21-year-old whiskey blends,'' Assistant Minister of Information and Communication Yang Jun-cheol said.
``Then people will easily be able to check through their cell phones whether or not any whiskey is genuine. Plus, the tag will show other data like the distiller and the production date,'' Yang said.
Yang added the government is to encourage domestic whiskey producers to embed RFID chips to cheaper blends including 12-year-old or 17-year-old ones by 2012.
``The project is just a part of our efforts to boost the RFID business in Korea. We will introduce the radio tags to other areas such as logistics, distribution or top-end item production,'' Yang said.
``Toward that ends, the government looks to channel 311.9 billion won to 16 RFID-related projects through 2012. This will prompt the shift to RFID,'' he said.
RFID refers to an automatic identification technology that stores and remotely retrieves data via two cornerstone devices _ radio tags and readers.
An RFID tag is composed of a small integrated-circuit chip and an antenna. It is expected to revolutionize the distribution industry by replacing today's barcode.
The leading-edge technology is already in commercial use in the fields of livestock tracking, highway toll collection and premium product manufacturing.
Down the road, its usages are expected to expand in a full-fledged manner because of the declining prices of RFID chips.
``An RFID chip sold for 2,000 won in 2004 and the price fell to as low as 300 won now. However, it is still too expensive to use broadly,'' Yang said.
``The price is projected to further head south to 50 won by 2012 and 10 won by 2017. Then, the radio tags will bring a flurry of notable changes to daily lives,'' he said.
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