This blog contains information on the industry of Digital Media Production. It identifies many trends, some of which are now established, and others which are just beginning. We can see the start of "Digital Content" happening. Many new forms of content are starting to appear-the so called "User Generated" content.

The purpose of this blog is to record and present trends in digital media production. Ideally, we would see that the market for Digital and/or reusable content was emerging, and that no-one had managed to satisfy this niche. However the findings here will be presented in as fair and neutral way for the reader to determine his or her own conclusions. Digital media technology is still developing rapidly, with no potential end in sight.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

RFID Chips In Vegas



If entrepreneurs didn’t know by now that Technology was taking over the business world, now it’s encroaching on the gambling casinos. We can’t even escape it on our trips to Las Vegas.



RADIO-FREQUENCY IDENTIFICATION is headed for Vegas. Casino chips embedded with RFID tags and are being tested at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino and will be displayed this month at the new $2.7 billion Wynn Las Vegas hotel and casino.

The chips will each be given a unique player code to track behavior and possibly get more revenue out of high rollers. It’s estimated that this could be a $100 million business by the year 2011.

There are two Vegas based companies that own the casino-RFID game: Progressive Gaming International and Shuffle Master.

Progressive’s TableLink, which reads RFID chips using table-embedded antennas and records the wagers on a dealer’s PC, is the system of choice at the two casinos. Progressive and Shuffle Master have also developed optical card shoes, which holds decks and scan cards as they’re dealt. Shuffle Master’s Intelligent Shoe is already getting rave reviews in Australia and Asia.



The cost of outfitting a table with the chips and antennas costs a casino about $8,000, but analysts predict that Progressive will score bigger bucks from the $6 per day per table it charges for its system.

One RFID chip costs a casino 40 cents more than a standard chip, but that margin will drop to about 10 cents in the coming months.

This is certainly a “technology leap” from the “eye in the sky” that we all knew about in the casinos, but I don’t think that even George Orwell would have thought of these chips.

Those of us who used the games in Vegas casinos to escape our computers and software programs, seem destined to be followed by technology no matter where we go.

Somehow Radio-Frequency Identification in poker/gaming chips just doesn’t seem to be what a good poker player expects. Oh well, technology marches on...and on….and on.
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