"Kevin Ashton" (born 1968) is a United Kingdom/British technology pioneer who cofounded the Auto-ID Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which created a global standard system for RFID and other sensors. He is known for inventing the term "the Internet of Things" to describe a system where the Internet is connected to the physical world via ubiquitous sensors.

Ashton was born in Birmingham, UK. He was working as an assistant brand manager at Procter & Gamble (P&G) in 1997 when he became interested in using RFID to help manage P&G's supply chain. This work led him to MIT, where he helped start an RFID research consortium called the Auto-ID Center with professors Sanjay Sarma and Sunny Siu and researcher David Brock. The center opened in 1999 as an industry sponsored research project with the goal of creating a global open standard system to put RFID everywhere. Ashton was the Center's Executive Director. Siu, then Sarma, acted as Research Director, later Chairman of Research. Under Ashton and Sarma's leadership, the number of sponsors grew to 103, and additional labs were funded at other major universities around the world. Once the system was developed, MIT licensed it to not-for-profit standards body GS1 and the project reached a successful conclusion. The labs were renamed Auto-ID Labs and continue their research.

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Dilution looks to be about 11 percent, which is a touch less than the benefit from the synergies.

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We couldn't be happier with the success of the Gen 2 demonstration. Working with leading companies such as Zebra and Texas Instruments allows us to further strengthen our RFID technology capabilities.

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This was a strategic opportunity that was too good to miss. Cisco was very natural fit for us. I don't think there's an RFID company in the world that would have passed on this opportunity.

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Small companies are the real innovators in this market, ... but if the burdens around IP become too heavy, and there are too many lawsuits, those companies will withdraw from the market.

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The most exciting part with respect to this [announcement] is that Fujitsu Transaction Solutions is a major player with major retailer customers, and we're very pleased to be selected as the reader provider.

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That should keep them going for a while on the Ice.

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It's pretty much a little village down there where everyone knows everyone, so if they can walk into a loo and buy a condom, it's a lot easier than going to the local shop and buying them, when everyone knows what's going on.

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I would pay thousands of dollars.

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