How a Piece of Paper May Soon Be Able to Connect to the Internet

In today's world where the Internet is no longer a luxury but a necessity, scientists are looking at different ways of connecting different types of devices to the Internet. Researchers at University of Washington, in partnership with Disney, have discovered a way of equipping a simple piece of paper with radio-frequency tags to allow it to connect to the Internet, according to a report in The Seattle Times.

The researchers use small sized radio-frequency tags, which are the size of a 10-cent coin, and attached them to pieces of paper. These radio-frequency tags, in turn, serve as sensors that can be used to communicate with another device that reads and interprets whatever it picks up from the sensors. The device then implements actions according to what each gesture is programmed to do.

Disney Research and Carnegie Mellon researchers had a hand in the research and development project, which eventually produced small stickers that can be stuck onto a piece of paper, together with a group of doctoral students in computer science and engineering of UW. The UW team will be presenting their research at the Association for Computing Machinery conference.

A report from Tech Crunch cited that the technology was first discovered by Disney Research. Disney Research found a way to make use of "off-the-shelf RFID tags" by creating "a low-latency way to process RFID signals." This meant that the tags can be used on simple objects such as paper or toys, giving them a different level of interactivity that is not only wireless but also power efficient. In a demonstration video, the system made use of a Tic-Tac-Toe game made of wood which was being tracked on a computer screen.

According to a report on The Verge, some of the objects that have been created using this cheap RFID system include wireless pong controllers, an unpowered music synthesizer and an interactive Tic-Tac-Toe game made of wood.