GM awards billions in tech contracts

General Motors awarded about half of $15 billion it plans to spend over the next 5 years on information technology contracts.

GM’s 10-year contract with EDS ends in June, so the automaker began a re-bidding process two years ago. EDS will continue to have the most business, although somewhat less than under the old contract.

Contracts went to Electronic Data Systems (EDS), Capgemini, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Wipro and Covisint.

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Technology

• Implanting Microchips to link the Body and the Computer

The future is now for radio frequency ID chips.

Implanting a chip is a relatively simple procedure.

People are already using their cellphones as an extension of their communications ability.

The tiny silicone device, which for years have been safely implanted in pets and livestock to identify their owners, come with an encoded string of numbers. They are read by a scanner two to four inches away, much like a bar code except that the chips don’t need to be visible to be read.

Digital visionaries have long foreseen a future when people and computers merge.

Digital products people use every day are becoming more integral to the human body.

Bluetooth wireless technology enables jackets and sunglasses to double as electronic devices.

In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration gave approval in 2004 to a Florida company, Verichip, to implant RFID chips in people as a means to retrieve medical information. The information is not on the chip; it is in a computer database that hospitals gain access to by scanning patients who carry a chip beneath their skin. In the last 3 years, Verichip has implanted more than 2,000 people around the world and 60 in the United States. Its chips are a proprietary technology and cost about $200 each.

• RFID Rolls Into NASCAR Race

Goodyear will provide racing teams with tires that have RFID devices embedded into the sidewalls.

Aiming to help manage a huge inventory of leased tires, the program gives a green light to auto racing’s first deployment of radio-frequency identification semiconductor chips and antennas embedded in the rubber.

Goodyear was asked by NASCAR to assist them in trying to cut the amount of testing that teams had been doing on their own. “The way to do it is to lease the tires so the tires are returned at the end of the race,” said a Goodyear spokeswoman.

Race teams used to buy tires and test them before the race. Now, NASCAR will test the tires and provide them to the teams, which will return them after the race for a partial rebate. RFID will assist in the implementation of NASCAR’s new controlled testing procedures.

The RFID scanning equipment will quickly read the information embedded in the sidewall of the tire. The tire identification is the first piece of data that will be available through the computer chip.