Cutting RFID's range

BOSTON -- In hopes of soothing privacy fears about radio-frequency tags on consumer products, a manufacturer of retail product labels plans to give consumers a way to dramatically cut the tags' wireless range.

Marnlen Management Ltd. is the first RFID company to adopt the "clipped tag" technology developed in IBM Corp.'s research labs.

Marnlen will produce labels with RFID circuitry stretched across perforated paper. Consumers who buy clothing or other products with such a label can tear it like a ketchup packet, separating the tag's radio antenna from the chip that stores product information -- and thus shrinking the chip's wireless range from several feet to a few inches.

IBM developed the clipped tag to create a compromise in the debate over RFID.

Advocates of the technology -- which for now is used mainly on cases of items in warehouses, not individual products -- laud its ability to speed inventory and checkout. Opponents say that because wireless chips can be read from afar, people and their purchases could be surreptitiously tracked.

Treo stars in new movie

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- The acclaimed director behind the classic "1984" television commercial that launched Apple Computer Inc.'s Macintosh computers soon will promote yet another gadget icon. This time, however, the marketing will be incidental, not intentional.

Palm Inc.'s Treo smart phone plays about as prominent a role that a gadget can play in Ridley Scott's new film, "A Good Year," according to the filmmakers.

Russell Crowe plays an investment banker from London who winds up in Provence tending to a small vineyard he inherited. In the film, the multipurpose phone appears dozens of times, its signature ring sounding off repeatedly. It's used for phone calls, photos, video conferencing, e-mail and even wine selection -- akin to its real-world capabilities.

"Every once in a while, there's a prop that helps define a character, and the Treo is his key tie to the world, his lifeline, as he decides whether he's going to commit to his new life or go back to his old one," said Fred Baron, the executive vice president of feature productions at News Corp.'s Twentieth Century Fox.

Internet fever heats up

SAN FRANCISCO -- Although conditions haven't returned to the feverish levels of the dot.com boom, the Internet's business atmosphere is clearly heating up.

The latest symptoms of the escalating exuberance bubbled up this week at an elite gathering called the Web 2.0 Summit -- a 3-year-old event billed as a mere conference until the organizers renamed it this year to underscore its exclusive status.

The San Francisco shindig attracted so many movers and shakers that more than 250 Internet entrepreneurs jostled for a chance to show off their Web sites at a 90-minute session devoted to startups. The demand for on-stage presentations more than quadrupled from last year.

An advisory board winnowed this year's field of applicants to 13 lucky startups, which paid $10,000 apiece to take center stage.