ThingMagic is a 10-year-old technology company whose core idea seems as fresh today as when it first started. The bad news: that means it may have been too far ahead of its time. The good news: times are changing.

The Cambridge, MA-based firm was founded by five MIT Media Lab alums, who had the goal of “adding magic to everyday objects”—hence the company’s name. This “magic” came in the form of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, which enable wireless communication by way of tiny electronic chips that can be embedded in things, accompanied by readers and software to make sense of what each tagged item is, and track its whereabouts. The big vision was to create an “Internet of things,” so people could retrieve information about the objects around them—everything from product inventory on shelves to stuff in your home, office, or car.

Sounds a bit far out even today, right? Well, it was far more so in the early 2000s, and the evolution of RFID ever since has been quite a rollercoaster ride. To make a long story short, the technology was strong but its business use was overhyped, so it got stuck on the adoption curve. Tech companies based around RFID have come and gone, but some have endured, such as Alien Technology, Impinj (which I wrote about here), and ThingMagic, which all have raised a fair amount of venture funding.

In July 2008, my colleague Wade wrote an in-depth piece on ThingMagic, focusing on the company’s progress in shrinking its RFID readers (its main product) down to a size where they could be put into places like offices and hospitals—a big step toward realizing the Internet of things. Around the same time, Mark Roberti, the founder and editor of RFID Journal told me that it would be another two to three years before the RFID market would take off, because end users were still figuring out the physics and economics of tags and readers.

Well, it has been two years, and I’m wondering what has changed in the RFID world. To get some answers—and an update to the company’s story—I recently sat down with ThingMagic co-founders Yael Maguire and Ravi Pappu, and director of marketing Ken Lynch, to talk about what lessons they’ve learned over the past decade. We met at the company’s new digs at One Cambridge Center in Kendall Square.

“After 10 years, we’ve seen literally hundreds and hundreds of ideas for using the technology,” says Maguire, the company’s chief technology officer. “It may not be ubiquitous, but in most cases it’s caught up with people’s imagination. People are focusing on how to deploy it.” Pappu, who runs product development and implementation, puts it this way: “The story is changing from RFID on everything to RFID in everything. That’s always been the vision of the Internet of things.”

It’s certainly in ThingMagic’s interest to promote all the new ways RFID is being used. But beyond any PR spin, there’s something real going on. Yes, there is the recent news that Wal-Mart plans … Next Page »

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Seattle-based Impinj, the radio frequency identification (RFID) company, said today it has formed a partnership with Coca-Cola to provide RFID tags and readers for Coke’s new Freestyle drink dispensers. This contraption will give customers a choice of more than 100 flavors of sodas and other drinks, and will track and monitor dispenser operations, as well as customer preferences and other business analytics, in real time. Coke is testing the machines in California, Utah, and Georgia. (Bellevue, WA-based Bsquare is also collaborating with Coke on the Freestyle dispenser, serving as the lead systems integrator.)

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What’s the most exciting company in Seattle? I recently put the question to Patrick Ennis, the global head of technology for Bellevue, WA-based Intellectual Ventures, and his answer surprised me: Impinj. The firm in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood has been around since 2000, and is well-known for its focus on radio-frequency identification (RFID) technologies—not exactly the sexiest field in an era of Web 2.0, mobile software, and alternative energy startups.

But dig a little deeper, and the story of Impinj will grab you. Like most successful companies, Impinj has been forced to change its strategy at crucial moments. It has had to navigate tricky technology standards—eventually winning out in a major fight between standards bodies—and adapt to major challenges in the marketplace. Through it all, it has amassed an impressive network of customers, partners, and investors—to the tune of $110 million in funding from the likes of Arch Venture Partners, Madrona Venture Group, Polaris Venture Partners, and Mobius Venture Capital.

So how is it doing now? After Ennis mentioned Impinj—he led an investment in the firm back when he was a managing director at Arch—I was eager to hear its story, and why its technology and business model are still so promising. I recently had a chance to visit with Impinj’s CEO, William Colleran, and Evan Fein, vice president of finance and administration. What they told me amounted to quite a compelling case study of how to navigate a nascent market.

Impinj was founded in 2000 by a University of Washington professor of computer science and engineering, Chris Diorio, who was a student of microelectronics pioneer Carver Mead at Caltech. Diorio serves as Impinj’s chairman and chief technology officer. “He’s a fantastic professor and entrepreneur,” Ennis says. “Usually, professors just want to be professors. When you do find an entrepreneur professor, it’s heaven. The world needs more people like that.”

As Fein relates, Impinj originally focused on hardware for cell phones and base stations. Diorio had developed a technology called “self-adaptive silicon” that allowed an electronic circuit on a chip to adapt its characteristics after being fabricated. The company released a cellular product in 2001—right as the telecom industry was melting down. “We decided, ‘This isn’t going to work,’” says Fein, who was employee No. 8.

So the search was on for broader applications of integrated circuit technology. In late 2003, Impinj settled on RFID as its new focus, over other promising candidates like ultrasound and GPS. The idea of cheap, tiny chips that could be used to “tag” any product or shipment and improve companies’ supply-chain management was getting a lot of play in commercial circles. What Impinj brought to the table was a … Next Page »

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OK, I’m not usually a big fan of end-of-the-year lists. But given that Xconomy Seattle has been up and running for almost exactly six months (since June 16), Luke and I thought it would be fun and informative to share our site’s top 10 most-read stories so far—and why we think they were important or special.

The list is an interesting mix of stories that captures the spirit of what we’re doing here at Xconomy, and it also gives a pretty balanced retrospective on the events of the past half-year. The stories represent our commitment to cover all sorts of innovation in the Northwest, spanning technology, life sciences, breaking news (both good and bad), and in-depth features and analysis.

So, without further ado, here are the 10 most-read Xconomy Seattle stories of the past half-year:

10. Microsoft’s BizSpark Reaches Out to Startups

This piece covered how Microsoft relates to the startup community, through a review of the first 30 days of its BizSpark program.

9. It Came From the Hutch

The untold story of how Tysabri, the most effective multiple sclerosis drug on the market, was invented in a lab right here in Seattle.

8. Immune Design Raises $18M to Build Vaccine Company

Readers were excited to hear about one of the bigger venture financing deals of the year in Seattle, led by a team of superstars in immunology.

7. Heller Ehrman Dissolves

This was bad news based on a layoff filing from Washington State’s Employment Security Department. A global law firm with a large Seattle office, known for its work in the tech and life sciences community, has left the scene.

6. Amgen Scientist Vs. Bone Cancer

The story of a 13-year quest: how the persistence of a Seattle scientist at Amgen may pay off in the coming year, through a new drug for bone loss called denosumab.

5. Nathan Myhrvold Holds Court

An exclusive, in-depth interview with Nathan Myhrvold of Intellectual Ventures. The former Microsoft chief technology officer and founder of Microsoft Research covered everything from ping-pong with … Next Page »

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Xconomy is growing fast—so far, much faster than we foresaw when we launched less than a year ago. We deeply appreciate all of the visits to our site from our knowledgeable readers, as well as your kind words of encouragement and the great suggestions you’ve sent for making Xconomy better. Now, we want to take that interaction a step farther: we’d like you to participate in an audience survey that will help us learn more about our readers and hopefully make the site even more interesting and relevant to you and other members of the innovation community.

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