Although the cost of tags, readers and software has been dropping in recent years, RFID deployments are still unaffordable for many companies seeking item-level inventory tracking.

London's Gatwick Airport has installed 2,000 Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons across its two terminals to help passengers navigate their way to flights, as well as receive push notifications. The beacon system, known as the "indoor blue dot," was provided by Pointr Labs.

For the past month, some miners in Turkey's Taurus Mountains have been wearing Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons as part of a real-time location system (RTLS) to help their employers view their location. The Leantegra BLE system, provided by telecom technology company Tagvance, enables the mine to meet federal regulations recently enacted by the Turkish government, in order to ensure that miners can be located at any time when in tunnels.

Michigan Medicine, one of the largest healthcare complexes in the world, has deployed active RFID technology to track thousands of assets throughout its facility, the hospital says. The technology is intended to reduce rental costs, as well as the rate of missing equipment as the healthcare provider expands further.

Wal-Mart is testing six next-gen approaches in two recently opened supercenters in Tomball, TX, and Lake Nona, FL. These stores were fully reimagined from a new layout, to building and environmental enhancements, to added technology that all improve the shopping experience, according to a blog post written by Jeff Muench, senior director of business development.

At a General Electric Co factory in this rural town, Keith Spahn, 60, used to take measurements of parts from railroad locomotives that are in for repair by hand.

Microsoft last week unveiled new tools intended to democratize artificial intelligence by enabling machine smarts to be built into software from smartphone games to factory floors.

MacroPoint, a global freight visibility provider, and Banyan Technology, a transportation management software company, have announced a partnership to expand the MacroPoint platform to include LTL carriers using Banyan's live carrier and application program interface (API) connectivity.

UPS is installing electronic beacons in its package cars to notify workers if they have placed an item in the wrong delivery vehicle. The initiative, known as Preload Smart Scan, is part of a suite of UPS projects that will use technology to error-proof package processing operations to ensure timely delivery and customer satisfaction.

Field service technology company Servicemax has partnered with software and services firm PTC to offer an Internet of Things system using radio frequency identification, satellite, long-range low-power (LoRa) RF or Wi-Fi technology to report when a piece of equipment starts to malfunction - even, in some cases, before a user notices the problem.