Vail Resort just announced EpicMix for the 2010-11 season. Reliving your ski or snowboarding day into the evening. Bejeweled has nothing on this. The connection with Social Media should be fun for a number of uses. I am excited to see how this is used by the skiers and riders. It is a very compelling and free product. However, having a pass with RF technology will allow VR to collect your daily usage data. For some people that is no problem. For others, we feel we don’t need to give this data if we choose not to do so.
I plan on using this and having fun with it occasionally. Although, knowing what I know about RFID and the potential misuses of the technology, I will also be using my SkiPassDefender This product costs less than a lunch on the mountain, and it protects my RFID-encrypted information safe from tech savvy thieves and from corporate data mining and marketing efforts. The Ski Pass Defender also effectively allows the skier or rider to “Opt-out” of being tracked around the mountain, and allows the pass to be easily scanned by the ticket scanner at the lift line. I think every frequent skier or rider who has an RFID pass should have this as part of their gear.
So, let’s see what the future brings to the mountains.