Design Features: December 22, 1994

Cover Story
RFID tags connect smart cars to smart highways	Small RF identification (RFID) tags are part of the critical communication link between automobiles and electronically directed "smart" highways. Other uses for RFID are increasing rapidly. -- Gary Legg, Executive Editor
Design Features The hottest new technologies and the latest design techniques to help you work efficiently and effectively.
Building the digital-video pipeline	Image compression continues to occupy the limelight, but a commercial digital-video system will need additional advanced technologies. One requirement is a practical way to deliver high-speed digital signals over existing channels. --Richard A Quinnell, Technical Editor
Rewritable data-storage system plays your favorite tunes, too	With a portable, handheld unit the size of a Walkman, you can now access and store the equivalent of 100 floppies' worth of data on a single disk. You can also listen to music and update complex software files on the fly. --James P Leonard, Senior Associate Editor
Spread-spectrum communication rises from military roots to star in wireless world	From high data security to effective spectrum use to improved noise immunity, spread spectrum offers it all. But these virtues, though inherent in the technology, don't come automatically or easily to real systems. --Dan Strassberg, Senior Technical Editor
Graphics accelerators bring 3-D to PCs	Inexpensive 3-D-graphics accelerators can now render complex 3-D images. This low-cost capability will transform desktop PCs into sophisticated workstations. --Manju Nath, Technical Editor