Mercury API Supports Entire Line of ThingMagic Embedded, Enterprise, Ruggedized and Desktop UHF Readers

Cambridge, MA, August 24, 2009 – ThingMagic, Inc. (www.thingmagic.com), a leading developer of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, today announced a completely redesigned Application Programming Interface (API), for configuring, controlling, and accessing the company’s entire family of embedded, fixed and integrated UHF RFID readers. By providing a common interface to all ThingMagic readers, the new Mercury® API simplifies the development of customized RFID applications, resulting in faster solution deployments and ROI.

The Mercury API requires little RFID expertise, and provides a consistent programmatic interface that enables developers to intuitively design and test:

• Reader and tag commands;
• Advanced read functionality such as setting antennas, protocols and filtering criteria;
• Advanced tag operations such as killing and locking tags;
• Privacy and security features;
• Performance and memory optimization

Following the company’s announcement of a new set of modular hardware components that allow customers to quickly develop customized, embedded RFID solutions using the ThingMagic M5e UHF RFID family of reader modules, this newly designed API extends the utility of all ThingMagic UHF Readers including the M5e reader module family, high-performance Mercury5 reader, enterprise-grade Astra™ reader, ruggedized Vega™ reader, and USB desktop reader.

"Providing a universal API allows our customers to develop RFID solutions across a wider range of form factors and applications, in a shorter period of time," said Yael Maguire, co-founder and CTO of ThingMagic. "Common high-level reader commands are supported on all ThingMagic RFID readers and embedded RFID modules, allowing developers to fully utilize the underlying RFID infrastructure through a single intuitive interface. Altogether, this dramatically reduces time to market, speeds ROI, and supports our goal of making RFID readers easy for our customers to use."

The ThingMagic Mercury API is available for several programming languages. The API is written in Java and C# and supports the following application types:

• .NET applications in the .NET Compact Framework v2.0
• Windows applications in the .NET Framework
• Windows applications in the Java Framework
• Linux (Intel) and MacOSX applications in the Java Framework

The Mercury API communicates with readers through a TCP-based network connection or via local serial ports. On-reader applications are supported on the Mercury5 and Astra readers through a “C” API or Linux shell scripts.

The Mercury API is available now to existing customers from the ThingMagic support website.