Nobody loves radio frequency identification. Many fear and loathe RFID. Most could not care less. But nobody loves it, probably because it does nothing for us and we can't play with it.

Apparently it is jolly useful for warehouse workers and truckers and market researchers and store detectives, but not for us.

However, this could be about to change. Researchers at Philips want to make RFID fun.

They aim to do this by putting an RFID reader in every mobile phone, so that users could look at the contents of a tag simply by holding their phone up against it.

Once the code is extracted, the phone would look it up on the web and display the information it had retrieved on the screen.

Imagine. You go into Marks and Sparks and hold your mobile phone against a pack of knickers you fancy (make sure you are in the appropriate aisle at this point).

The phone reads the tag and sends the code back to www.cheapskate.com, say, which runs a quick comparison search.

Back comes a message that the selfsame garments are on sale in Bhs round the corner at half the price.

Or, you are waiting at the bus stop and start idly reading a poster for the upcoming Thursday Next book (due in August and I can't wait).

An arrow points to a small square with 'Order this book now' on it. Press your mobile on the spot andan RFID tag behind it gives up its code, which directs the phone to the website.

Suddenly, the book's front cover is on the screen. Like what you see? Press the button to pass on your credit card details and get the book delivered.

And, if you are not a upcoming Thursday Next fan yourself (you moron) but at least have the sense to know someone who is, you can store the tag data and pass it on to your friend by touching phones. It could be the electronic equivalent of Post-It notes.

Philips is serious about this. It has set up partnerships with Visa, which would handle the payments bit, and Universal, which wants to sell DVDs and the like. It is even negotiating with a major mobile phone company (not Philips, which is a minor mobile phone company) to start getting RFID readers into the hands of the public.

It is a lovely vision. But will it work? Perhaps. It has all the right elements - the tags are cheap (Philips is Europe's largest manufacturer) and the readers consume little power.

It is cool. And possibly useful. And the participants could make lots of money if it takes off.

The big obstacle is the huge investment it would need to gain critical mass. Mobile phone buyers are not going to pay extra just for an RFID reader and the networks are unlikely to subsidise them until they see them resulting in increased GPRS use.

But the real block is simply the vast amount of data that would be demanded by RFID mobile phone users.

It is estimated that retailer Wal-Mart will generate more than seven terabytes of data a day when its RFID project gets underway. Current systems are just not scaled for that sort of data tsunami.

All this data has to be kept clean and fresh as well, and that involves expensive human intervention. It all looks like too much hard work to be worthwhile.

On the other hand, the idea that we, the public, might be given the means to read and perhaps even understand the codes that are set to be embedded in everything we buy, is tempting.

It could, just possibly, be the antidote to the potential for invasion of privacy that worries civil rights campaigners.

And it would be just too poetic if the retail industry actually paid to put this weapon in the hands of its customers.