Hitachi and the YRP Ubiquitous Networking Laboratory recently announced that they have developed a smart tag technology using UWB (Ultra Wide Band) radio communications. The new technology increases data transmission rates by ten times in comparison with existing smart tags, while only using a hundredth of current power consumption. Furthermore, smart tags using this technology will be able to continue transmitting signals for a period of three years without recharging, three times longer than current models, and their accuracy in location detection will be down to only several centimeters. Currently, UWB frequencies in Japan are used for satellite communications and broadcasting, but it is expected that the government will be making UWB frequencies available to the private sector as early as 2006, after which Hitachi and the YRP Laboratory will start selling their new smart tags.