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Glover Ferguson, the chief technology officer of global services and consulting company Accenture, is no geek. But he does have a geeky passion: RFID - radio frequency identification tags.

He thinks that these tiny devices will eventually be deployed in their billions, giving any object the ability to "say its own name" to all kinds of systems and processes.

Many logistics and retail companies have already invested heavily in the technology. Theoretically, supermarkets could even dispense with check-outs - a customer would simply be billed electronically as he or she left a shop with the goods.

Ferguson is not alone in his enthusiasm. Among the growing group of 'taggies' is Peter Cochrane, former chief technologist at BT, and now head of ConceptLabs, a technology incubator.

Cochrane thinks that "tagging technology will probably destroy the insurance industry" because many devices - such as cars - will only work for their rightful owners and stolen objects will continually reveal themselves to be stolen.

Ferguson, who devoted most of a keynote speech at the IDC European Technology Forum to the potential revolution that RFID could bring, also admitted, however, that there are many hurdles ahead.

These include how the information from millions or even billions of devices is handled; miniaturisation (a piece of so-called smart dust is, says Glover, more like a "smart clod", referring to its size); privacy; and price. And currently, just the RFID readers for a small supermarket would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.