Abstract: Systems and methods for wirelessly controlling equipment or apparatus by employing radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. The systems and methods provide the capability to manually or automatically select an RFID tag or change the encoded information in an RFID tag to wirelessly change the control state of a piece of equipment or an apparatus. The system includes an RFID based selector including at least one RFID tag, and an RFID reader capable of wirelessly reading RFID codes from the RFID tags of the RFID based selector. The system further includes a control mechanism capable of changing a control state of said equipment or apparatus in response to said read RFID codes. To expand the system capabilities yet keep power requirements at the selector to a minimum, methods are included of passive addressing of many pushbuttons in the selector. Wireless and battery free selectors are explained. Utilizing the inherent ID code of the tag permits management of which selectors are virtually connected.

Abstract: A protection system for a hard drive in a portable computing device in which the hard drive is placed in a protective state based on the kinetic energy of the hard drive exceeding a determined threshold. Upon determination that the threshold has been exceeded, the protection system takes steps to protect the hard drive so that the hard drive will be less susceptible to damage from impact.