I think I can help you out a bit and just a few days I got the phidgets kit (reader & tags) and tried to set this up. The phidget reader you can use is the 1024 reader and any compatible tag. Once you get your phidget hardware it will not run directly off the bat with the intuiface lift & learn experiences.
You need to write the tags first from the reader. The phidget site has the download for the phidget control center app, download that, install it, run it, plug in your phidget reader, put a tag on it, select the appropriate write protocol and write the tag. This bascially assigns an id to that tag which you will later use in the intuiface XP.
Note the tag needs to be atleast 7 characters, to keep it simple I just used 7 numbers to identify it.
Once the tag is written, you can test it out with the XP.
Hope this helps.