Thursday, March 3, 2011

NFC : What's the BUZZ ?

NFC, It's nothing new but We've been hearing alot about this technology being incorporated in the next gen smartphones, what is it  really? what are its practical applications? How is it different from other similar technologies?  what's all the commotion about? I hope it's not another fried chicken



NFC short for " Near field communication " is a high frequency, short range ( upto 10cm) communication technology. It's been incorporated in mobile phones for quite some time now.

NFC technology is currently aimed mainly at being used with mobile phones. There are currently three specific uses for it :

  • Card emulation: the NFC device behaves like an existing contactless card
  • Reader mode: the NFC device is active and reads a passive RFID tag, for example for interactive advertising
  • P2P mode: two NFC devices are communicating together and exchanging information.

Here's a video, to get a general idea :





Possibe Future Application:

  • Mobile ticketing in public transport: an extension of the existing contactless infrastructure, such as Mobile Phone Boarding Pass.
  • Mobile payment: the device acts as a debit/credit payment card.
  • Smart poster: the mobile phone is used to read RFID tags on outdoor billboards.
  • Bluetooth pairing: in the future pairing of Bluetooth 2.1 devices with NFC support will be as easy as bringing them close together and accepting the pairing. The process of activating Bluetooth on both sides, searching, waiting, pairing and authorization will be replaced by a simply bringing the mobile phones close to each other.
Other intersesting possible applications
  • Electronic ticketing: airline tickets, concert/event tickets, and others
  • Electronic money
  • Travel cards
  • Identity documents
  • Electronic keys: replacements for physical car keys, house/office keys, hotel room keys, etc.

A patent licensing program for NFC is currently under development by Via Licensing Corporation, an independent subsidiary of Dolby Laboratories.

RIM blackberry has teamed up with the Bank of America to launch a pilot project for evaluating the practical aspects of NFC based electronic payment system.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Dare to Say !