Near Field Communication

When you are walking across the street, the mobile phone starts giving you the sales information in the shops. Is it going to happen in the near future? Yes, it is the power of technology and consumerism. The near field communication technology (NFC) lead us to a new platform where your mobile phones can be used to read the RFID tags from the shops/billboards and give you more information about the sales. To realize the NFC services in mobile phones, an NFC mobile phone should be able to utilize the functionalities of a contactless card and a mobile phone.

NFC is a short-range wireless technology. The equipments enabled with NFC, contain a transmitter and receiver to send and receive data from other NFC enabled equipment. Multiple devices in a small area can communicate with each other using the same frequency.

Google included support for NFC in the Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system and this functionality is also included in the Nexus S smartphone. The other smartphones enabled with NFC technology are Nokia C7, Nokia Astound, Samsung Galaxy S II, Samsung Wave 578.

Few applications based on NFC are given below (from wiki).

• 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 simply bringing the mobile phones close to each other.

Related Links


http://www.nearfieldcommunicationsworld.com/2011/03/15/36451/nfc-business-models-white-paper-sets-out-the-key-issues-involved-in-introducing-mobile-wallet-services/