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NFC and what it means to you…
A few months ago when Google along with Samsung Mobile announced the Gingerbread release of the Android platform and the new Nexus S flagship device, they also announced one of the main features, Near Field Communication (NFC). NFC is an enhanced version of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology which works over short range using electromagnetic fields to communicate between devices.
NFC has several real, practical and personal use cases which can make a lot of your daily interactions easier by making them touch-less. Paying at transportation systems, accessing buildings and cars as well as getting information on the fly will become much easier with the help of NFC enabled devices. Imagine that your new mobile device comes built-in with an NFC chip. You would be able to simply touch your NFC enabled devices at gas stations, public transit kiosks and to a certain extent at ATM machines to transact effortlessly. All without ever having to take out your wallet look for the cash or coins and without having to punch in PIN numbers. There are several possible retail implementations which can make your shopping experience extremely quick and effortless. Once a retailer implements and integrates NFC readers into their cash registers, you no longer need to carry around your credit cards or retail cards or need to memorize your rewards account numbers, simply touch your NFC enabled mobile device to the reader and the information gets exchanged and you are done.
German luxury car manufacturer, BMW, has indicated their plans on making their next generation cars come equipped with NFC enabled keys. This will allow BMW owners to use their keys to do essentially some of the aforementioned capabilities. Taking it one step further, if you are vacationing and driving your BMW to the vacation spot, simply use your car keys to get access to your hotel room, charge for your meals and pool side drinks to your room by simply tapping your NFC enabled key against the reader.
While North America is just recently starting to toy around with the NFC technology, people in Europe and Asia have had several successful trials of this technology implemented into their mobile phones and smart cards which has allowed them to make purchases, obtain directions and purchase transportation fares.
The NFC Forum is an organization “formed to advance the use of NFC technology by developing specifications, ensuring interoperability among devices and services.” The group was formed in 2004 and now has close to 140 members according to their website. One of the principal members of the NFC Forum is our beloved wireless provider, Rogers along with Sony Ericsson, Texas Instruments, Samsung, LG and Research In Motion to name a few. For Canadians the ZoomPass service, a joint venture between Bell, Rogers and Telus, offers practical implementation of the Mastercard PayPass service which uses NFC technology to make paying at checkout counters seamless.
With Google implementing the NFC technology natively within Android 2.3 is a great boost for developers who want to create applications which rely on exchanging information based on proximity to both users and organizations. Moreover, embedding elements that are NFC aware into stickers, clothing, smart cards and notifying the users through prompts on their mobile devices creates another means of interaction and engagement with the consumer. These are just some of the practical applications of the technology.
In 2011 it is expected that more and more manufacturers including HTC, Samsung, RIM and even Apple will be implementing NFC capabilities within their upcoming products. This will hopefully boost many organizations, retailers, merchants and advertisers to make changes to incorporate NFC technology into their business models.
Via Puleen
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13 comments for “NFC and what it means to you…”
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I am quite excited about what this technology may bring. I would love to get rid of every card, every layalty card, etc in my wallet. Of course these companies would need to ensure that placing your debit card/credit card on the device is secure.
The one problem I have seen so far with this technology, specifically in the states, that it is not the corporations such as Visa or Mastercard who are the ones looking at providing this technology, it is the cell phone companies. And as we all know the cell phone companies dont generally have their customers interest in mind.
More and more smartphones will be a necessity, which is exciting and this is just one more type of technology to get excited for.
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“One of the principal members of the NFC Forum is our beloved wireless provider, Rogers…”
If you want to make statements like the above, please qualify it with something. They are CERTAINLY NOT my beloved wireless provider.
Overall a good article though, kudos.
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I guess you don’t know Puleen.
He’s been pretty active on the Canadian Android scene (LeaveNoDroidBehind.com) about Rogers denying us upgrades on our handset (HTC Magic in particular).
Your sarcasm meter is broken, you might want to get it fixed.
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I honestly think he was being sarcastic – nobody like Rogers
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Gathering information is cool. I’d probably use it for that, however I most likely wouldn’t use it to pay for stuff. Not having a chip or a pin entered just brings up too many issues with me.
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ohhh man… scarry stufff
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You guys are confusing RFID which stores a token which in turn is passed to the merchants system which does the purchase such as Esso speedpass. NFC is an active solution which requires the device to to the transaction as opposed to enabling the machine at the merchant to do it. Think about it as a Debit or Credit card on your phone so you don’t have to provide your information to the merchant, just the approval.
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I wouldn’t distinguish NFC as ‘active’ – after all there are active RFID tags, as well as passive. Perhaps ‘interactive’ would be a more useful distinction, as RFID is just a tag – you can just slap an RFID tag onto the case of a phone. When you add NFC to a phone you need to plug it into the phone’s logic, typically via the micro-SD slot or even by Bluetooth (if it isn’t built into the phone).
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Good point Tom, however an easier analogy is thinking about the current model, when you touch a mastercard at timmies for example, the active element is in the merchant’s machine and the passive element is in the card, the merchant recieves your information and processes the payment. In the NFC mobile commerce world, the passive element is the merchant, and the active element is in the device so the actual transaction occurs between your device and the bank / credit card company / rewards points company, and keeps that information out of the merchants hands.
The model is reversed at least on the e-commerce side.
There are many other opportunities for NFC but the whole e-wallet model is a big one.
As for NFC, it is its own wireless standard operating at 13.56 MHz and at rates ranging from 106 kbit/s to 848 kbit/s and for the device to support it typically means that the electronics required to transmit and receive the information is embedded in the device as well as the RF antenna system to make it work.
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My issue with NFC is that it all depends on the merchants to make it useful. My grocery store has NFC readers and I don’t even have to take my credit card out of my wallet, it’s 10x faster!!!
But they’re the exception! Most merchants are just starting to replace their swipe readers with chip readers. It’s gonna be ten years before they start to replace all those with NFC readers!!!
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I’m excited about this technology. Would love to see it at my local Safeway. I already use the self checkout and having the ability to use my phone for payment and club card would be an added layer of convience. Sending the receipt directly to my phone would be icing on the cake.
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heres the problem with the canadian market, the big 3 do not want to be known as loan sharks, using ur cell phone account as credit.. Its gonna be hella long time before you see this come to canada and actually see a canadian cell phone carrier embrace it. Think about it, could you imagine those companies trying to recover there loses over bullshit purchases that they supposedly “didn’t do”…. billing is already a nightmare with most of these companies..
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