With the kickoff of the 2011-2012 NFL football season this weekend, one might see the title of this article and think football. To the contrary, this article intends to explain one of the up and coming technologies that you are bound to hear a lot about in the immediate to near future. If you have a relatively new smartphone device, you may already have access to a technology referred to as Near Field Communication or NFC.
NFC, the brainchild of two companies – Sony and NXP. NFC allows two devices that are embedded with RFID chips to transmit small pieces of data between each other when they are in close proximity. This data can be credit card information, coupons, tickets,etc. Due to the sensitive nature of the data being transmitted, one NFC enabled device will need to get up close and personal with the other device in order for the transmission to take place — a swipe or a tap on the reader should do the trick. Close proximity is usually defined by no more than a few centimeters.
NFC is expected to become a widely used system for making payments by smartphone in the United States. Many smartphones currently on the market already contain embedded NFC chips that can send encrypted data a short distance (“near field”) to a reader located, for instance, next to a retail cash register. Shoppers who have their credit card information stored in their NFC smartphones can pay for purchases by waving their smartphones near or tapping them on the reader, rather than bothering with the actual credit card
NFC permits quick exchange of small amounts of data between mobile devices, personal computers, and smart objects. These smart objects can include door locks, etc.
The full capabilities of NFC can be broken down into three key genres:
1. Card Emulation Mode – The mode in which Google Wallet and other forms of contactless pay will be based, card emulation mode is exactly what it sounds like — the phone becomes your credit card. Emulating a traditional smart card makes it convenient for companies like MasterCard and Visa that already have infrastructures set up for contactless pay, since nothing has to be changed.
2. Reader Mode – This allows the phone to read passive RFID tags on posters, stickers, and other stationary objects that contain certain types of information on them. For instance, you could tap your phone on the reader tag in a movie poster and it would begin playing the movie trailer, provide theater times, locations, and so on.
3. Peer-to-peer (P2P) Mode – P2P offers interaction between two active NFC-equipped devices such as phones. Using this mode, you could make payments to another individual or business just by tapping the two phones together.
The market for near field communications technology for mobile payments in cell phones is going to rise to nearly 550 million units per year in 2015, from about 50 million units in 2010, according to market research company IHS iSuppli.
