All about NFC
Once in a while, a new technology comes out that changes the way we interact with our surroundings and the way we interact with devices. Mobile devices were once used strictly for making calls and sending texts. But now, they have become an essential part of our life. Calls, messages, chatting, browsing, games, music, movies, still and video capture, social networking etc are common things to do on a smart-phone these days. Have you ever thought “What next?”. My answer would be “NFC”. According to NFC Forum, NFC is technology that makes life easier and more convenient for consumers around the world by making it simpler to make transactions, exchange digital content and connect electronic devices with a touch. Instead of going deep into the technical detail, let me start with a short story, or rather a day in the life of a person with NFC enabled devices.
Amar wakes up to pleasant music played in his smart-phone (scheduled wake up alarm) on a Friday morning. While getting ready to go to office, Amar feels like listening to Rock music on his wireless home theater system. So, he starts playing Rock genre on his smart-phone and taps his phone on the home theater system and immediately, music starts streaming from his phone to home theater via home Wi-Fi network. At the metro station’s entrance, Amar taps his phone on the reader to pass through the turnstile. While at the local metro station, Amar finds a poster about a musical event that is going to happen in the city. He takes his phone out and taps it on the poster and his phone gets event detail and option to book tickets right away. Once the booking is done, tickets are downloaded to his phone. While in office, Amar gets a call from home, reminding him of weekend trip to newly setup aviation museum in New Delhi. Amar books travel and accommodation tickets as well as entry tickets to the museum that includes access to museum’s Wi-Fi network. Come weekend, it’s time for a trip to Delhi. Amar, with his family takes a cab to the airport. Upon reaching the airport, Amar checks the fare and taps his phone on the cab’s reader to make the payment and heads to first checkpoint. At the checkpoint, Amar places his phone on the reader. The security personnel, after checking the ticket detail that is displayed on their console (result of Amar tapping his phone on the reader) transfers the boarding pass to the phone and lets Amar and his family through. While waiting for their flight, Amar goes to the magazine stall, picks up couple of magazines and pays to the store by tapping his phone on their reader. At the flight’s entrance, Amar taps his phone on the reader and the door opens allowing him and his family into the airplane. While in the flight, Amar gets into casual chat with his fellow passenger and finds that he is a gadget freak. They become good friends in no time. Before the end of the journey, they both tap their phones to exchange business cards. After the flight, Amar’s family head to the hotel. Once they reached the hotel, Amar places his phone on a reader at reception and the receptionist gets the check-in detail, checks Amar’s identity and transfers alloted room’s e-key to Amar’s phone. To be on safe side, Amar sends the same detail to his wife’s phone. At their hotel room’s entrance, Amar taps his phone at the door knob and the door unlocks automatically. The next morning, Amar’s family head to the aviation museum and follow the similar procedure, tap the phone – gain access – enter the building. This time, Amar brings his tablet PC along. The museum is fully equipped with NFC posters and high speed Wi-Fi network. At the exhibits that are most interesting, Amar taps his tablet PC on the smart-posters and he gets options to play video or show documents related to the exhibit along with options to purchase scaled models of the exhibits at the museum’s store.
This is not some sci-fi story, this is what NFC provides. The following three areas is where NFC will be most useful:
- Connection
- Transaction
- Access
Connection: NFC acts as a technology enabler. Sharing media by a simple tap, connecting to an accessory like Bluetooth headset/speakers by a simple tap falls under this category. What takes few steps now happens with a single tap. Do note that NFC does not do the data transfer. It can but it need not. NFC’s data transfer rate is extremely low and is not feasible for transferring large content. On the other hand, the connection between NFC devices can take place in less than a second. As a result, NFC will be commonly used to initiate the connection and hand over the control to Bluetooth or Wi-Fi or relevant connection. Also, NFC can be used to download information from smart-posters, information like:
- Product information from a smart-poster of newly released or upcoming product.
- Event detail and connection to book tickets instantly at a movie theater or via a smart-poster at a random place.
- More information on an exhibit at a museum/exhibition
Check the following video which gives excellent example on how NFC can be used to get information or initiate connection:
Transaction:
NFC turns your mobile phone into your wallet. Gone will be those days when you have to hand your debit/credit card and wait for those operators to swipe and swipe, enter pin, blah blah blah. Paying taxi fares, paying for food at hotels, paying at various stores etc come under transaction. Your mobile phone replaces your wallet ( no need to pay by cash and no need to pay using cards). Have a look at this Google Wallet Introduction video: As seen in the video, you can store your credit/debit card detail in the Google wallet application and then let the Wallet does the magic. NFC plays a very important part here in doing the transaction and hence, Google Wallet works only on phones with NFC.
Access:
Thanks to the high speed nature of NFC, those ugly looking smart-cards can now be replaced by your mobile phone. No more do you need to carry smart-cards when you stay at a hotel or go to a parking lot and have that constant fear of losing them. The same ticket or entry e-key can be downloaded to your phone and turn your phone into a key. You can even use your phone as you house’s key. Each of these are simple things that NFC can do but when combined, NFC saves lot of time and effort and makes our lives more secure. Check this excellent video posted by Nokia on how NFC can bring difference to our lives: Also, have a look at another video from Nokia on their own implementation of NFC:
Security:
This is one common questions that many will have. If our phone is a wallet, what happens if we lose our phone? Well, all you need to do is call relevant gateway and disable your phone, the same way that you disable your lost credit/debit card. Also, facial recognition to unlock the phone incorporated into the latest version of Android gives a glimpse at the future. NFC operations secured by biometric scans makes it infinitely better than traditional payment methods. I recently saw a demo of a phone having a finger print scanner. Any secure NFC transaction can be initiated by doing a fingerprint scan. One can also use PIN to allow NFC operations to initiate.
NFC implementation
There are many phones that already have NFC chip inbuilt and here is a short list of such phones with NFC chip in them. Citibank in Bangalore did a six month pilot trial on NFC and you can find the report here. TATA Docomo is planning to start NFC kiosks in Hyderabad. Many countries are planning and working to use NFC for public transport, many banks across the worlds are getting ready to implement NFC based transactions. You can find all such news and updates here.
NFC Forum
The Near Field Communication Forum was formed to advance the use of Near Field Communication technology by developing specifications, ensuring interoperability among devices and services, and educating the market about NFC technology. Formed in 2004, the Forum now has 150 members. Manufacturers, applications developers, financial services institutions, and more all work together to promote the use of NFC technology in consumer electronics, mobile devices, and PCs.
www.nfc-forum.org contains huge amount of information on NFC. From whitepapers to use cases, this is the place to go to if you want to learn about NFC and know what is next for NFC. And that is where you should go if you want to go in-depth.
