Near Field Communications

Looks like there has been some renewed interest lately in "NFC" - Near field communcation - which is a high frequency wireless communication technology which works for distances around 5 inches. It basically can allow an owner of a mobile phone to use the device to perform:

- mobile payments from your phone (we've heard about that for a while now)

- mobile ticketing

- smart poster - ability for an advertiser to give you something because you came close to their poster - interesting application !

- simplified bluetooth pairing - you will be able to "pair" two Bluetooth devices just by clicking "accept" rather than the current contortions.

- electronic money (vending machine application)

- identity documents

- membership cards (Costco !)

- loyalty program retention

- electronic keys.

Benefit of NFC over bluetooth include quicker acknowledgement time, and depending on the implementation, the phone can be completely off to still take advantage of NFC ( in case your battery is dead but you still want to buy the M&Ms out of the vending machine)

Downside to NFC is it is a little more restricted (bandwidth-wise) compared to Bluetooth.

Numerous challenges exist to NFC making its primetime debut, but with better cooperation from specifically the Mobile Providers and sim id<>NFC id integration, we're close to seeing some large players (besides Nokia) hit this feature.

Just add one more benefit to the mobile phone in addition to all the others we already have !