When Google launched its flagship phone in 2010, there was a commotion. The search engine had partnered with Samsung, after ending its two-year relationship with HTC. The first phone in the Nexus series came with a little feature called NFC.

History

NFC stands for “Near Field Communication”. The technology itself is neither revolutionary nor new. In fact, it is a subset of RFID or “Radio Frequency Identification”. RFID is an international standard used in radio communications. The standard was approved in 2003-04. There was an attempt to popularize NFC during 2007 and 2008. The cold response from manufacturers stopped the widespread adoption of NFC. There was little response for two years, when Samsung began making NFC-enabled phones and Google declared its support for the technology.

Much has changed since 2010. The industry no longer sees NFC as an unproven technology. The International NFC Forum now has more than 200 members, including the world’s most popular search engine – Google. Several companies in Japan and a handful of countries in Europe have already adopted NFC on a large scale. There are serious discussions in India and the US to find new business models that use NFC.

Future

Samsung is no longer the only manufacturer making NFC-enabled phones. Nokia and other big manufacturers have also jumped into the fray. The field is ripe. The next few years may witness many mundane things that will be made easier and faster thanks to the use of NFC.

Today, the fields of retail, transportation, and simpler data transfer have the most potential.

(a) NFC in retail

Services like VISA Wallet and Google Wallet promise to replace the hard paper and metallic coins in our pockets and replace it with a set of electronic dots on a computer screen. One of the largest e-wallet providers, Google Wallet, already supports NFC in monetary transactions. Users can use their NFC-enabled devices to pay with one touch in retail stores. This is faster and safer than paying with credit or debit cards.

(b) Transportation

Several large multinationals (AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile) are investigating the use of NFC tags in transportation. If the research turns up, you may no longer have to carry our passport to the airport, or even wait in long lines to book a ticket for a train or bus. Public transport in the coming years will be equipped with NFC readers that will allow the public to enter trains and buses by simply touching their NFC phones or NFC cards.

Even at airports, people can go through security checks and buy tickets to their desired destinations using their legacy NFC-enabled phones. Transportation systems with NFC technology are already being discussed in Dubai. If the NFC tags are successful in the United Arab Emirates, the transportation will be more convenient.

(c) Easier data transfer

Data transfer between devices with NFC cards is extremely easy and straightforward. It is less complicated than Bluetooth, where both users have to unlock a password, but it is more secure. NFC’s extremely close range makes it virtually impervious to hacking attempts.

NFC has been around for quite some time. Only recently has the world started to pay attention to the development of NFC applications. The future looks bright.