NFC: Not Just For Mobile Payments
Posted in: Google, nexus s, nfc, Today's Chili
NFC technology might still be months away from being called the next big thing, but researchers are already looking to turn it into a useful tool for collaboration on smartphones. NFC, or near-field communication, is already a part of Google’s Nexus S, and rumors suggest Apple might bring it to the next-generation iPhone to use in mobile payments. Stanford researchers are looking to take it beyond the usual embedding of NFC tags in objects to add a social, communicative element to the technology.
After creating a customized version of the Android OS with support enabled for peer-to-peer mode NFC, the researchers collaborated on a whiteboard app just by tapping two Nexus S phones together. Think Google Docs, but between phones using NFC. Having the two phones in close proximity let the NFC chips pair the handsets, then data was shared using a platform called Junction. The researchers said Junction will allow collaboration and app-sharing not just on NFC between phones, but also between laptops, desktops, TVs and whatever other devices can run the software. If this little experiment is any indication, the not-so-distant future might see us transferring our work between gadgets with just a tap, thanks to NFC chips.
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