Hasta La Gadget!

Near Field Communication (NFC) is shaping up to be one of the hottest tech trends for 2011 now that payment systems and new handsets (driven by the Gingerbread build of Android and presumably, a near-term iOS release) are making their way into the US and Europe. Add BMW to the growing list of supporters with its NFC key of the future. Bimmer researchers envision linking the key to the car’s navigation and entertainment system allowing you to make hotel reservations or purchase train tickets, for example. You could then download the ticket directly from your car to the key which could then be used to board the train. Later, a key linked to your banking information could even be used to settle the hotel bill. BMW believes its approach is more secure than that of an NFC-enabled cellphone because its system is both closed and encrypted. Possibly. But we’re still more likely to have our cellphone in a pocket while traveling than the key to a car parked a few hundred miles away. Of course, there’s nothing preventing us from tapping the key to our cellphone and transferring the data — it is still in the R&D phase for the next generation of ConnectedDrive after all. Click through for the video.

Continue reading BMW’s NFC Key is your ticket to ride, and you should care (video)

BMW’s NFC Key is your ticket to ride, and you should care (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Feb 2011 06:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We woke up this morning in Dallas to 20 degree temperatures and a parking lot covered in ice. Not exactly the kind of weather the NFL was hoping for when it selected the new Cowboys Stadium to host Super Bowl XLV, but it didn’t stop both teams and media from making their way — however slowly — to Arlington for Super Bowl Media Day. Naturally, the likes of ESPN were there in full force, but rather than picking apart defensive schemes and seeing who could outgun Troy Polamalu for the longest mane in North Texas, we spent our time asking about mobile OS preferences and soaking up knowledge from Cowboys CIO Pete Walsh. With a price tag well north of $1 billion on the new Cowboys Stadium, the home to the world’s largest HD display is certainly one of the most technologically advanced in the world. It’s packing 884 wireless access points throughout (not to mention an internal network operations center that constantly monitors activity on each one), 260 miles of fiber optic cabling, capacity to handle over 100,000 simultaneous wireless connections, over 3,100 IPTVs and micro cell towers for each major carrier within — you know, so that kickoff video that just can’t wait actually sees its way onto YouTube prior to the start of the second half.

Head on past the break to catch of a video of us talking smartphone platforms with Green Bay Packers center Scott Wells, as well as a lengthy (and insightful) interview with the Chief Information Officer of the Dallas Cowboys. Everything from the Cowboys’ rejection of FanVision to their hopes to blanket the stadium with gratis WiFi is covered, and we’re even given a hint that contactless payments and mobile food ordering systems could be just a season or so away.

Continue reading Super Bowl XLV Media Day: Packers split on iOS / Android, Cowboys CIO talks mobility

Super Bowl XLV Media Day: Packers split on iOS / Android, Cowboys CIO talks mobility originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Feb 2011 19:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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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.

[via Stanford, Engadget]

Ladies and gentlemen of the, ahem, jury, we intend to show — through rumors and circumstantial evidence — that Apple might very well be building Nexus S-like NFC capabilities into next-generation iPhones and iPads. We present for your consideration exhibits A, B, and C: three Apple job posts, seeking two managers of global payment platforms and one test engineer for iPhone hardware. According to the original post, the right engineer possesses a background in both ICT (information and communication technology) and RFID (radio frequency identification), which forms the basis for NFC. Suspiciously, Apple removed the “ID” in “RFID” sometime in the past 24 hours. Still not convinced of Apple’s NFC involvement? Consider this: Apple’s manager of global payment platforms is tasked with contributing “to the analysis and development of new payment types and processes.” Okay, so there’s not a smoking gun in sight, but a little innocent conjecture never hurt anybody.

Apple job posts point to built-in NFC capabilities for iPad / iPhone originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 Jan 2011 08:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The next iPad and iPhone will contain a Near-Field Communication (NFC) chip that will let you use them to make purchases, according to Bloomberg. This technology is widespread in other countries – Japan, for example – but has never taken off in the US. Putting a chip into the iPhone 5 could provide the critical mass that is needed for wireless payments to go mainstream.

It’s a nice theory, and it may well be true, but Bloomberg’s sources are not inside Apple itself. Instead, the story comes from consultants, and is pure speculation.

NFC lets you pay by touching or waving your phone near a payment terminal. You have likely used very similar RFID technology when using public transport – the Oyster Card in London is a good example. In fact, NFC is compatible with the RFID tech used in these cards, so you could use your phone to get on the bus and metro, too.

NFC in the next iPhone makes sense, despite the complete lack of evidence. Last year Apple added a front-facing camera and a gyroscope to the iPhone 4. The next iPhone needs some new gimmick to make people buy it, so why not con tactless payments? For many people, losing their iPhone is already more painful that losing their wallet, so why not toss all those eggs into one tiny, beautifully-engineered basket?

Apple Plans Service That Lets IPhone Users Pay for Purchases With Handsets [Bloomberg]

Photo: Chris Mear / Flickr

See Also:

• NFC
• Pay for Coffee Nationwide With Your iPhone, Blackberry
• Visa Case Turns iPhone into Credit Card
• BMW Squeezes Wallet into Car Keys
• McDonald's Tries Out New RFID-enabled Pay-By-Phone Coupons …