NFC, or near field communication for those unaware, is starting to roll out across the world and many analysts are predicting big things for the future of the technology. NFC can be used for many everyday tasks that involve our interacting with something, but remove the interaction part — it uses a wireless range to connect with an NFC-equipped object you own that is linked to you and your information, such as a smartphone, and pass that information onto an NFC receiver, that can then be used for say, accepting credit card payments, unlocking doors, transport ticketing as well as RFID reading from posters or cards with RFID tags built in – something which Google are making a push towards with their Places scheme, which shop owners and restaurants can place a small drop-pin styled sticker onto their storefront and users with NFC-enabled devices can simply put the device to the window and find out information about the destination – including reviews/ratings and potentially the menu that is offered for restaurants.
But with very few devices currently not supporting the NFC standard, it is hard for many businesses to go forward in the hope that it does become the future. With the iPhone 5 being a top contender for introducing NFC support later this year as well as Juniper Research predicting that “one in five smartphones will have NFC technology by 2014″, and that many mobile phone companies around the globe are heavily looking into the technology, it looks like the future of NFC is looking interesting.
