NFC Forum members show of NFC solutions in Frankfurt

NFC Forum members show of NFC solutions in Frankfurt

The NFC Forum and some of its members are showing off some NFC solutions over in Frankfurt, Germany this next week. But why? At the end of the day, NFC is just another secure little protocol that has the added ability to work with tags just like its older brother, RFID. It is pretty cool in and of itself, but really nothing to get overly excited about. Strange that coming from us? Not really. We have never been enchanted by the actual technology as it is nothing new or remarkable outside of the fact that a radio frequency can power a small chip and antenna with nothing more than a radio field. NFC operates at 13.56 MHz. Data speeds range from 106 kbit/s to 848 kbit/s. NFC Tags only store small amounts of information, currently between 96 and 512 bytes of memory. Kind of a dry subject matter, eh? It isn’t that NFC isn’t an interesting technology, but it is hardly as bleeding edge as quantum computers and hadron colliders.

We think you’re maybe like us and would be more interested in the use cases of NFC. How will it change the world? Will it enable greater social initiatives? How green is it? Will if affect healthcare? How will access control using NFC? What are the implications of allowing physical objects to interact online?  Many other questions spring to mind when we talk about NFC. Yes, it’s those questions and the use cases that enchant us. NFC has the ability to change the way we do a lot of things. In fact, its possibilities go way beyond Bluetooth. NFC can interact and make Bluetooth more usable. NFC requires very little power. NFC can simplify complex work processes, and NFC is open and available to consumers. That’s not even mentioning payments, ticketing and couponing.

At the end of the day, the NFC Forum needs to show off some of the great uses for NFC to educate consumers and inspire inventors and developers to come out with clever uses for the technology. So no, it isn’t just a quick vacation for NFC Forum members, however, we are sure they don’t mind spending a day or so in Frankfurt. That’s why they show off a myriad uses for NFC whenever they can and it’s an important part of making NFC ubiquitous throughout the world.

As we mentioned, the NFC Forum is bringing some friends along to illustrate some inventive uses for NFC when they meet over at the Lemons & Limes Bar at the Sheraton Frankfurt Airport Hotel & Conference Center on February the 8th. It all kicks off at 6pm and goes until around 8pm local time. Oh, you need to register beforehand to gain admittance, but it’s free, so help yourself.

“We are looking forward to the NFC Forum’s inaugural Solutions Showcase as an energizing complement to our Members Meeting in Frankfurt,” said Koichi Tagawa, NFC Forum Chairman. “We encourage everyone who’s interested in innovation to join us at the reception and find out firsthand what’s behind the current excitement about NFC technology, and to enjoy refreshments with us in a relaxed and informal setting.”

NFC solutions that will be on show in Frankfurt this next week

So, what NFC spectacular solutions are you likely to see at this NFC Forum shin dig? Well, six firms have been announced and if you are new to NFC, most of them are likely to be unknown to you apart from Sony. Below is the description of each NFC solution and the company who is scheduled to show it off in the NFC Forum’s own words.

• AT4 wireless, an NFC Forum testing partner, will demonstrate its RIDER NFC Test tool for NFC Forum Digital Protocol and Analogue RF specifications; the product incorporates both test suites. The company is interested in meeting NFC ecosystem stakeholders, including device manufacturers, telecommunications operators, and test laboratories, at the Frankfurt event.
• HOTech demonstrations will include NFC FieldService, a data collection and processing solution supporting field service activities; NFC Patrol, for patrol guard and security services management; NFCampus, a management solution applicable to academic and similar environments; and NFC Art Pro, which supports cultural heritage activities and artifacts management.
• ITN International, Inc. will demonstrate the functionality and the business case for deploying and using NFC at events, via its Touch ‘N Go Event Solutions. The company’s demonstration will also show how cities, convention centers, transportation systems, hotels, restaurants, retailers and event producers can benefit from deploying citywide NFC credentials.
• NEXPERTS will showcase its NFC-enabled mobile wallets for payment instruments such as PayPass and payWave cards as well as membership cards, coupons, tickets, and access credentials. The Next-Generation Wallet combines an open-loop payment system with loyalty features in a single tap.
• Sony Corporation will show attendees a set of healthcare devices from different manufacturers that make use of its NFC Dynamic Tag chip to provide NFC support. Demonstrated devices will include step counters, blood pressure monitors, and weighing scales. The data measured by those devices can then be retrieved by a mobile phone via NFC. Sony will also present an Arduino-based NFC Dynamic Tag evaluation board and an Android library that simplifies the development of applications reading data from those NFC-enabled healthcare devices.
• TUOMI IT SA will demonstrate its NFC-based interactive presentation, information, and verification system for other firms’ products, its NFC-based object and service management support system for quality control and external services, and its mobile data collection with NFC and GPS. The company will also show its NFC Smart Posters for children, such as posters with jungle animals, pictures from different countries, or musical instruments.

To be honest, there is a good selection of NFC solutions on show here. However, we have to say the use cases here are really the tip of the iceberg. In reality, all the NFC projects, products and apps / services that are in development at the moment could half fill the CES main convention (which is big). We have an article about the Sony solutions for healthcare coming up in the next few days. We met with the team over at CES and their solution is easy to integrate into any healthcare solution that could use NFC with only a small chip and an environment already developed.

It is nearly plug and play, and Sony in the last few months have stepped up their support for NFC by a factor of ten despite being a co-inventor of the technology. If you are in the neighborhood we would urge you to go check out some of these solutions and speak with the folks over at the NFC Forum – they always know of the latest and greatest use cases for their fledgling protocol, and count some of the biggest firms globally among their members.