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NFC – the latest in short-range communications
Standing at the cutting edge of wireless connectivity technology is Near Field Communication (NFC). This innovative new technology is making inroads into applications to make your life easier.
What is NFC?
Near Field Communication is a new, short-range wireless technology that has evolved from existing contactless identification and interconnection technologies. Operating at 13.56 MHz and transferring data at up to 424 Kbits/second, NFC allows the transfer of data between electronic devices quickly and safely. Most commonly found in such control points as car park entrances or doorways, the compatible NFC equipment needs to be only a few centimetres apart for the reader to be able to gather the data from a ‘swipe-card’ for example, and allow access to secure areas. Once an NFC connection has been established, it can then be compatible with other wireless technologies such as Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. Because the transmission range is so short, NFC-enabled transactions are inherently secure.
NFC can be used in a variety of devices from mobile phones to enable payment or transfer information (NFC is now being incorporated into ‘smart-phones’, allowing people to ‘bump’ information from one phone to another just by touching the phones together) to digital cameras.
NFC – the power to change our lives
Millions of people all over the world are already familiar with NFC technology, even if they don’t realise it. This exciting new technology is being incorporated into a huge range of applications including retail registers, advertising signs, vending machines and thousands of other devices, systems and signage across the globe. Estimates are that NFC-enabled mobile phone contactless payments will facilitate over $36billion of worldwide consumer spending by 2011, making it one of the most important technological developments of the age.
NFC Interoperability (Compatibility)
NFC is both a subset & superset of RFID.
The NFC specification on which products are built, defines interoperability between all products. |
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