NFC Fear Mongering ?

An article in the "Daily Mail" which does have a bit of a reputation for alarmism about the security risks of NFC payments. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2137106/Your-card-details-stolen-air-Information-robbed-radiowave-thanks-new-contactless-technology.html . Interesting comments about people learning how to disable the RFID. 

 

Pay by Bonk ?

Always love The Register's use of words http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01/31/iphone_5_rumour_nfc_chip_on_the_way/ describes NFC payments as "pay by Bonk".  Also interesting to see http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01/31/french_nfc_paris_metro/ effort made to make the design of smart cards more interesting.
I'm still not convinced that automatic payment is really sorted in the NFC world, but transport etc. is certainly OK.

NFC where to now ?

NFC is the nearly technology at the moment. Payment systems are being pushed, but people may not really want to use their phone for everything, especially when they already have touch to pay systems. Maybe other applications like four squary sort of things ie location and presence based systems may be more appropriate, or maybe NFC phones will just be used to identify the serial number of your fridge !

Farewell Charlie Walton

Charlie Walton was a true pioneer of RFID - he has just passed away aged 89. One of his first inventions was an RFID- based door unlocking  device - and this is probably still the most familiar application for most people.
More at :http://venturebeat.com/2011/11/27/charlie-walton-inventor-of-rfid-passes-away-at-89/. One interesting of his life is that he was very much an "inventor", and this is certainly something that inspires young people, perhaps more than ISO standards or ROI.

Friday afternoon apps for RFID

Great one this - for $200 (US) have a permanent reminder your dearly departed for the mobile-phone using generation http://www.personalrosettastone.com/faq.html .No word on upgrades should formats change.
 If drowning your sorrows (see above) why not visit  the cheeky pub in Georgia USA - self service thanks to RFID ...
Still awainting results of NFC payment trials and no definitive news as to whether Apple will support NFC in Iphone 5.

Birds and bees

Birds being frozen chickens which you could buy via the new GOOGLE android NFC electronic wallet.
 Techy details here - http://developer.android.com/reference/android/nfc/package-summary.html
Bees - 13.56 MHz RFID tag equipped  bees (

Pahl M, Zhu H, Tautz J, Zhang S, 2011 Large Scale Homing in Honeybees. PLoS ONE 6(5): e19669. )

 

NFC and Google

the NFC forum have produced a report http://www.nfc-forum.org/resources/white_papers/NFC_Smart_Posters_White_Paper.pdf on deploying NFC to make a sort of minority report-lite  environment. the Register is still skeptical but Google seems to be investing heavily in this area. Killer application still seems a way away but I don't seem able to get my phone to read QR tags so who knows !