Everything You Need to Know About NFC

20 Sep


What Is Near Field Communication?

Let’s start with a basic definition: NFC is a wireless technology that makes use of interacting electromagnetic radio fields to transmit small bits of information between an “initiator” and a “target” — a key card and your hotel room door, for example. It’s similar to Bluetooth in the sense that both are short-range communication technologies, and is considered a subset of existing RFID (Radio Frequency ID) standards given that is uses radio waves for identification purposes. But NFC has its unique set of characteristics that will determine how it’s used in real-world practical applications.

For one thing NFC transmits data across much smaller distances, typically between 4 and 10 centimeters, compared to Bluetooth’s 10-meter range. This by-design limitation reduces the likelihood of unwanted interception and makes NFC particularly suitable for crowded areas where correlating a signal with its transmitting physical device becomes difficult.

From security perspective applications have to use higher-layer cryptographic protocols like SSL to establish a secure channel.


How Does It Work?

As mentioned before, NFC involves an initiator and a target, where the initiator actively generates an RF field that can power a passive target without an electricity source. See it as simple as only one of the devices ‘needs’ to be powered. This enables NFC targets to take very simple form factors such as tags, stickers, key fobs, or cards that do not require batteries.

A simple example would be holding a NFC-equipped smartphone near a tagged movie poster and getting all relevant information in seconds — trailer, reviews, schedules at the nearest theater and the option to buy tickets online. The smartphone would be the initiator and the tagged poster would be the passive target.

    • Public transportation. This could arguably be a subset of mobile payments but it’s worth mentioning on its own. In fact, in urban areas with high population density and good public transportation this can be a major driver of NFC adoption. Pilot and commercial programs have already been deployed in many cities of the world — including my current city Nice, France — where you can pay the bus, metro or tram with a tap of your phone.
    • Keys. Imagine getting rid of that extra weight in your pocket by replacing your entire keychain with your mobile phone. With a NFC-enabled phone you could potentially tap your way into your apartment, office or hotel room, start your car’s engine, and access anything else that requires a key with one single device.
    • “Check-ins” and venue reviews. Google recently began pushing this by putting NFC-enabled Places stickers just outside some restaurants and businesses in the Portland, OR area. With your NFC-equipped phone you can easily rate places or read reviews so you have an idea if the food or service is any good before going in. It’s also useful for getting ‘point of interest’ information in cities or location-based social networks like Foursquare.



Courtesy :


Tags: , ,

Leave a Reply


You are commenting using your account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Google+ photo


Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: