by stephanlange on August 16, 2012
NFC or Near Field Communication is the big buzz word at the moment and everybody is talking about it. The truth is that the technology is nothing new and it has been around for a long time. Nokia had an NFC enabled phone in 2007, it was called the Nokia 6131.
Google has made the term mainstream with their announcement of Google Wallet and most people think of NFC as a way to pay with their mobile device. But that is not all.
At Razorfish globally we have been exploring NFC for a long time. Just look at the examples that we released in the past: The NFC gumball machine, BrandTable or Razorfish Digital Wallet.
We actually have a wall of NFC to showcase all kinds of uses for the technology right in our office.
So what else can you do with NFC apart from using it for payments?
There are already plenty of examples out there.
Below you can find 6 examples on how NFC can be used right now.
1. Use your NFC enabled phone as the key to your hotel room
For the recent Olympics in London a Holiday Inn Hotel gave their VIP customers a Samsung Galaxy S3 as part of their 40 VIP rooms. The guests were able to check in and out of the hotel, as well as change the AC, control the TV, and unlock their rooms with the phone.
Using NFC in your phone as a key to open doors has been used in the Enterprise world as well. The phones were used to enable physical access systems in buildings and track employee time-clock check-ins and attendance, access staff parking areas or cafeterias and pay for services.
NFC tags could be placed inside meeting or conference rooms, and attendees could tap their compatible devices to silence them or to turn on Wi-Fi, for example.
2. Use it as your travel pass
[click to continue…]
by stephanlange on November 11, 2011
we have seen how Nokia wants to bend the future of phones with flexible displays and now Nokias future lab showed us a concept video on how it could all work together.
nanotechnology, with a bendable transparent display and a fully touch sensitive casing are only some of the visions that Nokia cooked up.
Check out the video:
not sure if I agree with all of it, but there are some nice ideas in it.
@maniac13
by eunmac on August 10, 2011
The success of Tesco’s new retail store in Korea is something to behold:
Why? Because there is no physical store and no physical product. However the experience of the store has been fully recreated two dimensionally as a backlit poster with the products and ordering fulfilled using mobile and QR codes. It’s a neat idea and solves a number of issues:
1. The familiar supermarket experience. Tick!
2. Impulse shopping. Tick!
3. Cheap rent. Tick!
4. Open a new store in high traffic areas in one day. Tick!
5. No internal fit out costs. Tick!
6. No need to stock shelves Tick!
7. No Staff wages. Tick!
8. Open 24hrs. Tick!
The list goes on.
Personally I’d like to see NFC integration as well as QR codes. I think we can also expect to see these walls become screens rather than printed products in the very near future.
by stephanlange on April 28, 2011
you might have seen this already, but I somehow missed it in my post here.
I was send the video at the bottom of this post and it blew my mind. Looks like there was a working version of it at CES this year.
This camera (concept) takes the connectivity and application platform capabilities of today’s smart phones and wirelessly connects them with interchangeable full SLR-quality optics.
Check out the video:
their site promises some awesome specs:
BODY
Aluminum and magnesium alloy
Docked display and frame unit Display unit: 127 x 69 x 7.5mm
Frame unit: 164.5 x 76.5 x 28.2 mm
DISPLAY UNIT
5.0" AMOLED display
Viewing area: 110 x 61.9 mm
1920x 1080 pixels
(2,073,600 dots, 16:9)
Cortex-A15 ARM Multi-Core CPU
16GB embedded + microSDHC
ANTENNAS
802.11n
GPS
Bluetooth 2.0
WirelessHD
CONTINUOUS SHOOTING
BUFFER
Approximately 10 fps
20 images (lens detached)
180 images (lens attached)
5 RAW (lens detached)
40 RAW (lens attached)
I am hoping they are going to build this thing and ship it really fast, because I want one.
@maniac13
by stephanlange on September 24, 2010
and no, it’s not an iPhone.
This is a concept mobile phone of the future that was put together by Billy May. He gathered community feedback and followed up on some rather mundane visions for the mobile future to bring us the Mozilla Seabird.
The big innovation is the use of dual pico projectors on the side of the handset, which can provide different functionality based on the phone’s orientation: flat on a table they pump out the two halves of a QWERTY keyboard, up on a dock they offer the dual purpose of a large viewing screen above and a seamless projected keyboard below. Other features, like the pop-out wireless pointer / Bluetooth headset are slightly less realistic but no less charming.
unfortunately Mozilla is not planning on building this phone (or any other phone for that matter)
But check out the video – what I like is that it runs Android, but when you dock it it runs Windows 7 – nice!
simply put – I want one!
@maniac13
by stephanlange on April 13, 2010
Microsoft today launched its new series of touchscreen mobile smartphones called Kin.
There is a 4GB and an 8GB version with 5 and 8 Megapixel cameras with flash, capable of HD video and both models focus heavily on all your social networks, e.g. Twitter and facebook.
It seems that these phones are targeted at 18 to 35 year olds.
check out the video here
not the phone I am going to go for, but impressive to see how MS is putting all its eggs into social networking.
@maniac13
by amnesia on February 16, 2010
In the last 10, the world has moved into digital. The word “digital” itself underlines the major role of technology. This year our Razorfish team led by our CTO Ray Velez created a report of 5 Technologies that will have great significance this year.
- Cloud services and open APIs will become essential for social brands, making it easier for businesses to tap into the consumer’s social graph.
- Reliance on the cloud’s infrastructure will continue to grow as the need for real-time scalability becomes increasingly critical for survival.
- Multi-touch technology, which has already become mainstream in consumer devices, will infiltrate retail and business environments so extensively that it will become expected.
- Improved hardware and connectivity will help mobile make the final transition into cloud-based data that allows the user to learn the world around her in real time.
- Agile and iterative Web development will open new doors for innovation by allowing developers to innovate and adjust products based on immediate customer feedback.
To read more about it or download the report: http://razorfish5.razorfish.com.
- The Razorfish 5
by amnesia on September 24, 2009
Starbucks is testing their new iPhone app that lets you pay using just the Starbucks Card Mobile app on your iPhone/iPod touch. Just enter your card number and your device will display a barcode you can use the same way as your Starbucks Card to make a purchase.
The app is currently being tested in Starbucks stores located in Seattle, WA, Cupertino, CA and Mountain View, CA, conveniently, the homes of digital powerhouses Microsoft, Apple and Google, respectively.
This app is an example of a revolutionary convergence between your wallet and smart phone. As well as a brand intersecting technology to shape consumer loyalty programs. Now the stage is set for Starbucks to employ an innovative digital couponing program. Stay Tuned.
by amnesia on May 26, 2009
This is a great product innovation from Orange and Gotwind that ‘harnesses kinetic energy and a foot pump’ to power your mobile whilst you’re say..er… at Glastonbury, or just away from a socket.
Now all they have to do is a) find away that you can get a signal when you are in the arse end of nowhere and b) stop some soap dodging thief from having a rummage in your tent. Then all my festival problems have been solved. Apart from the toilet one. Found via Treehugger
by Brady on January 12, 2009
Microsoft has released its answer to QR Codes and Data Matrixes with the appropriately named Microsoft Tag.
Using colours and shape-orientation, the tags are designed to display more information in a smaller place, as well as work when out of focus, which works a lot better with mobile devices where the focal distance is fixed.
Readers for many mobile phones (including the iPhone!) have been released and can be downloaded by browsing to http://gettag.mobi on your mobile device.
You can read more, and make your own tags at http://www.microsoft.com/tag/
I was very impressed with how well it worked on my iPhone. I’ve tried lots of QR/Data Matrix readers out but the poor quality of the camera in the iPhone has always let me down. The Tag worked without a hitch.
They’re still in beta, so no word on if there will eventually be a cost to use these.
At Razorfish globally we have been exploring NFC for a long time. Just look at the examples that we released in the past: The NFC gumball machine, BrandTable or Razorfish Digital Wallet.
