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.
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.
Magazines on your tablet have been around for a while and they always seem like a good addition, but nothing really new or ground breaking.
Hopefully that will change with Condition One – a technology company developing next generation immersive video applications. Their flagship product is an embeddable immersive video player for the iPad / iPhone.
The virtual window provides unlimited viewpoints of a single video. The viewers tend to review a video multiple times to catch things they missed and see the footage from another perspective.
Basically you can move around the video to change what you want to look at.
Check it out in action here:
The technology can is/can be licensed to media companies and brands. It integrates seamlessly into existing applications or can be launched as a standalone product.
If you want to try it out, they have a showcase app here
We all know this moment where you are focusing on your friend while taking the perfect picture only to find out later that there is some tourist in the background, some weird looking stranger bombing himself into our perfect shot.
Now there seems to be a solution on the horizon, Scalado announced a technology called Remove that will make it very easy to remove unwanted photobombers from your holiday shots. Simply select and remove.
Don’t believe it? Check out the video:
So how do they do it? The technology takes a series of photos in quick succession and then pinpoints moving objects in the collection, giving you the option to remove them with a click.
Right now it isn’t commercially available, but I can’t wait to have this on my phone soon.
With the impending launch of the Apple iPad, the Cupertino-based company’s shunning of Adobe Flash technology has been brought to the forefront of technological discussions. While it was one thing to forgo Flash on a small, mobile device such as the iPhone or iPod Touch, some are questioning whether lack of Flash support is going to be a make-it-or-break it feature for the new slate devices arriving next month – devices which, if you believe Apple CEO Steve Jobs – are “better than netbooks.”
Interesting read and question to think about. Does anyone have any experience with testing the two?
Skinput is based on an armband straddling the wearer’s biceps and detecting the small vibrations generated when the user taps the skin of his arm. It measures the vibrations and differentiates them based on bone densities, tissue mass and muscle size.
You can use different parts of your arm and even fingers to interact with it.
According to them it is 95% accurate and you can combine it with a pico projector and get some display on your arm as well.
check out the video
definitely an interesting concept, but until it is integrated into my T-shirt I doubt I will be interested in wearing an armband.
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.
There has been another update to the ‘Did you know?’ series. As always the information is fascinating and provides an inspirational look at convergence and the pace at which the digital shift is accelerating. I would recommend taking some of the individual stats with a grain of salt but it is a great presentation for communicating the bigger picture to clients and colleagues.
We blog about robots quite a bit. Here’s one that finds objects it can turn into drums, beats the object, records the sound and then plays with it until it gets bored.
We’ve told you we’re growing yes, and now we have a short description of all the roles we have on offer!
Take a gander at all the roles below and don’t be afraid to pass them on if you know some awesome people who might be right for us.
The positions we are currently recruiting for are:
Group Account Director
Coming on board as our new GAD (Client Services), your core focus is to manage our awesome Account Directors and Account Managers who are responsible for deliverables across all accounts. Having 8-10 years experience in marketing and client management under your belt, we can rely on you to keep clients close and generate revenue so that we can continue hiring.
Senior Account Manager
We’re looking for some strong Senior Account Managers to join our Client Services team. Help Amnesia Razorfish grow and develop solid relationships with clients and manage day-to-day account service. [click to continue…]
Five years ago, then twenty six year-old Ben Saunders was one of only three people to have ever skied solo to the North Pole. In doing so, he not only set the record for longest solo Arctic journey by a Briton, but he also managed to do so in the worst conditions in recorded history, according to NASA.
Next year, alongside Alastair Humphreys (who spent four years cycling across five continents and almost 75,000 kilometres) he will attempt the first ever return journey to the South Pole on foot. SOUTH will be the culmination of seven years of training and preparation; planned to stretch from the Antarctic coast, to the south pole and back again, it is set to be the longest unsupported polar trek in history.
On top of the remarkable human endurance element of SOUTH, Ben and Alastair will embrace the powers of social media and web 2.0 to document their ground-breaking trip, allowing the public to experience their expedition in real-time, and hopefully open a dialogue about climate change and environmental sustainability. It’s said that Vice-President Al Gore may join them at some point, and the entire program has been certified carbon neutral.
SOUTH is set to commence in October 2009, but the team’s progress can be tracked on their official blog. You can also catch Ben’s account of his North Pole journey at TED.com.
Amnesia Razorfish is a digital marketing agency headquartered in Sydney, Australia. It is the Australian arm of Razorfish, one of the largest digital agencies in the world.
We live and breathe digital and provide a range of services from strategy, media, creative, tech, social media, analytics and more.
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.
