Design Article
Mobile apps get smarter using NFC
Junko Yoshida, Anne-Francoise Pele
11/8/2012 1:00 PM EST
Mobile wallet

Mobile payments continue to be an important element of NFC-enabled smartphones, and their apps are advancing. At Cartes 2012, Gemalto showed a converged application for banking and NFC payments.
Launching the wallet shows the user immediately a snapshot of bank account and card activity. For either plastic bank card or NFC card, checking, savings and credit accounts appear on the display, allowing the account holder to make a payment, transfer money, set up an alert or locate the nearest ATM.
Next: Programming appliances

Combined banking and NFC payment apps displayed on a smartphone screen.
Mobile payments continue to be an important element of NFC-enabled smartphones, and their apps are advancing. At Cartes 2012, Gemalto showed a converged application for banking and NFC payments.
Launching the wallet shows the user immediately a snapshot of bank account and card activity. For either plastic bank card or NFC card, checking, savings and credit accounts appear on the display, allowing the account holder to make a payment, transfer money, set up an alert or locate the nearest ATM.
Next: Programming appliances
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agk
11/9/2012 5:19 AM EST
Many times at the public places we miss to watch our kith,kins,relatives,friends who are also near by. Usually one of us see the other and in their next meet we discuss about this. So if this near field communication if it can be improved with a little more distance then we may have our phones giving a pleasant meeting reminders.
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junko.yoshida
11/9/2012 11:34 AM EST
How far and wide NFC apps have already spread is a truly amazing story in my opinion. RFID tags became a big story when Walmart first announced its intention to use it to replace bar codes -- which in the end dind't really happen in a big way. But NFC is another story. The industry is finding a lot of imaginative applications and we are only seeing just the tip of the iceberg.
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GREAT-Terry
11/12/2012 4:44 AM EST
NFC applications are so nice that I think Samsung and Android phones are now embracing the right technology to expand the functionality of smartphone to endless imagination. Apple, on the other hand, looks down at this fascinating technology so I wonder if Apple will be out of our eyesight in 3 to 5 years (provided they keep on just improving processors but putting everything in more or less look alike chassises)
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chanj
11/12/2012 2:38 PM EST
Cost is the main factor. Barcode and magnetic card are lower cost than NFC. What are the values of NFC bringing on the table given Google has been using bar code to do eWallet?
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junko.yoshida
11/12/2012 5:32 PM EST
I think things like peer-to-peer pairing, "secure" transaction, and the ability for users to program what they want their NFC stickers to do are a few good examples NFC do better than barcodes.
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