Although only one of the two communicating devices needs to have power, it’s also possible to transfer data between two powered gadgets as well, such as two mobile phones. So, that’s all well and good, but what’s the point of it all? According to the NFC Forum - a non-profit industry association that promotes the use of the technology - the three main uses of NFC are “sharing, pairing, and transaction" with mobile payments the key area. NFC enables you to pay for things by wiping your phone over a scanner, rather than having to use cash or a credit or debit card. That means that you could pick up a newspaper in the morning and swipe your phone on the reader to make payment, rather than having to join a long queue to pay at the till.
Although it’s still relatively early days for the technology, we can expect to see a rapid rollout of NFC-based services over the next couple of years. Samsung has teamed up with Visa to offer mobile phone-based payments for goods at the 2012 Olympics in London. Meanwhile, Orange and T-Mobile parent company Everything, Everywhere has joined forces with Barclaycard to launch the UK’s first commercial contactless mobile payments service, with a rollout due by July 2011. A contactless credit card-based service has already been rolled out by Barclaycard in some areas and shops. The new service will enable you to make payments from your phone with over 40,000 stores ready to accept contactless payments. There are already millions of contactless credit cards in circulation, most of which have been issued by Barclaycard and Barclays. Whipping your credit card to pay for a newspaper and pack of chewing gum might seem like the future to many, but for some, there are still concerns over security. Should we be worried about security? Well, maybe. No system is 100 per cent safe - just ask Sony or any of its 77million PlayStation Network users. It’s no surprise that most of the companies involved in NFC technology claim that it’s completely safe although many sceptics claim that this is not the case. In its raw form, NFC might be susceptible to eavesdropping thanks to the RF technology used. However, any viable commercial system will undoubtedly have extra levels of security built into the hardware along with ID authenticators, like the PIN on your phone. Of course the eventual aim (along with making lots of money for all the companies involved) is to make our lives easier. The idea is that your mobile phone can be used as your credit card, as well as your bus pass, your ticket to an exhibition, and the key to your house or office. Sounds nice in theory, but isn’t this seemingly endless convergence of different devices and services a recipe for disaster? What if you lose your phone? Since Apple’s alarm clock-based iOS bug debarcle, we don’t fully trust our phone’s alarm clock to wake us up in time to get to the airport anymore, let alone store a plane ticket. However, despite the potential pitfalls, NFC looks likely to become standard on smartphones in the same way that Bluetooth has and we would expect to see it appearing on most, if not all, of the big handsets in 2012. As it becomes a mainstream technology, any security kinks will be ironed out along the way, which should make it no less safe than any other wireless technology.
