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Android and BlackberryNear Field Communications (NFC)

NFC

• Near field communication (NFC) is a set of standards for smartphones and similar devices to establish radio communication with each other by touching them together or bringing them into close proximity, usually no more than an inch or so.

• Present and anticipated applications include contactless transactions, data exchange, and simplified setup of more complex communications such as Wi-Fi.

• Communication is also possible between an NFC device and an unpowered NFC chip, called a "tag".

NFC (20

• NFC standards cover communications protocols and data exchange formats, and are based on existing radio-frequency identification (RFID) standards including ISO/IEC 14443 and FeliCa.

• The standards include ISO/IEC 18092 and those defined by the NFC Forum, which was founded in 2004 by Nokia, Philips and Sony, and now has 150 members. The Forum also promotes NFC and certifies device compliance

NFC and phones

• Starting with Android 2.3, the platform includes an NFC stack and framework API that allows you to read/write to NDEF (NFC Forum Data format) tags. – For Android smartphones, that means the requirement is to be

running at least Android 2.3 and have a NFC chip on the phone. Currently only the Nexus S and Samsung Galaxy Nexus, but a number have been announce for 2012.

• Blackberry 7.0+ using the net.rim.device.api.io.nfc packages.– The Blackberry bold 9900 series have NFC chips on the phones.

• The Curve 9350/60 are also should have NFC, plus the playbook with 4G. Blackberry has said all new phones starting 2012 should have nfc as well.

What do with NFC

• The number of applications that could use NFC is limited by only by the developers.

• The first major apps are things like Google wallet, payments systems, and store cards.

• Otherwise, contact exchange and that sort things.– Maybe adding friends in facebook, google+, etc– File/Music/Data exchange between phones• But remember the phones have be really close.

What do with NFC (2)

• Think QR without a camera.– Would allow phones to easily respond and react to

objects around them. Imagine a world where you can touch a phone to a poster, a piece of furniture, a tag, a keychain, a business card, anything, and expect an application to respond.• http://www.tagstand.com/pages/about-nfc

– http://www.tagstand.com/ is a place you can get stickers with nfc chips in them and customized them to your “tag”, url, data, etc.

Code

• Android– There is a android nfc in the demo API. It will read

any tag and you can send it fake to see how it works.• There are some problems. See the reference for fixes.

• Blackberry– There are a couple of example code• Unlike android, they probably work correctly too.

Code (2)

• Doesn’t work in the android emulators.– Don’t currently have any phones or devices to test

with.

– As such… well I didn’t write any code.

References• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_field_communication• Android

– http://developer.android.com/resources/samples/NFCDemo/index.html– http://

stackoverflow.com/questions/5078649/android-nfc-sample-demo-reads-only-fake-information-from-the-tag

– http://www.jessechen.net/blog/how-to-nfc-on-the-android-platform/• Blackberry

– http://www.blackberrycool.com/2011/11/18/how-to-create-your-own-nfc-tag-with-blackberry-smart-tags/

– http://docs.blackberry.com/en/developers/deliverables/34480/Near_Field_Communication_1631111_11.jsp

– http://supportforums.blackberry.com/t5/tkb/articleprintpage/tkb-id/java_dev@tkb/article-id/623

– http://openbbnews.wordpress.com/2012/03/06/nfc-samples/• http://

supportforums.blackberry.com/t5/Java-Development/NFC-Article-and-Code-Index/ta-p/1538775• http://devblog.blackberry.com/tag/nfc/