NFC: Not Just for Payments

These days, most of the attention focused on near field communications seems to be about the mobile payments function, and rightly so. But think of NFC as "Bluetooth," just a way to allow devices to communicate with each other over short distances. Then think about syncing of information or sharing of small files. There could be lots of "pedestrian" applications that allow two adjacent devices to communicate and exchange files or data. It could be PC to PC, PC to tablet, tablet to tablet, tablet to phone, PC to phone, tablet to a retail terminal or phone to a retail terminal. NFC might be a way to sync status information or update small files between various end user devices. Maybe NFC would communicate with peripherals.

Location-based offers might be delivered to a device using a mobile broadband network or Wi-Fi, then use NFC to automate the process of paying for something with a discount offer or loyalty reward, without much more work than waving the phone near the NFC retail terminal. NFC to make the phone a mobile wallet, or mobile money, might be the biggest "new" application. But there are plenty of other "hygenic" operations that NFC might support.

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