AutoID & Data Capture Blog

Greetings from the NFC World Congress in Nice, France! Today was the first day of the show, with numerous NFC hardware suppliers and application developers showing off their latest offerings.  We will be blogging throughout our visit here, keeping you abreast of some of the most interesting and exciting announcements at this year’s show.

Some of the highlights from walking the show floor today include:

• AQ Corporation’s multipurpose NFC reader can be configured to support a variety of applications, including mobile device control. By tapping a NFC enabled device to this reader, certain features of the mobile device are disabled. AQ reports this solution is well-received among multinational technology firms looking to prevent new products in development/production from being leaked via smartphone photos taken by employees and other unauthorized sources. Once disabled by this reader, features can only be reactivated by swiping the device again. This is an interesting solution that could gain traction in other applications where security is critical.
  
  
• A number of NFC testing and certification providers were exhibiting their hardware and services. More than one of these organizations reported that Apple purchased their testing hardware. Could this be a sign that the iPhone 5 might arrive with NFC capability? Only time will tell, but this seems to be an indicator that this highly anticipated update could include NFC…
  
  
• NXP had an engaging booth featuring a number of NFC-enabled smart posters designed to educate people about the diversity of applications NFC can serve, including security & access control, information retrieval, loyalty, gaming and social networking. Although the company provides no application development, it is seeking to drive NFC adoption by informing enterprises of the technology’s versatility.

We have another full day at the show tomorrow, so stay tuned for more updates. Au revoir!