Usable standards will make volume deployment possible through clear interoperability
Innovision Research & Technology plc, a leading developer of NFC (Near Field Communications) and UHF & HF RFID solutions, believes that the four new technical specifications just published by the NFC Forum (a non-profit industry association advancing the use of NFC technology see www.nfc-forum.org) will pave the way for the widespread commercial deployment of its Topaz low-cost NFC tag within consumer electronics and mobile applications.
Heikki Huomo, CTO at Innovision Research & Technology, said: Practical NFC applications have already started to emerge over the past year or so. However, as a result of the NFC Forum publishing this first wave of technical specifications, the road ahead is now clear for full-scale commercial deployment of NFC technology.
It is now possible for any manufacturer to create NFC-Forum-compliant devices that will be interoperable with other manufacturers devices, ensuring successful and repeatable communications between devices and tags. The specifications will help to create the framework necessary to make NFC applications a reality and pave the way for designers to start using NFC Forum mandated tag formats such as Topaz the Type 1 low-cost tag format.
The use of the NFC Forum tags is expected to improve consumer access to web-based information and services by enabling the appropriate service address to be embedded into a poster (or any other physical object such as bus stop signs, street signs, medicine containers, certificates, food packaging etc.) on an NFC Forum tag. So, instead of having to read and type a lengthy http://www.national-transport-timetables/buses/routes/august/ string into a mobile phone or PDA, the user can gain access to the services simply by touching the device against the NFC Forum tag.
The four NFC Forum technical specifications, which have now been published, are:
NFC Data Exchange Format (NDEF) Technical Specification (specifies a common data format for NFC Forum-compliant devices and NFC Forum compliant tags)
NFC Record Type Definition (RTD) Technical Specification (specifies standard record types used in messages between two NFC Forum-compliant devices or between NFC Forum-compliant devices and tags)
NFC Text RTD Technical Specification (for records containing plain text that can be read by NFC-enabled devices)
NFC URI RTD Technical Specification (for elements that refer to an Internet resource that can be read by NFC-enabled devices)
For an overview of NFC and Topaz, visit: www.innovision-group.com/topaz
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