Research in Motion (RIM) has built support for NFC in their latest line of Phones i.e.: BlackBerry Bold 9900/ Bold 9930 and the BlackBerry Curve 9350/ Curve 9360.
Now it has partnered with HID Global to bring in digital keys and mobile identity credentials for these BlackBerry Phones.
Basically NFC stands for Near Field Communications & is a hardware based system built-into the phone that allows the phone to “communicate” with other devices. So what makes NFC stand apart from say: WiFi, bluetooth. NFC chips can send encrypted data a short distance (“near field”) to a reader located, for instance, next to a retail cash register. Though the distance is very small, usually in millimetres, the advantage is the small distance minimizes “snooping”. Further, the encryption means, data stored & transmitted can be “exchanged” & “read” by the Card & the Reader ONLY.
For the time being NFC is also serving Infotainment in Museums serving up multimedia content when a Visitor approaches an exhibit & “requests” the information by waving his/her NFC enable Phone / Tablet near the NFC Terminal.
So what does this mean for people who have bought the latest BlackBerries?
Blackberry is synonymous with Corporate & organizations are already using Security Clearance cards. So it was a no-brainer to combine the two.
HID Global is heavily into Digital Keys & Identification. Hence you can soon expect to simply swipe or tap your Blackberry to gain entry into your office or secure filing cabinet!
I am sure there are many people out their who may regularly loose their Security Card, but have a death grip on their Blackberries!
So one less thing to forget / loose.
A sure Win-Win Solution.
[UPDATE]: It seems even Blackberries without INBUILT NFC may be able to make use of NFC goodness.. thanks to a special Battery Compartment that has a concealed antenna. However, at present, such compartments will be made available through Partners only. i.e. Bank of America is offering its customers for NFC Payments only. Talk about curtailing use of an awesome technology.
[Source: BusinessWire]
