The Art and Science of NFC Programming

Anne-Marie Lesas, Serge Miranda

• Publisher: Wiley-ISTE
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781786300577
• eBook ISBN: 9781119379058
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Tecnologia e ingegneria
• Subtopic: Comunicazioni mobili e wireless

NFC is a world standard since 2004 which is now within every smartphone on the market. Such a standard enables us to do mobile transactions (mobile payment) in a secure way along with many other information- based tap'n play operations. This book has a double role for computer scientists (from bachelor students in CS to IT professionals).

1
State-of-the-Art of NFC

Since 2014, all smartphone manufacturers have been offering near-field communication (NFC) connectivity; NFC standards use electromagnetic properties of radiofrequency across very short distances of no more than a few inches.

“NFC” refers to several technologies using electromagnetic fields allowing data transfer between two peripheral devices set close to one another. Known since the Second World War, radiofrequency identification (RFID) is a contactless communication system using electromagnetic fields to send messages for identification and automated traceability purposes thanks to tags linked to objects. Tags contain electronically stored data. Some tags are powered through electromagnetic induction from magnetic fields created when brought into proximity with an RFID reader/encoder. Passive tags act as a passive transponder, powered by the electromagnetic radio waves sent by the peripheral device initiating communication (reader).

NFC technology could offer a general purpose connection to any other wireless communication system (Bluetooth®, Wi-Fi, GPRS, 4G, Li-Fi, etc.) and allow device pairing with a simple tap (“TAP and PLAY” paradigm). This chapter focuses on the ecosystem in which NFC standards are implemented, its background and its standards.

1.1. Future mobiquitous digital services

Mobiquity is not a mere portmanteau word, suggested by Xavier Dalloz in the beginning of the 1990s, with Internet access in mobile phones (during the failure of WAP especially due to a lack of contents and services). Today, it has become a cross-concept between the real and the virtual world, full of new content and services, creating a convergence between MOBility of the cellular phone, which became a computer per se (Smartphone) and the ubiQUITY of the Internet, now “n.0”, local (Local Wide Web) and marked by its extensive distribution, being in everybody’s pockets today. This concept of mobiquity, which matches that of ATAWAD (“Any Time, AnyWhere, Any Device” or “Any Content”), is promising in terms of its innovation and multidisciplinary in research on content, services, architectures and methods.

A new ecosystem developed endogenously: information consumers (target customers) have become information providers – via websites and mobile apps (because of the Internet) for media sharing (pictures, videos on social networks), alternative press (e.g. Agoravox and Alterinfo), free encyclopedia (Wikipedia), open augmented reality (Wikitude), etc. – thus making professionals, who were once suppliers, consumers and information managers; new business models arise, generating a considerable load of raw information involving new real-time predictive processing (big data).

We have entered a new era in which usage arises from individual, associative or participative practice (social networks, communaction), and no longer from pre-existing models managed by lobbyists. An adaptive “bottom-up” approach tends to take over the traditional “top-down” approach of multimedia technologies market and digital and telecom services in any environment (business, tourism, transportation, healthcare, education, etc.).

NFC is a close contact-free communication mode (through “touch”), which extends connectivity and allows for the emergence of new usages while keeping the principle of prior consent (recommended by the French Commission on Computer Sciences and Freedoms (Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés)¹), since the user is asked to confirm his/her will of interaction (without intrusion) and must make an explicit gesture.

Since the NFC-enabled smartphone has the capacity to read NFC tags but also to act as an NFC tag (or NFC smartcard), information can be distributed across tags, mobile phones or servers driving to very different business models around a strategic question: who will control the information coming from the user’s interactions with his/her mobile phone? Mobile network operators (MNOs), Internet providers, banks, cities, service providers, mobile phones manufacturers, tag managers?

1.1.1. The era of mobiquity

In 2015, there were as many mobile phone subscriptions as individuals on the planet, with 7.3 billion connected mobile devices, around half of which are smartphones² (only half of this population has a bank account). Almost every individual on the planet has (or will have) a communication terminal, with very fast data processing, in his pocket. This means that around 3 billion people have a mobile phone, but no bank account. Half the planet owns a smartphone, among which 64% will be NFC enabled in 2018³, thus creating new opportunities of Internet services with added value: a banker, a guide, a tutor, a doctor, a counselor in our pocket. This prospect leads the way to unlimited creativity in terms of content, services and practices in the private, public and professional spheres the mobile phone crosses.

The era of the mobile Internet is only starting, the era of ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Title
• Copyright
• Foreword
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 State-of-the-Art of NFC
• 2 Developing NFC Applications with Android
• 3 NFC Use Cases
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index
• End User License Agreement