Future of NFC revealed at Hagenberg
A dazzling range of new applications for the ground-breaking Near Field Communication technology were revealed at the international NFC Congress in Hagenberg last month. Almost 200 delegates from over 25 countries across the globe attended the event organised by the NFC Research Lab at Upper Austria University of Applied Sciences Hagenberg Campus.
They were treated to exclusive insights into the latest developments which are set to make their mark in the field of mobile communications in 2011.
The latest advances in NFC will extend the current range of applications from mobile ticketing, payment, information exchange and access control to vehicles, rooms even further – and will revolutionise social games and the personalisation of commercial products.
“This event was a great success,” says this year’s conference chair Tim Jefferson, Managing Director at British consultancy The Human Chain. “The participants included developers, academics, technology providers as well as mobile operators.”
Exclusive technical insights
More than 180 delegates from all over Europe as well as the USA, Asia and Africa attended presentations by renowned international companies including Nokia, Research In Motion (RIM) and NXP Semiconductors and by experts from Upper Austria University’s NFC Research Lab.
They also got detailed technical insights in special developer workshops for Nokia Qt, Google Android and Apple iPhone – the operating systems used by companies that are spearheading the NFC breakthrough by equipping their latest smartphones or tablets with this technology.
The fourth NFC Congress at Hagenberg was an ideal opportunity for sector representatives and business experts to check out the latest trends and applications in the field of NFC with cutting-edge developers, and to learn about future business models and network.
“This congress was a great forum to share views with technical experts as well as to debate major market trends and evolutions, for example, in the field of mobile transactions”, says Charles Dachs, Marketing and Product Management Director Mobile Transactions at NXP Semiconductors.
NFC conquers mobile comms
In late February mobil comms giants Telekom Austria Group, Orange, Deutsche Telekom/T-Mobile, Vodafone, Telenor and Telefonica announced that they are rolling out a range of NFC-based services by 2012. The attendees of Hagenberg’s congress were treated to an exciting glimpse of the range of services that will go far beyond mobile payment, ticketing and tagging.In the IEEE Scientific Workshop, for example, representatives from UK’s Lancaster University demonstrated their adaption of NFC. This will enable collective gaming on public screens via smartphones. Scientists also revealed that they are already working on improved NFC chips allowing greater and faster data exchange.
Delighted congress participants Manfred Bammer from the Austrian Institute of Technology and Kurt Lamedschwander von Seibersdorf Labor said: “We are looking forward to attending the upcoming NFC Congress in 2013!” The next IEEE Scientific Workshop will already take place in Finland in 2012 and be organized jointly by the Nordic country’s VTT Technical Research Centre and Hagenberg’s NFC Research Lab.
If you cannot wait to catch up on NFC, take a look at the new book by two Hagenberg experts. A full account on the latest advances is summarised in “Anwendungen und Technik von Near Field Communication” by Dr. Josef Langer, Head of Upper Austria University’s NFC Research Lab, and his research associate, Michael Roland, MSc. The book was published last October by Springer Press.
The conference papers of the February congress’ scientific workshop will be published by the IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the world’s largest professional association for the advancement of technology.
Free photo galleries with further pictures from the 4th NFC Congress are available:
Links:
Galery 1 (February 22nd)
Galery 2 (February 22nd)
Galery 3 (February 23rd)