By Eelco van de Wiel

The latest version of the Android SDK has full support for NFC functionalities.
NFC means Near Field Communication and allows mobile phones to communicate to nearby objects. Chances are that if you buy a smartphone towards the end of this year, and most certainly in 2012, it will be equipped with a NFC chip. This technological advancement introduces a new era in mobile communication as it allows mobile payments, location based mobile advertising and communication with local objects to launch a URL, call a number, open a map to a location or launch an  application. 

The NFC chip will replace all of the cards in your wallet and is expected to be the future payment medium. Google focussed their API on mobile payments and is working with MasterCard and Citigroup on a near field communication (NFC) based mobile payments system. 

Even though the technology has been around for a long time it’s only now that the large scale introduction is announced. The long delay has been a result of the economic crisis in combination with the large shifts in the operators - software - hardware powerfield. Now one of the major players, Google, included the NFC technology the technological shift finally takes place.

As happened with all previous technological developments it will take a long time for the leading design to emerge. The next period will be dominated by a power struggle among the big players in the ecommerce and payment playing field to gain the largest market share. As it took almost a decade to introduce the new PIN card in the Netherlands, it might also take as long for mobile payment to be fully supported. 

The image below shows a possible solution that uses RFID: