NFC Technology in Our Mobile Phones

There is no doubt that near field communications (NFC) technology is the next big thing for portable electronic devices. Not just mobile phones mind you, this applies to plenty of other handheld electronics such as tablets, gaming devices, and media players. Of course, the implementation of the technology is still a little far down the road, right now, manufacturers have only begun to start adding in the hardware to next generation devices.

The NFC excitement pretty much drew on the initial news that earlier this year, Apple started venturing into it. After a small company acquisition, Apple now holds the patents and technologies to some NFC-specific hardware. There are plenty of rumors that the next iPhone will have embedded NFC capable hardware.

But the Cupertino based company is not alone, Finish phone maker (and largest one to boot)Nokia has already taken the initiative to actually make a mobile device that actually has the necessary hardware: the Nokia C7. Of course, actually being able to use the NFC chip is currently disabled on the device, though the latest update is that it will be activated with an upcoming patch.

Lastly, Google has confirmed that the Gingerbread OS is prepared for using NFC and some Gingerbread specific handsets will be launched –packed with NFC hardware. This means that the fastest growing operating system, Android, will also be NNFC ready pretty soon.

Judging from that, it is pretty easy to see how the NFC can be easily spread out. The only question now is how the technology will be used. One of the most basic, yet really important functions that the feature could serve is direct device connectivity. While WiFi and Bluetooth have both proven to be reliable, NFC promises a faster and stronger connection –with the slight compromise of device proximity.