Disqus
If you stop and think about how many antennas are inside your mobile phone, you really begin to appreciate how much time and energy must’ve gone to make your device even work. There’s the 4 needed to support all the international GSM bands, then there’s up to 5 bands for 3G, but make sure you don’t forget Bluetooth, WiFi and GPS. The Nokia N8 for example, it has all those, bringing the total number of antennas inside to 12. Dare to make it 13? Finnish firm Pulse Engineering has figured out how to make an antenna that can fit on a mobile phone’s motherboard in the exact same space that current quadband GSM + single band 3G devices have. In other words, all someone like Motorola or Sony Ericsson has to do to get NFC in their device is use this new antenna plus the other hardware associated with getting it to work.
Earlier today I wrote about a trial that’s currently taking place in Sweden between local operator TeliaSonera and a hotel in Stockholm. They’re using an NFC enabled Samsung device as a replacement for hotel keys. Add to that the rumor from yesterday that the next iPhone will also have NFC, and you’ve got all the right ingredients for what’s sure to be an interesting 2011 and 2012. It’s been over 3.5 years since the Nokia N95 came out, and that was the first device that showed people why having GPS inside a mobile device was a highly attractive feature. How long from when the first NFC enabled phone comes out, to all smartphones over say 300 EUR come with the feature built in?
When people will be able to tap anything around them, and get information immediately thanks to HSPA+ and LTE networks, are we going to enter into a new age of intellectualism, or is someone just going to figure out how to make a funnier fart application?
[Via: NFC World]
[PDF: Antenna's specification sheet]
About The Author
Stefan Constantinescu
Stefan Constantinescu (@WhatTheBit on Twitter) has loved technology since as far back as he can remember. It started with computers, but in the past few years his passion has turned to mobile devices. As a mobile phone enthusiast who lives and breathes devices that connect to the internet, he knows he is not alone with this radical fascination of all things wireless. He is strongly opinionated and enjoys a good debate so leave comments in his posts and he’ll get back to you! Stefan began blogging as a hobby in the fall of 2006 and joined IntoMobile in the summer of 2007. Later he got a job at Nokia in March 2008, but as of June 2009 he has rejoined the IntoMobile team. He is currently based out of Helsinki, Finland.
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http://twitter.com/rsametband Ricardo Sametband
