Swedish mobile operator TeliaSonera, the first operator in the world to launch an LTE network all the way back in December 2009, has joined 4 other companies (ASSA ABLOY, Choice Hotels Scandinavia, Venyon and VingCard Elsafe) to conduct a 4 month trial whereby customers checking into the Clarion Hotel in Stockholm will be able to unlock the door to their room using an NFC enabled mobile phone. Select people will be given an unnamed Samsung and they don’t even have to go to the reception desk. What’s interesting about this bit of news is that one of the companies in the pilot, ASSA ABLOY, isn’t a technology company at all. Their specialty is locks. If they’re doing research on how to incorporate NFC into their product line, how much longer do you think it’ll be until more and more buildings start becoming NFC enabled?
Rumors say that the next iPhone will have near field technology built in. Nokia has also said that many of their Symbian smartphones shipping next year will also have the technology inside. Nokia’s latest Symbian^3 device, the C7, was rumored, and then later confirmed, to have the hardware to support NFC inside, but it isn’t being utilized due to not enough time to write the software to take advantage of the extra chip inside. With all that in mind, do you think that 2011 will finally be the year that this technology goes mainstream?
I still remember 2007, when GPS in mobile phones was the newest, greatest, coolest thing on the planet. Now, only 3 years later, it’s in everything. GPS enabled a radical new wave of software that simply wasn’t possible without the level of accuracy that we can achieve today, and I bet that NFC will do the same. I’m frankly tired of reading about all the new things people in Japan are doing with their phones, so for this type of stuff to finally hit European and American shores … let’s just say there’s a little less room in my pants then there was 15 minutes ago.