Near Field Communications (NFC) is going to be a hot topic of discussion in 2011. Whether or not we actually see an ecosystem being built around the technology during that year versus spending 12 months reading the wet dream scenarios cobbled up by the technology press and analysts alike remains to be seen, but the groundwork is being laid for real products to be released. One of the most important parts of NFC, the actual tag, will increasingly be built into many products such as headphones, keyboards, mice, high definition televisions, everything you can imagine. Broadcom, looking to make some money by getting their foot through the door early in the game, has released the BCM20203 and the most attractive feature it has is that it doesn’t need to be powered by a battery. It’s a tag that gets energy from the device that acts as a reader. You read that right. Get close enough to a BCM20203 tag with your Samsung Nexus S and the electricity flowing from one will go straight to the other.
“With the stabilization of global standards, NFC is now emerging as the technology of choice for device manufacturers building wireless consumer electronics, and looking to simplify the end user experience. With our BCM20203, wireless peripherals such as keyboards, mice, 3D glasses, and gaming controllers, can be setup and configured with just a touch, which addresses one of the biggest concerns with any peer to peer communications technology, and that is usability.” – Craig Ochikubo, Vice President & General Manager, Broadcom’s Wireless Personal Area Networking Business.
They’ll soon be a day where you’ll be able to tap on anything and take control of it with your mobile phone. We’re not even going to need computers anymore, just go to any room with a screen, keyboard, and mouse, tap all 3 objects, and we’ve got ourselves a machine. It’ll happen by the end of this decade.