All across the globe, people are connecting to the Internet to access information, communicate with other people, and do business. But it’s not just people that are using the Internet: objects use it too. Machine-to-machine communication is widely used in the manufacturing and energy sectors to track machinery operations, report faults and raise service alerts. Increasingly, everyday objects are also using the Internet to connect to the cloud forming an ‘Internet of Things’. It’s estimated that 1.9bn devices are already connected to this Internet of Things (source: BI Intelligence.) Some of the most prominent Internet of Things sensors or devices in the consumer sphere so far have been activity and fitness monitors like the Nike FuelBand and Fitbit, the Google Glass wearable computer and ‘Hive’ connected heating systems from British Gas. Sports equipment manufacturer ASICS used Salesforce to develop its Support Your Marathoner website, delivering messages of support to a trackside screen when a unique tag was detected on the athlete’s shoe. The Internet of Things is growing rapidly, and it’s forecast that, by 2020, it could include between 30 billion and 75 billion things ranging from smartbands, toys and photoframes to medical devices, earthquake sensors and aeroplanes. Why is everyone talking about the Internet of Things? The Internet of Things is set to revolutionise business – and in particular, the relationship between organisations and their customers. That’s because it creates a completely new channel of communication. And like the Internet, it will create huge opportunities for companies ready to exploit it. Networking giant Cisco predicts that the opportunity represented by the Internet of Things will be worth $14.4...
At the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 10, 2013 in San Francisco, Apple announced its upcoming mobile operating system iOS 7 with the redesigned user interfaces and couple of improvements compared to iOS 6. With the flat and “colorful” design, the design of iOS 7 is very controversial. One of the reporter from Forbes, Ewan Spence, after taking part in WWDC 2013, had written a very interesting letter involved in this hottest news. The letter is from Android to Apple’s fans talking about iOS 7 design and its change. Here is the content of this letter: “Dear Apple Fans, I write to you as the comedic personification of Android, having sat through the WWDC keynote and the debut of iOS 7. Can I just point out a few things that your OS is doing that contrast with how we do things over here? You don’t need to worry about all the pastel colours being thrown around making everything old look new. While the new iOS 7 software is going to be available on older Apple hardware, the chances are that the new OS will debut inside yet another new physical design of the iPhone that may be announced in September. That means a huge expense for anyone upgrading their handset from an iPhone 4 or 5 to presumably the iPhone 6. Actually it means two expenses, as they’ll need to buy a new case as well as a new phone. If you’re spending that sort of money, you should really look at Android… we’ve got lots of cases to suit every budget. We’ve got a grid based...
Bored waiting for your train? No worries, you can go grocery shopping while you wait. Grab your phone, point at the grocery items you want to buy and voila your groceries will be delivered to your doorstep later in the day. Hopefully by the time you get home. Say what? Several special ‘grocery aisle’ billboards that display images of grocery items are adorning several Korean train stations. Next to these images are QR codes where customers can simply snap up a code using their smartphone. The codes go straight into a virtual shopping cart and when you’re ready to pay you proceed to your virtual check out, and the products get delivered to your house. Simple, effective and efficient! And not to mention bloody brilliant! Like online shopping, customers can shop without the hassle of time, heavy shopping bags, and long check out lines. But instead of just statically clicking through a website customers can actually immerse themselves in the experience of ‘grocery shopping’ by physically ‘walking up and down the aisle’ to pick out their items. This is probably the best use of QR technology I’ve seen to date. Australian society hasn’t exactly embraced the technology much at all. Half my mates still don’t know what those squiggly black patterns are and what to do with them. And added to that our marketing campaigns that use QR codes are primitive to say the least. Funnily enough I found out how out-dated Australia is with some technology while watching a popular Korean drama. I saw a character in this drama pay for his groceries simply by tapping his smartphone...
Near field communication, or NFC, allows for simplified transactions, data exchange, and wireless connections between two devices in close proximity to each other, usually by no more than a few centimeters. It is expected to become a widely used system for making payments by smartphone in the United States. Many smartphones currently on the market already contain embedded NFC chips that can send encrypted data a short distance (“near field”) to a reader located, for instance, next to a retail cash register. Shoppers who have their credit card information stored in their NFC smartphones can pay for purchases by waving their smartphones near or tapping them on the reader, rather than bothering with the actual credit card. Co-invented by NXP Semiconductors and Sony in 2002, NFC technology is being added to a growing number of mobile handsets to enable mobile payments, as well as many other applications. The Near Field Communication Forum (NFC Forum) formed in 2004 promotes sharing, pairing, and transactions between NFC devices and develops and certifies device compliance with NFC standards. A smartphone or tablet with an NFC chip could make a credit card payment or serve as keycard or ID card. NFC devices can read NFC tags on a museum or retail display to get more information or an audio or video presentation. NFC can share a contact, photo, song, application, or video or pair Bluetooth devices. The 140 NFC Forum members include LG, Nokia, Huawei, HTC, Motorola, NEC, RIM, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba, AT&T,Sprint, Rogers, SK, Google, Microsoft, PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Intel, TI, Qualcomm, and NXP. Uses Emerging NFC standards allow customers to quickly purchase products and transfer secure information by touching devices. NFC allows companies to reduce staffing, printing, and point of sale costs. Globally, 100 million people use mobile payment outside the U.S., but only...
RFID vs NFC RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) is a tagging technology that is gaining widespread attention due to the great number of advantages that it offers compared to the current tagging technologies being used today; like barcodes. Near Field Communication, or more commonly known as NFC, is a subset of RFID that limits the range of communication to within 10 centimeters or 4 inches. RFID uses radio frequency waves that are either passive, active, or a combination of both. Active RFID tags have a power source that helps extend their range even further while passive devices rely on the energy that it receives from the interrogating device to send its own information. Among the advantages of RFID is the very small size of the tag that made it possible to be used with small products or to be hidden away neatly. Another excellent advantage is that it doesn’t need a direct line of sight for the information to be read. This is very desirable in baggage tracking application where speed is very essential. RF waves are used to transmit information across very long distances, and RFID is no different. The RF waves can reach very long distances especially when powered. This kind of range is very desirable in certain applications like animal tracking where the animal being tracked might move a couple of kilometers. But this type of range is not desirable in applications like cash cards or passports. Malicious people can receive your information and clone it into another tag and use it for themselves. This is where NFC comes in. Objects that are tagged with NFC are usually passive...
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