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Wireless Alliance Touts 'Magic Touch' RFID Tech
An anonymous reader writes "Nokia, Sony and Philips have launched a new wireless technology, called Near Field Communication, that could be a threat to Bluetooth. Based on RFID, they say it will enable electronic devices to interact -- for m-commerce, file-swapping or to download info from the Web -- when touched together."
Of course, unless they're very careful, it will also enable devices to communicate when they're within a couple of feet. Still, as long as the software folk treat it as "always chatting" communication, and build in the proper safeguards, rather than assuming that every conversation is spawned by a dedicated request to speak, things should be fine. This will be fun to watch.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
Can I implant one of these in my gf, so when I touch her, it will tell me how many guys she has been with lately?
Good touch? Or bad touch?
... Shouldn't the radio part of that imply wireless? If they have to be touched, that to me just seems like having wires. Albiet really short ones, but you get the idea.
But really... radio-frequency identification
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
So now your electronics can get more than you do. How depressing is that?
True story.
...and all you have to do is touch a "male" and a matching "female" "connector" together.
666-607: 6th floor apartment of the beast
It's SO much easier to require physical contact instead of having a 10m range. I suppose this is why contact memory buttons are so much more prevalent than RFID tags.
Another solution in search of a problem.
the article doesn't make clear what (if any) advantage this system posesses over bluetooth?
Is this product announcement just capitalising on negative bluetooth security publicity and the RFID buzzword, or is there more to it than that?
As bluetooth is already in millions of devices, it seems churlish to ignore this.
SURELY NOT!!!!!
Just a thought.
Huxley
The article claims that this is not competition for Bluetooth, IR, or Wi-Fi. Unlike what the summary claims.
E.T. had this Magic Touch(R)(C) technology for over 12 years now - definitely old news!
Looking for hardware (Currently need: Large Etch-a-Sketch) Have one? See my journal!
is unquestionably "This is a new paradigm based on touching." Someone needs to tell these guys about the laws we have in place.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Bluetooth has a usable range up to 300ft (there are also specs for 30ft and 3ft); it is commonly used for laptops and handhelds to connect to modems, printers, GPS receivers, and access points from across the room. Something that has a range of only a foot or so won't compete there.
I don't see much use for these new short-range wireless technologies--they aren't short-range enough to use their range limitations for security, and they aren't long-range enough to move into Bluetooth territory. Furthermore, there are short-range versions of Bluetooth.
For secure communications, IrDA would still be a better choice. For anything else, you might as well use Bluetooth.
But, hey, with enough marketing and sales muscle, these companies will probably manage to force another proprietary standard upon us, whether it is a good idea or not.
m-Commerce? Did we really need another x-Commerce variant? I swear, the marketing heads that come up with these buzzwords need to be taken to the woodshed.
People, they say, could use it to establish a link between two handheld devices in order to swap music . . .
This just in: Jack Valenti and Cary Sherman have been taken to the hospital, apparently suffering from heart attacks.
----
"Ours was a free culture. It is becoming much less so."-Lawrence Lessig
>RFID, they say it will enable electronic devices >to interact -- for m-commerce, file-swapping or >to download info from the Web -- when touched >together."
It's a good idea. Imagine trading business cards with a handshake. Of course, it is likely to become more popular for kids trading files. If security is lax in these devices the old chestnut of computer viruses being transmitted by touch may become a reality.
Great, now a savvy pickpocket armed with a 0-day exploit can empty my bank account just by rubbing up against me in the subway.
In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane. -Oscar Wilde
I can just imagine it now RIAA chaperones on every street corner making sure there's no touching and p2p file exchange ...
called Near Field Communication, that could be a threat to Bluetooth.
But in the article it states clearly:
While NFC will handle identification of users through RFID, it appears that wireless protocols such as Bluetooth or Wi-Fi will still be used for the data transfer.
"NFC won't replace Bluetooth or infrared. This is a new paradigm based on touching, and it will complement these existing wireless technologies," a NFC spokesman explained.
-Ted
-=-=- Quantum physics - the dreams stuff are made of.
Corporate monkeys, start your lawyers! Ready... Set... GO!!!
Hate me!
This dude actually reads the story before commenting. Must be a sad lifeless geek.
If nothing else, this will revolutionize the business of lap dancing!
I wasn't trying to sexually harass her, I was just scanning her ports!!
sooo many meanings for that, well two or three at least...
So, with a very sensitive receivers you might be able to eavesdrop at maybe twice the intended distance but that will be about it.
So, instead of pushing a button to automatically sync our devices, we'll just touch them. oh, ok, that's just lightyears ahead of anything we could *ever* do today...
Besides not having a damn thing to do with being a problem for bluetooth or wifi (do submitters read the articles? i thought we just didn't...) how is waving my phone at a movie poster going to buy me a ticket? Am i going to end up buying a bunch of cars, jackets and vietnamese girls when i walk downtown and go buy some food at a market? Sounds like i'll really have to configure it, go through a few dialogue boxes perhaps and do the usual thang i do today, as far as electronic device convenience goes. not to mention, it's not like anyone will ever have the proper convergence/convenience to actually make it doable to wave your phone at more than a few places and have it do something useful.
For these things to work as advertised they're going to need to saturate the shit out of the market, so businesses will want to use them *everywhere*. They'll need to come with everything, cheaply I think, for it to become some easy to use super gadget opportunity.
WIll that happen? probably not. Perhaps it will be tied in greatly with home elctronics, and personal gadgets, but it will probably be nowhere as ubiquitous (ubi..ubu...ubo...damn) as credit cards, and i doubt it will bridge the gap from bluetooth+ that it looks like it will reside in to super convenience.
- I'd prefer not to.
I was not grabbing her ass, I was giving her my telephone number and resume for a job.
Fight Spammers!
They also claim the technology will revolutionise the way people interact with their environment.
...or they could just wave their NFC phone at a smart film poster to automatically buy a ticket.
Blabitty bla bla. Show me the flying cars and renewable energy sources. Until then, I'll interact with my environment how and when I want to.
Great! Shorter lines at the movie theatre. You all go waive your phones at inanimate objects. I'll go talk to a real person. What about checking for the age of the ticket purchaser? oh yeah, your soon to be mandatory government ID will have that info in an RFID tag as well.
Alternatively, it could help a user to use their mobile phone as an e-wallet.
wonderfull! now a theif can just waive my wallet in front of a smart billboard and buy anything he wants? need two forms of RFID for that purchase? lucky him, he just stole my cellphone too.
yeah yeah, you say i have a nice origami tinfoil hat on. But what exactly are these "innovations" doing for society? It's cool that this stuff can technically be done. It doesn't mean it should permeate our entire daily lives.
From the story submission: "called Near Field Communication, that could be a threat to Bluetooth."
From the article: "NFC won't replace Bluetooth or infrared."
way to go editors! way to go A.C. who submitted the story! jeebus, if people could be honest, truthfull and accountable this world would be such a better place.
The article brings up the ability of the protocol to exchange files, such as music. This brings up some interesting legal implications: Is exchanging digital music in person any different than exchanging digital music over p2p networks? If giving a friend a mixtape is legal, is it legal to give them digital copies of the songs on the mixtape? And if its legal to exchange digital music in person, how can you differentiate where one gets the bits from? Exchanging digits over this Magic Touch protocol is the same as exchanging digits over TCP/IP! And if this all works out, what does Sony, a member of the RIAA, have to say about this?
Skill is successfully walking a tightrope over Niagara Falls. Intelligence is not trying. -- Anonymous
It's been, what, 10 minutes, and no Wondertwins jokes have been made.
NFD Twins... activate! Form a transaction!
My to be born kids assembling together the house toaster, microwave oven and TV sets in order to form a giant-robot that has 3 times the wireless bandwidth capability of the devices standing alone.
-><- no
maybe they'll start breeding... it could lower the cost of technology significantly!
Comment here.
And didn't people say, "Uh, no."? And didn't the company go under? And how would this be different?
Think Mobile's SpeedPass but with a smart object instread of a dumb keyfob.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
electronics interacting with each other might be cool, just as long as they dont make trapper keepers interact with electronics
"the fax machine is nothing but a waffle iron with a phone attached to it." - Grandpa Simpson
The members of the NFC Forum envisage that their technology will be used to manage connections to both active and passive devices...
and get raided by MPAA & RIAA.
Well, Sony is one of the members of the forum, and both the MPAA & RIAA represent Sony, so they should have some sway to DRM the tech and to prevent the RIAA from preventing its adoption.
Then again, Sony is notorious for backing technology that is a great idea (and perhaps superior technology), but too strict enforcement of its patents prevented them from still being used today (see Betamax, miniDisc, SACD, Bjork, etc...)
There are 13 stories on the front page right now. Of these, only one of them has extra commentary from the slashdot staff, and it's only to point out an earlier story!
Now if we can just keep the bias-out-of-the-dept dept, we'll be set.
So, when this technology is used for nefarious purposes, will it be called "bad touch"?
sudo eat my shorts
The article says:
While NFC will handle identification of users through RFID, it appears that wireless protocols such as Bluetooth or Wi-Fi will still be used for the data transfer.
"NFC won't replace Bluetooth or infrared. This is a new paradigm based on touching, and it will complement these existing wireless technologies," a NFC spokesman explained.
What kind of threat is that? RFID is not a short rage data communications medium if you want bandiwdth you need something else.
I wonder how long it will be until kids in Japan are touching cellphones together and watching them fight it out.
"AHA! my PDA defeat your N-GAGE, AHA!"
** Chigusaaa!!! You're the coolest girl in the WORLD!!! **
I thought the idea was to be wireless? How does needing to touch things together compete with Bluetooth, a wireless data transfer technology?
I make these: http://beatseqr.com
Bluetooth works at a good distance, this requires extremely close proximity. This certainly won't replace my bluetooth mouse, keyboard or cell phone since I don't feel like having to press my mouse and keyboard against my machine to make them work. Ditto for the cell phone. Or am I really missing something?
Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree. -Martin Luther
That's 100m, 30m and 10m, ie 300ft, 100ft and 30ft.
No 3ft Bluetooth.
Of course if you want good, reliable data transfer rate, just divide the above distances by two or three...
I could setup my beowulf cluster of RFID in the clothing department at Walmart!
The IButton also uses "touch" to transfer digital credentials and other information to nearby devices. It uses plain, old-fashioned serial communications technolgy.
This "Magic Touch" technology simply sounds like a more complex way of achieving the same thing.
I can only hope this alliance will take security as seriously as the IButton folks have.
So, now we'll need to get condoms to keep our handhelds from getting viruses. Just like in the real world.
Using NFC to bootstrap a communications link with short range keying information is nothing new. We have been using this technique for about 10 years to allow simple configuration of RF enabled devices.
Normally the RF comms has a range of 100 metres or more. With multiple operating devices in the area it becomes difficult to initialise them individually without knowing which serial number belongs to which device. To overcome this you just bring the readers up to the device (using near field) to get the ID and then you can map the serial number with some other physical information (like the location of the device).
With a small antenna, near field can be operated up to about 10 to 20cm (depending on frequency and antenna size/types - bigger antenna and more power obviosly will give you more range). It is more likely that range will be reduced due to nearby objects altering the magnetic field pattern. But we can normally guarantee about 5cm.
Unlike some posters have assumed, this technology will not accidentally communicate at 2 or 3 metres.
BTW IAARFE
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
Class 1: 100 mW max.
Class 2: 2.5 mW max.
Class 3: 1 mW max.
Nominal range for class 1 is usually given as 100m. After that, sources conflict. Sometimes class 3 is said to be 10m and class 2 as 20m, sometimes class 2 is 10m and class 3 is 10cm. So many other factors come into play that it's hard to make useful generalizations.
Problem: Bluetooth connections may be insecure therefore you cannot use it to buy something by waving a Bluetooth device.
Solution: We will use RFID at extreme close range to verify your ID and allow you to buy something.
WTF?
RFID is not an ID card or ID technology! It is just a larger barcode that can be scanned without a visual line of sight. What are they smoking?
OK they are just sucking in clueless managers/investors who want in on this cheap and million units sold business. I want RFID, I heard the EU is gonna use it in their passports and bank notes. I heard future shops with RFID cannot be stollen from. RFID must be a very secure system, is there any company that can develop RFID things for me, because I want cheap and excellent security. Great I found this company, let them develop ou next systems they know about RFID.
No more incompatible connectors, so we'll be free to experiment with daisy chaining a laptop to a mobile phone to an electric toothbrush to a banjo to a pneumatic otter crusher. Wait! Hold off on the otter crusher - we don't have a hot standby for that.
--- Yx3 = Delilah ---
I can see this working. First, I buy a device, say a laptop, that is NFC enabled. Than perhaps I decide I want to set up a home wireless network. So, I buy a WAP that is also NFC enabled. I plug it in, bring my laptop within "touching" range and all of the protocol negotiations neccesary for comminucation are automagically taken care of. The only company I can see accomplishing this type of integration and maintaining the simplicity is Apple.
Picture it, they touch, and VOILA! Secure encrypted wireless, or at least as secure as wireless gets these days. We can always have hope.
like g-a-r-y, only different