Google Ready To Rule NFC-Based Mobile Payments?

itwbennett writes "Google may seem like an odd pioneer for mobile payments, says blogger Ryan Faas, but according to recent reports, the company is developing its own NFC payment solution. Here's why Faas thinks Google has a leg up in this emerging market: 'Google does have a lot of clout when it comes to NFC because the recent launch of the Nexus S and Gingerbread (the most recent Android release) offer the first truly widespread smartphone/NFC integration. That could give Google significant bargaining power. It also makes a certain sense to expect Google to try to lead in this area when you consider that the company is hyping mobile search and recommendation features.'"

Comments

NFC

[FauxPasIII]

For those wondering: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_field_communication

Re:NFC

[hedwards]

NFC isn't RFID. It's RFID plus a simple extension to allow it to both read and be read. Which isn't RFID, it's several steps more scary that RFID.

You're point about the name change is apt though.

Re:NFC

[spun]

Most folks who have analyzed the videotape format war agree Betamax was technically superior, at least at first. Technical superiority played no part in the ultimate victory of VHS over Betamax. It was a great example of the network effect. In essence, VHS was popular because simply it was popular, like certain celebrities who are famous only for being famous.

Re:NFC

[Mike Van Pelt]

VHS became more popular than Betamax because an entire movie would fit on a single VHS tape. For most consumers, that factor far outweighed the somewhat better picture, and arguable "technical superiority". Much later, Sony produced Betamax decks that could record more than one (1) hour of programming, but by then, VHS had too much of a lead.

Re:NFC

[pushing-robot]

Being first means you get a premium on sales without competition, and can reinvest the extra money to continuously improve your product to stay ahead as competition starts to appear, and always have better margins.

Who created the first personal computer again? The first television? The first radio?

Often the company that becomes rich off an invention isn't the one that first creates it but the one that waits for the technology to mature and spread a bit. It's very easy for the pioneers to become associated with the inconveniences and incompatibilities of an emerging technology, while relative latecomers simply by virtue of their delay become associated with a much smoother experience.

Re:NFC

[swillden]

NFC isn't RFID. It's RFID plus a simple extension to allow it to both read and be read..

It's not just RFID. NFC is two completely different RF technologies packaged together. One is contactless smart card technology (ISO 14443), at the frequency 13.56 Mhz, which enables very close-range (centimeters) relatively high-bandwidth (up to 800 kbps) bi-directional communication and is the technology used by the better contactless credit card payment systems, using cryptographic security. The other is what's normally called RFID, I forget which ISO standard, but it's at 900 Mhz and functions at much longer ranges (up to a meter or two) but only enables very simple communication. RFID tags are typically very "stupid" -- no microprocessor and many of them can't do anything other than respond with a number fixed at manufacture time when energized by a reader. Others allow the short numeric code they contain to be changed.

NFC actually enables the phone to operate as either reader or card/tag with both of these RF technologies.

This means that your phone can, in theory, act as a contactless smart card payment terminal, allowing you to accept credit card payments from an ordinary contactless credit card, or from another phone acting as a card. And, obviously, your phone can act as a contactless credit card -- but one with much better security because the phone has the ability to authenticate the user where the card doesn't, necessarily. Well, better security unless your phone gets rooted...

Oh, and of course, you'll be able to put multiple credit card accounts on your phone, so you can eliminate your cards from your wallet.

An NFC phone can also act as RFID reader, meaning that as retailers shift from putting barcodes on packages to cheap RFID tags, you'll be able to scan merchandise with your phone (you can do this now with phone cameras and UPC codes, but it's much less fiddly with RFID). Other use cases that get bandied about are things like embedding RFID tags in movie posters so you can scan the poster and get taken to a web site with more information (really, this is a use case that is OFTEN discussed in the industry as a sample application, as lame as it is). Finally, an NFC phone can act as an RFID tag. A commonly-suggested application for that is simple loyalty cards, like the Subway card that gets you a free sandwich after so many purchases. So you can get rid of those from your wallet also.

All of these features will, of course, be controllable by the phone's software, so they can be completely disabled when they should not be used, which is very nice for security and privacy. Again, assuming your phone remains under your control.

NFC = Not F*ing Clear

[Troll-Under-D'Bridge]

Okay for those "initially" confused like me. Here's a link to what I believe NFC stands for. The Wikipedia redirect page for NFC lists 11 possible expansions, including at least two other computer related terms and one possibly related to Finance (F), something called the National Finance Center.

Not good

[Waffle Iron]

I heard that Google and Microsoft agreed to carve up the territory by division, and MS will get control of AFC payments. This is looking like it's going to be just another duopoly like cable vs. DSL providers.

Re:Not good

[whoop]

An American football thing.

Re:NFC and Google = Business

[morgan_greywolf]

EDITORS: Please bitchslap the spammer.

Thanks.

No Fat Chicks?

[jeffrey.endres]

No Fat Chicks payments? I'm all for fit and healthy women, but sounds a little discriminatory.

NFC-based?

[GodfatherofSoul]

Does this mean that even if one team really sucks, they'll still get a shot at the play-offs?

Re:No doubt the "black hats"...

[1 a bee]

What part of paying with a credit card in a store doesn't reveal your identity, location, and time of purchase?

No part of it. Apologies for being vague. I was trying to say that though in both transaction types, credit card and NFC, your personal information is revealed, in the case of Google's NFC implementation, this personal information will likely be fed into a live, real time "adworks" infrastructure that cross-correlates this information with information unrelated to the transaction (GPS location, connecting other dots). I don't imagine the credit card companies are anywhere close to such an infrastructure: their business models are not anchored around selling your personal information, so they have less incentive to build such a personal information capturing pipeline.

The scary thing about this, I think, is that companies like Google and Facebook will only get better at capturing, slicing and dicing this personal information as time goes on: their business models depend on it. And as the tools of their trade become ever more powerful, they will end up in wrong hands. But I digress..