Smaller than a dime, this reader module supports the Near Field Communication standard that allows interaction when devices are touched.
The NFC standard is being backed by Nokia, Philips and Sony, who launched the NFC Forum at the CeBIT trade show earlier this year. They say that people could use NFC to establish a link between two handheld devices in order to swap music — or they could just wave their NFC phone at a smart film poster to automatically buy a ticket. NFC will act as a digital identifier. Once the connection has been established between two NFC-enabled devices, another wireless technology such as Wi-Fi or Bluetooth will be used to actually transfer the data.
Alternatively, it could help a user to use their mobile phone as an e-wallet. A demonstration of NFC’s potential at CeBIT showed a travelling businessperson using their NFC-capable phone to check in at the airport, collect a digital key on arrival at their hotel, and pay their bill electronically when they checked out.
Devices, Network authentication, bluetooth, handheld, identification, mobileTech, near field communication, phones, RFID, wi-fi
Record companies are (once again) up in arms about new software from Xingtone that turns any MP3 file into a 30 second ringtone.
But just as the record labels have begun hailing ringtones as a welcome windfall to help offset free-falling CD sales, along comes Xingtone.
The Los Angeles company’s $15 software, sold online, allows anyone with average computer skills to take an MP3 file or favorite CD track, trim it to create a 30-second ringtone and send it to the phone with the press of a button — just like a text message.
“It’s problematic, because it has the potential to eviscerate the business model early in its development,” said Ted Cohen, EMI Music’s senior vice president of digital development and distribution.
Content MP3, phones, profits, ringtones
Hajimiri’s radar on a chip could replace a lot of existing dish antennae, like the kind you have on your roof to watch satellite TV. The frequency at which the chip runs – 24 Gigahertz – falls right into the spectrum allocated by the FCC for vehicular radar systems. These chips could be embedded into a car to give it 360-degree, all weather vision, protecting the occupants from reckless drivers and other highway hazards.
The Radar Phone
But the most interesting thing about Hajimiri’s radar-on-a-chip is how it can be used to do things that aren’t typically associated with radar. For instance, the chip could be used for mobile phones* and to send and receive high-speed wireless data. That’s because the chip has an array of eight tiny antennae that beams its signal in any specified direction, just like a parabolic radar dish does. But while a radar dish has to physically move in order to direct a signal, the radar-on-a-chip directs its radio beam by electrically adjusting the phases of the oscillating current going through its eight antennae (which don’t look like antennae – they are metallic leads etched onto a circuit board).
Network , FCC, mobileTech, phones, radar