It is reported that many cell phone manufacturers are preparing models of phones with something called NFC, or Near Field Communications. Philips is a major architect and proponent of NFC, and Mario Rivas discussed this strategy during the keynote at our workshop last November.
It is worth noting that the NFC specification has the reader (in this case the cell phone) also acting as a tag, even when powered off. So, soon, we'll be carrying around yet another RFID tagged item. I've already got 4 on my person at all times (MIT ID, Media Lab prox card, an ID badge for my kid's school, and the imbolizer chip in my car key), so hey, what's one more? Oh yeah, this one's going to be running a standard that just may become somewhat pervasive, making it worthwhile to build readers to snoop for them. Then again, as I always leave my phone on, it's already announcing my presence pretty loudly using both GSM and Bluetooth, both of which employ unique IDs for each device.
Read more about NFC in the RFID Journal:
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/1020/1/1/
Posted by holtzman at July 9, 2004 12:25 AM