What is NFC?

I’m reading about few new technologies these days and how can I utilize these technologies in my mobile application development and innovate something new J. Near Field Communication is one of the technology which is more prominent on newer Android based phones. In London Olympics (Starting today), many hotels (Holiday Inn) are providing NFC based door keys, exciting? So what is NFC? And how is it different from other short range wireless technologies like Bluetooth and RFID?

NFC (Near Field communication) allows for simplified transactions, data exchange, and wireless connections between two devices in proximity to each other, usually not more than few centimeters (less than 4 cms and upto 20 Cms). NFC involves an initiator and a recipient (target). The initiator actively generates an RF signal that can power a passive target. This enables NFC targets to take very simple form factors such as tags, stickers, key fobs, or cards that do not require batteries.

NFC can be used in three specific ways

• Card enumeration: The device is a contactless card. Mobile will act as credit card, debit card, badge or tickets.
• Reader Mode: The device can read RFID tags. This is most similar to how barcode scanning works. E.g. Today we can scan a barcode using Mobile camera and application, eventually NFC can replace barcode reading
• P2P mode: Two devices can communicate back and forth and exchange data. In this mode of usage, two NFC enabled devices can exchange information such as contact info, files, pictures, songs etc.

Many currently available smartphones (Android, Windows and Symbian) contains NFC chips that can send encrypted data a short distance to a reader located, for instance, next to retail cash register. Shoppers who have their credit card information stored in their NFC enabled smartphones can pay for purchases by waving their smartphones near or tapping them on the reader. Non NFC based mobiles can also be enabled with NFC technologies using NFC SIMs and NFC microSD cards.

NFC Use cases

• -          Contactless credit card payments
• -          NFC Based information access point. (To access Product information at retail stores)
• -          Electronic Business card.
• -          Electronic Keys based on NFC.
• -          NFC Based Electronic Ticketing for Buses, Trains, and Movies etc.
• -          File Sharing: Tap one NFC device to another to instantly share a contact, photo, song, applications, videos and web link.
• -          ID Card, keycard,  Rental car/hotel keys

Now on the other hand RFID is similar technology and we can safely say, NFC is subset of RFID. 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. While NFC tagged objects are usually passive.

Bluetooth also is based on RF technology but biggest difference between Bluetooth and NFC is it’s range. Bluetooth supports up to 100 mtr range to connect another Bluetooth enabled devices while NFC is very small range. Another big difference between these two technologies is its speed. Bluetooth can transfer files over 2MBps but NFC is not exactly  designed to do file transfers.

	NFC	Bluetooth	RFID
Range	Up to 4 inch	100 mtrs	50 mts
Speed to transfer	Slowest	Fast	Slow
Pairing	No Required	Required	Required (Human Interaction)
Frequency	13.56MHz	2.4-2.5GHz	13.56MHz
Security (Encrypted Data transfer)	Yes	Yes	No

Liked the information? Follow this space for more information on NFC. 

iOS 6 Vs Android 4.1 Vs Windows Phone 8

I’ve started looking deeper into all new flavor of 3 smartphone OSes. So far none of these are available on my array of phones but here is comparison of some new features of these OSes -

Features	iOS 6.0	Android 4.1	Windows Phone 8
Offline Maps	No (?)	Yes	Yes
3D Maps	Yes	Yes	Yes
Turn-by-Turn Navigation	Yes	Yes	Yes
Voice Assistance App Launch	Yes	No	Yes
Voice assisted Search	Yes	Yes	Yes
Voice assisted dictation	Yes	Yes	Yes
Multitasking	Yes (Limited)	Yes	Yes (Limited)
File Manager	No	Yes	No
USB Host	No	Yes	No
NFC Support	?	Yes	Yes
Live Tile/Widget	No	Yes	Yes (Live Data update)
Notification Center	Yes	Yes	No
Multi core processor support	Yes	Yes	Yes
SD Card Support	?	Yes	Yes
Facebook Integration	Yes	Yes	Yes
Mobile Payment	Yes (Passbook)	Yes (Google Wallet)	Yes (Wallet)

Verdict:

New versions of smartphone OSes are definitely excited. The most disruptive is Windows Phone 8, Microsoft has come a long way with Windows Phone 8. Only Android 4.1 is rolled out so far, we need to wait and watch how iOS 6 and Windows Phone 8 will turn out for end users.

Some key features in Windows 8

Yesterday I attended a seminar on Windows 8 Metro Style – Redefining perspective by Sapient Global market; I was really existed about new features of Windows 8 after the seminar. Though I had installed developer preview version on one of my tablet almost 5-6 months back but did not know many of new features of Windows 8 due to limitation in developer preview version. Here is a list of some key features in Windows 8 which will be loved by many of us -

1.       Tile based touch sensitive User Interface – We had first seen tile based user Interface almost 2 years back when Microsoft came out with Windows Phone 7, now Microsoft is bringing the same experience in Windows 8. Microsoft has replaced “Start” menu with Tiles. Tiles can host live information from Windows metro style application without opening the application, very much similar to Windows Phone 7. Tiles are touch sensitive but works equally great with keyboard and mouse.

2.       Support for x86 and ARM – This is the best feature from Windows 8. This operating system is designed to work seamlessly between x86 (Traditional PCs) and ARM (tablets, ultraportable PCs) processors. The biggest advantage of this will be to developers and they don’t need to develop two versions of the same application. Once they develop the app, it will work on both PCs and Tablets. ARM build will also have feature of “always on” that means tablet can remain in standby mode without disconnecting from internet.

3.       Refresh and Reset – The biggest problem with all previous windows versions was re-installation and installation of the operating system.  Microsoft has addressed this painful concern with features like Refresh and Reset. Refresh will keep all personal data, Metro Style apps and important settings before re-installing windows from image but on the other hand Reset will remove all personal data, apps, setting and re-install windows as if installing it first time. But how these two features are useful to end users, now users can just select “Refresh” to fix all the PC problems instead of installing the OS all over again.

4.       Windows in the pocket (Windows to Go) – Portable software is not a new concept and it exists from many years with Linux but what is surprising is Microsoft has brought portability of OS with Windows 8. Users will be able to carry complete Windows 8 image in the USB flash drive and can work from anywhere. One application I can think of, I can carry my corporate windows 8 image in the USB drive at home and can continue working from home in my personal PC. Is it not great?

5.       Full Screen – Windows 8 Metro Style apps and OS is full screen, you won’t see any header, minimize, close. Application will run full Screen.

6.       Charms – Charm Bar is available on the right side of the screen. You need to just swipe your finger towards right to bring up the Charm bar. Charm bar host “Search”, “Share”, “Settings” and more. You can share your current application data with other applications directly using “Share”, Search the system or the data within your application.

How to migrate Windows Phone Contacts to Android Phone

When I changed my phone from Windows (Dell Venue Pro) to Android (Galaxy S 3), the first challenging task was, how to transfer all the contacts from Windows Phone to Android? Here is the trick

• 1.       Since your windows phone synchronizes your contacts with your Hotmail/live account, all these contacts are available on cloud. Open your Hotmail/live account and go to Contacts.
• 2.       Select Manage and “Export”.
• 3.       It will export all your contacts to .csv file.
• 4.       Now go and open your Gmail account.
• 5.       Select Contacts, More and “Import”.
• 6.       Import the .csv file as windows comma separated file.
• 7.       Once Import is finished, Go back to your new Android phone and synchronizes Google Contacts.

All your contacts will be on your new phone now. Enjoy.

Samsung Galaxy S 3 Apps Review 

It has been over a week, I got my Galaxy S 3 and happy with S 3 performance. There are plenty of web resources which can provide you Galaxy S 3 reviews, but here I am not reviewing the hardware, I’m providing my experience on the software. There are many applications come bundled with S 3

S Memo – One of the most beautifully designed application. Writing from finger is pretty smooth.

S Calendar – I liked the interface of Calendar on S 3, Transitioning from HTC Legend, it was a big relief to me to keep checking my schedule in Calendar. I could easily see my schedule by day/week/month or by upcoming appointments and events. Adding a new event is very easy and Quick add button make is much simpler.

Email – Email application is also carefully designed and it try to replicate the experience of outlook by providing category, sorting by day, flag and multi select for batch operations.

Audio/Video Player – Perhaps S 3 is the first phone with natively support playing FLAC, MP4, and acc files which is great.  Sound quality is decent and video play back is smooth. It’s super AMOLED screen makes video watching experience superb on such a small screen. I was never a fan of watching videos on such a small screen but it seems S 3 is going to change my mind.

Contacts – Contact application is decent and most of the features for contacts and phone are available with one or two taps. I likes the join feature of Contact, if you have same contact in Facebook, Linked In, Twitter and Google, it provide you an option to join them and only one contact will be visible in Contact list after join. First I had seen this feature with Windows Phone, and I feel this is great feature as in today’s world our same contacts are scattered on multiple sites.

Gallery/Camera – S 3 camera is pretty fast, like my earlier camera phones, it does not take time to focus and I was able to take photos very quickly. Photo and Video quality is excellent for a camera phone. UI for Camera app is also user intuitive and all features are just a tap away. And there are tons of Camera features to choose from burst mode, panorama, HDR, smile detection etc and you can shoot a video concurrently while taking a snap, which is great.

Phone – Phone application is great and easy to use but it seems there is problem with the mice. Most of my friends complain I am not too clear or they can’t hear me clearly sometimes. There are two mice on this phone but one (on top) works only when phone app is in Speaker Mode. And not to forget the Direct Call feature of S 3 (My favorite), this is a unique feature of S 3. This works like – If you are viewing a contact but all of a sudden you decide to call this person, just bring the phone to near your ear and it will automatically dial in the contact, is it not great?

S Voice – The concept of this application is great but I could not make it work even once, it always mis-interpreted my voice commands that’s because perhaps I don’t have British or American ascent J So this application is of no use to me but would love to use such application. Another, it is little slow to respond to voice commands.

Performance of all these applications is superb due to its 1.4Ghz processor with 1GB of RAM. 

There are plenty many more applications bundled with the phone but all other are regular Apps and comes with ICS.

Conclusion - All the phones available in the market today, Galaxy S 3 clearly stand out from the Android crowed mobile market. The closest competitive phone is HTC One X and iPhone 4S but both of these phones have it's own limitations.