Near field communication (NFC) is joined at the hip with the concept of mobile payments, or buying things via cellphone.
Taking in our quizzical expression, Samsung’s VP of product planning for mobile urged us to hold the Galaxy S III demo device in front of a sticker, one that happened to be attached to his business card.
Although they look identical, each one is unique, letting users program the sticker to have a specific response whenever any device with an NFC chip is floated over it (NFC only works at extremely short ranges).
Users can program TecTiles via an app that runs on any Samsung phone with an NFC chip, including the Samsung Galaxy S III and S II, the Galaxy Nexus and Nexus S, and the Galaxy S Blaze.
The phone buzzed, and a moment later, DiCarlo’s contact information appeared on the screen, ready for us to save to our address book.
Anyone who engages with the TecTile will still need to tap his or her approval on many of those functions, however, since it would be an inherently insecure if random NFC tags were, say, wirelessly telling phones to call specific phone number, or worse.
SEE ALSO: Samsung Galaxy S III: 6 ‘Human’ FeaturesThe usefulness of democratizing NFC tech in this way is compelling: Think a TecTile on your nightstand that automatically sets your alarm.
Like other NFC stickers, TecTiles rely on near field communication technology to communicate a set of instructions: in this case, saving us a few minutes and dozens of keystrokes by automatically adding a new contact.
Or poster advertisements for an app that include a TecTile that automatically cues up a download.
Unlike QR codes, NFC doesnt require launching an app or using your phones camera just put your phone on top of it and hit OK.
Samsung is getting behind NFC in a bigger way with stickers that interact with your phone.
The app is super easy to use, and within seconds we were able to program the TecTile with simple commands like phoning a specific number.
You have to be careful not to lock the TecTile, or itll be permanently set to perform that command and cant be reset though youll obviously want to do this for any tag youre exposing to the public.
The design is fairly distinctive, with four squares, in various shades of blue, arranged in a larger square.
We hope Samsung comes out with multiple colors, however, since having a bunch of TecTiles that look exactly the same will get confusing for some.
All four major carriers in the US will be offering TecTiles when the Samsung Galaxy S III launches later this month, and the TecTiles app will be in Google Play.
Moniqua Hope is a business journalist based in Hokkaido, Japan. Moniqua has a passion for financial markets and breaking news stories and loves writing about business news, stock market, and economic opinions that matters most to its audience. Moniqua spends a lot of time discovering and researching latest financial markets and industry news stories in order to make sure the latest and greatest stories are brought to you first on BigBoardNews.com.
