RIM Says NFC Is the Future, They Are Most Likely Right

By Briley (Google)

Throughout the event, we were certain of two things, RIM is backing the new features of the Blackberry 10 OS, and they are also backing NFC (Near Field Communication) technology with everything they’ve got.

According to RIM, NFC technology is the link between the physical and virtual worlds. Several times RIM employee’s stated that NFC is going to be the next biggest achievement of mobile technology since the birth of data.

A couple of demonstration booths we visited at the Blackberry Solutions Showcase utilized NFC.

At the Blackberry Music Gateway booth, a demo showed that the new gateway model takes advantage of NFC technology to connect instantly to a Blackberry mobile device.

RIM also had a booth showcasing the Blackberry office setup (it was comprised of a Playbook, a Blackberry mobile phone, a screen and wireless peripherals), and the office used NFC to communicate between various devices.

Of course, there are other practical uses for NFC technology. Allow us to paint you a picture; imagine paying at a standard checkout counter, using only your phone, by merely tapping the cash register. There are no other button presses, key strokes or screen gestures required, just a basic tap of the phone on the NFC enabled transmitter gets the job done.

Alternatively, imagine gaining entry to a 24 hour gym (which is always locked) by simply tapping a Blackberry device to an electronic lock.

The possibilities are endless, which leaves a veil of mystery shrouding the future of NFC. Even so, it’s not hard to see that NFC technology has massive amounts of potential.

We tend to agree with RIM on this one, therefore we’d love to see more NFC technology implemented in real world scenarios. Hopefully RIM can convince enough businesses to take advantage of NFC  technology before the Blackberry 10 OS is ready to launch.