Ever since the introduction of the first BlackBerry devices equipped with Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, we’ve enjoyed seeing how people are using NFC in the real world. Whether NFC is used as part of a mobile payment solution, to interact with a book, or as a security card, there is little doubt that the technology is becoming widely adopted. Even just this week our Secure Element Manager (SEM) solution for NFC payments was approved by Visa – a clear sign the industry is getting behind NFC.

These case studies are all well and good, but I still have friends who ask me, “Why would I even need NFC on my smartphone? Does it do anything cool?” It’s a fair question. While there are more and more devices running NFC, the adoption of this or any new technology can happen gradually. Take Bluetooth for example. I remember the early days of Bluetooth, when it was (anecdotally) confusing for a lot of people I know. In the mobile and desktop space Bluetooth was a check box in the selling features category. It wasn’t until consumers and the industry really got behind it and understood how it was useful that it took off. Now you see Bluetooth everywhere; in mobile accessories, smartphones, and even cars.

We continue to see the infrastructure pieces coming together that are making NFC solutions simpler and more viable to the mass market. Like Bluetooth before it, I predict NFC will improve the way people interact with their devices, making everything from exchanging contact information, files and making payments as simple as tapping two devices or tags together.

Pretty cool, right? Also keep in mind that NFC is still growing as a technology so there are uses coming that we may not have even thought of yet. Where will NFC on your BlackBerry device take you?

We’re always on the lookout for new and fun uses for NFC, so please feel free to share your NFC story or feature in the comments below.

It’s no secret that we love Near Field Communication (NFC). What’s exciting at this point is watching some of the use cases come to fruition, and today in particular, the ability to replace security access badges with BlackBerry® smartphones. NFC is an innovative technology with many stakeholders and interested parties including enterprise customers, end users, financial institutions, carriers, and of course smartphone manufacturers. BlackBerry smartphones have been leading the way in mobile payments for some time, becoming the first smartphones to be certified by MasterCard® and Visa® for NFC-based payments, and now we’re first to be available as an access badge replacement solution. “RIM has proven to be a leader in NFC technology, and in bringing NFC solutions to market – we spearheaded the efforts in mobile payments. Now we are taking NFC beyond payments into the enterprise sector and partnering with HID Global®, an industry leader in physical access solutions” says Geoff MacGillivray, RIM Sr. Product Manager for NFC.

Late last week HID Global announced the availability of Secure Identity Services™, a comprehensive suite of web-based services for managing physical access credentials (read the HID press release for more info). Secure Identity Services is the enterprise’s first all-in-one web-based solution for credential provisioning and management. The platform provides businesses with the tools to create, use, and manage identities for traditional badges on plastic cards, for tokens, and for digital credentials on NFC-enabled BlackBerry smartphones beginning with models on the Verizon Wireless network: the BlackBerry® Bold™ 9930 and the BlackBerry® Curve™ 9370.

Read more at the Inside BlackBerry for Business Blog »

If you look back a few years, it is impressive to see the ways in which wireless technology has changed the way we live. One example of this is the emerging NFC technologies that are being built in to a range of BlackBerry® smartphones, and even the new 4G LTE™ BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet. NFC essentially allows devices to connect by waving or tapping them together. This is useful for exchanging small amounts of data like weblinks or contact information, and it is increasingly being used for mobile payments, where you can tap your device (which can be connected to your financial accounts) and conveniently pay for purchases. The future is now.

Since I’m no expert when it comes to NFC, I caught up with Geoff MacGillivray to get the scoop.

IBB BLOG: Could you tell us what NFC technology is for those who have never heard of it?

NFC is a very new technology for the mass market. It has been around for quite some time, and people have probably already seen examples of NFC or have used NFC technology even without realizing it. The acronym itself, NFC, stands for Near Field Communication. Essentially, it’s a short-range wireless technology that is largely associated with a ‘tap’ — a tap on a reader or another device to initiate a transaction.

Now, if you’re a member of a corporation and you have an ID pass or card that gives you access to the premises, it could be using NFC technology. If you tap the card to the reader, that’s an NFC exchange. Likewise, when you tap your credit card on a certain point of sale reader, your financial transaction is executed using NFC.

IBB BLOG: With today’s fast-paced lifestyle, what key uses of NFC do you think will help us the most?

I think the modes of NFC and the ways it can be used are so widely varied, and that’s where I see value for end consumers. It’s not just about payment, although that’s certainly one aspect of it.

Physical access is another aspect. It doesn’t just play into enterprise; it can also extend to other areas like getting access to buildings of any sort. Modern hotels rooms, for example – you won’t just get a magnetic key card for access, you’ll sometimes get a card with NFC technology that you can tap to be let in.

Transit is another use case – GO trains in Toronto use NFC with the Presto system, the London transport system uses NFC with the Oyster card, and a lot of transit authorities use it around the world because it just fits so nicely.

IBB BLOG: Is there a creative or interesting use of NFC that people may not know about?

We were just talking about what we call ‘card emulation use cases’ which are replacing the physical card in terms of NFC transactions.v

There’s also an equivalent form of NFC that fits within the QR code space. You often see a QR code on a poster, but it’s actually very easy to put an NFC chip on it instead. The benefit there is that you can simply ‘tap’ the poster to read a web link, phone number or other info instead of fumbling to focus your device on the QR code to read it.

Many of us already know about device exchanges that involve tapping devices together to share a picture or web link, et cetera. That can actually extend to accessory pairing as well. We’ve all gone to the trouble of trying to pair Bluetooth® accessories – wouldn’t it be nice just to ‘tap’ on accessories and you are Bluetooth-paired?

It’s these kinds of examples spanning a person’s daily life that will make NFC truly valuable. You don’t have to focus on a QR code – you just have to tap. You don’t have to pull out your wallet to pay – you just tap. So it’s all those little things that I think add up to the overall NFC experience.

IBB BLOG: With NFC, we’ve talked about the ability to exchange photos, documents and more. And in the near future, we’ll be able to make secure financial transactions. How secure are these transfers?

Another great question. People get a little worried when you talk about issuing credentials to a phone, but I’d like to point out that your phone is actually a more secure environment than your credit card. And the reason I say that is because there are remote management options as well as password lock and other features that are available.

When you have your credentials on your credit card and your credit card is stolen, they have your information if they know your PIN. If that info is now on your phone and stored in the same secure chip location where it’s stored on the card, you now have the ability to lock your phone. So if someone steals your phone they can’t get the card information without first unlocking the device. Plus, some devices also have remote wipe or management capabilities available.

The security of the device can now be factored into protecting your payment credentials or any other credentials that are stored there.

IBB BLOG: In your life, how do you feel NFC technology is most helpful, or engaging?

To me, the idea of getting rid of all cards is really appealing. Not just payment cards, but all the rewards cards and others too. Now if I can get down to a couple of cards in my wallet – at least in the short term – that would make me so much happier. In the long term, that could mean getting rid of your house keys and your car keys. All you would need is your phone. People could rid themselves of carrying wallets; they would just take their phone, because everyone takes their phone with them.

And the other thing about security is that I may not notice immediately if I lose my access card or even if I lose my wallet, but people are on their mobile devices so often that they’ll know if they’re missing them probably sooner than any other passes.

IBB BLOG: How large is an NFC chip?

An NFC chip is in the order of 1 millimeter or 2 millimeters square. What actually takes up space on the NFC tag is the antenna, but it’s still very flat. NFC stickers are paper-thin. There’s a magazine that recently ran an ad using NFC, so it can be imprinted in media.

There’s also a company investigating the ability to use technology to actually print an NFC tag. And if that happens, the cost will come down and the amount of functions you can explore will increase.

IBB BLOG: Over the next few years, what new capabilities do you think NFC technology will have? How do you think it will impact the smartphone industry as a whole?

I think we’re seeing a lot of publicity around the introduction of NFC technology in mobile phones now. And more and more companies and manufacturers are getting onboard with NFC. We have to bear in mind that this is a new technology and will be adopted over the next several years. The vision of having NFC as a part of your daily life is one that we should subscribe to. It’s going to take a little while to get there, but we’re pretty excited about how things are moving.

There you have it — NFC technology explained. Now that we’ve shed a little light on this new standard, let us know if you have any other questions, and be sure to check out Luke’s blog post on how NFC can be used in everyday life.

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In the summer of 2011 we launched the BlackBerry® 7 lineup of smartphones along with our first NFC-capable devices: the BlackBerry® Bold™ 9900/9930 smartphones, the BlackBerry® Curve™ 9350/9360/9370 smartphones, and the BlackBerry® Bold 9790 smartphone. The initial NFC functionality enabled the technology within the BlackBerry® OS to support Smart Tag reading and writing, along with API’s available for BlackBerry developers so that they could start building some compelling experiences with this exciting technology. For the end-user, on the other hand, the promise of the technology is just getting started.

What is BlackBerry Tag?

BlackBerry® Tag is a new way to share content with others, allowing you to use NFC technology to pass information with a simple tap between any two NFC-enabled BlackBerry® smartphones.

What can be shared through BlackBerry Tag?

Here are some examples of what you’ll be able to share with a single tap:

• Invite your friend to BBM™ (BBM 6.1, which is now available on BlackBerry® App World™)
• Share contact information
• Share content from the media applications
• Share voice notes
• Share documents from within Documents To Go®
• Share a URL from the browser
• Create Bluetooth® pairing with ease
• Transfer files

An Example

Picture this: you’re reviewing photos from a weekend with friends on your BlackBerry smartphone, when your friend sees a great shot that they love. By simply opening the picture on your phone and tapping your friend’s device, you can easily share the photo. No complex menus, no extended period of time holding the phones together, and no hassle. Want to share multiple photos with a single tap? No problem! The transfer continues even after the phones are pulled apart after tapping, via a secure Bluetooth connection.

Okay, so how does it work?

The “magic” of BlackBerry Tag is that it’s using NFC to very quickly (and silently) setup a temporary secure Bluetooth connection between the two phones. In case you didn’t know, NFC is a wireless technology that allows for very low-rate data transmissions at a 4 cm range. It fills a very specific niche, but when coupled with a longer range and higher bandwidth protocol like Bluetooth, it becomes an extremely robust technology that lets you connect devices wirelessly for a brief period of time. BlackBerry Tag doesn’t go out to the cloud or use any data over a mobile network.

Is it Secure?

Staying true to our long history of upholding security standards, we made sure that the system is protected from end-to-end. Plus there is a certain level of inherent security with NFC that I’d call security-by-proximity (i.e. you have to physically be close to the person you want to share content with) – but we went even further.

• By default, confirmation prompts appear when you attempt to send or receive using BlackBerry Tag. If you prefer, you can easily disable prompts within the preferences.
• Tapping to share is disabled when screens are off, preventing unwanted tagging from pockets or lost/stolen devices.
• AES-256 encryption is utilized over Bluetooth to make the sharing of data secure.

In BlackBerry 7.1, not only do some core applications support BlackBerry Tag, we will also offer additional API’s that will provide developers with the functionality to create highly interactive applications, allowing you to establish peer-to-peer connections between devices. Through the use of standard protocols, developers will have the ability to create a physical, interactive experience, allowing users to transfer files, or share in-app information with a simple tap. Developers can utilize BlackBerry Tag to transfer data through NFC or to handover the connection to Bluetooth to transfer larger amounts of data over a further distance.

Hopefully you are getting as excited as I am about BlackBerry Tag and the limitless experiences it can enable on BlackBerry smartphones!

What will you be sharing most often with BlackBerry Tag? Share in the comments!