Coffee Talk #460: You Down With NFC? (Yeah, You Know Me!)

Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, remembering Davy Jones, iNiS getting into mobile gaming, or AT&T’s new throttling policy for “unlimited” data users, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.

Before I get started, it’s very important that you play the YouTube video above. The column will be 57 percent more entertaining with the song playing. Ready? Let’s go! Back in May 2011, we had a little chat about Google Wallet. The broader and better discussion is about near-field communication or NFC, as it’s more commonly known. NFC is popping up in more and more phones every day. Soon, it will become a standard feature for the majority of smartphones sold in first-world countries. There are several NFC services similar to Google Wallet being developed; a lot of big business want you to use your phone to pay for things. There are also some simpler applications like being able to exchange contact info by simply waving your NFC-equipped phone. Do you care about any of this stuff?!?

Every week, I get bombarded by press releases touting NFC and NFC applications. A lot of companies are betting big on this technology, but so far, I couldn’t care less about it. I have absolutely no interest in using my phone to pay for things. A few friends and relatives have had their credit cards scanned and are now shielding their cards with metal wallets. Storing payment information on my phone would just give me one more thing to worry about. Beyond that, it simply doesn’t add any convenience for me; before I leave my apartment, I always make sure that I have my ID, which is stored in my wallet — you know, that receptacle where my bank cards live too.

Exchanging contacts through NFC? *yawn*

The one area where I could see myself getting excited about NFC is gaming. Imagine a Pokemon-like game on your phone that lets your trade and battle over NFC? How about NFC being used to scan “smart posters” that allow you to import new items or characters into a game? Screw mobile payments! This is what I want NFC to be used for.

Are you down with NFC? (Yeah, you know me!) What kind of NFC applications interest you?

Author: RPadTV

https://rpad.tv

25 thoughts on “Coffee Talk #460: You Down With NFC? (Yeah, You Know Me!)”

  1. To me NFC poses a huge security risk. I think it's stupid as hell and what's an extra 1.5 seconds going to do? I keep my phone and cards in my pocket, I would still have to wave or slide some kind of plastic to make a purchase. I hope this fails like 3D TV.

    1. Maybe 3D TV isn't a failure, but I only know one person that has a 3D TV and his family doesn't even use the 3D function.

    1. Speaking of which… we let Hines Ward go.

      I think it's a good thing and he acted like a sophomore about it.

      1. I think he goes to Baltimore. With the Ravens' history of signing WR's near the end of their careers and expecting them to make Joe Flacco look tolerable, it only seems logical.

      2. I was talking to my brother about it yesterday.

        We thought that Atlanta would be the best roster fit for him.

        You also have to bare in mind that he won't be cheap so you need a team with enough cap room.

      3. I think that some these guy like Ward & Brandon Jacobs who expect big free agency paydays in the twilight of their careers with essentially a flat cap in place this year are about to be sorely mistaken as to what their actual market value is.

  3. I think NFC needs RFID tags to be the popular hit companies want. For example you go into any store grab your items and exit the store. No register. With NFC and RFID tags on the items the checkout process is seamless and reduces the labor required for stores. Especially during busy season.

    I'll bet Apple does it first. They are halfway there with their new app.

    I also hereby proclaim patent and sole ownership of this idea.

      1. Of course but your labor resources would be used in prevention rather than collection this way. Furthermore the inventory with RFID will let the establishment know it has been stolen. Geo location and all :)Sent from my iPhone 4

  4. As a company, I wouldn't want to spend a whole ton of money on NFC readers for our pumps and point of sales. Also, credit card fraud is rampant in South Florida so I am going to bet my bottom britches that it would be a short while before crooks get their hands on small, portable NFC readers and start stealing payment information from people's phones remotely.

    This is something I would absolutely not want to do unless I was forced to.

    (*stares angrily at government*)

    -M

      1. Oh, jeez, where do begin? Well, to answer your question, the most prevalent has to be putting stolen credit card information on a blank card with a mag stripe. I'm willing to bet this happens to about one out of every five people or so down here simply because it's so profitable. The cops won't ever catch you and the credit card companies won't spend any resources on actually trying to track down one of these people. It really is the crime that pays.

        Before the industry did something about the locks on the pumps (dispensers, really) we would open up the cabinet and find credit card skimmers that thieves would covertly install without our knowledge. They would then later pick up the skimmer and load the stolen information on a blank card. Now they are more sophisticated and can pick up wireless point-of-sale communications, which led the credit card industry to set their PCI compliance on us (which of course cost us a bunch of money we had to pay out of our own pockets). While the PCI standards helped a bit, some crooks have already found a way around it. But I'm pretty sure that the two most used methods of collecting victim's data is by using RFID scanners/recorders as they walk around the mall and the good, old-fashioned black market where anyone can get gigabytes of stolen cc data for a few hundred bucks. I'm sure spyware/malware/viruses that are on most people's computers are a great way to farm data as well.

        -M

    2. Wh.. what did I just watch?! I saw images and heard sounds, but somehow my brain did not understand.

      -M

      1. If you read the comments on the YouTube page, somebody explains that it was an actual broadway musical in the 70's.

        I imagine that the 3 minute video above sums it up well enough before our eyes and ears bleed to lethal levels.

      1. I don't have a favorite part. The whole video was my favorite part.

        I havent seen a video that good since Krypton knows when. Incidentally, that Everythingisterrible.com website has some other gems as well.

    4. Alright, it took me a while, but I'll see your 3-minute Superman musical and raise you this Emmy-worthy performance from Adam West, Burt Ward and whoever the hell Batgirl is:

      [youtube s0SjY2m4qvI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0SjY2m4qvI youtube]

      I'd like to see Christopher Nolan remake THAT.

      -M

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