Info 202 F12

The NFC (Near Field Communication) is a short range communication technology that allows the exchange of information between two devices. There are several services that aim to use this technology to facilitate day to day tasks, like payments, check in, and others, but none of them has the popularity that was expected for this technology. One interesting idea that has not been completely explored is the use of this technology in identification devices. In particular, Moo (an online printing service company) has decided to break into the contact management area. The proposal is simple: business cards with an integrated NFC chip that can be read by other NFC devices, like smartphones or tablets. The card will have the possibility to send information to the device about the type of instructions to execute: open a specific URL, update the contact application, coordinate a meeting, or even develop marketing ideas. The idea of Moo goes further, because its cards can be programmed to share data wirelessly with smartphones, and reprogrammed with new information whenever a person likes.

For info 202, the idea raises interesting questions about how to organize that information in an small NFC chip, like: What is the necessary vocabulary to organize all of this?, What are the instances? What are the relationships inside this undefined set of data and tasks?

Moo on Cnet