January 28, 2011 | by Lars Aronsson
Near Field Communication, or NFC, is a wireless short-range communication technology which enables the exchange of data between devices over about a 10cm (3.9″) distance. NFC can be used for numerous things, and it could eventually even replace credit cards, but the implementation of the technology is currently in its infancy.
NFC is featured on the Nexus S, and it’s rumored that Apple will incorporate Near Field Communication in its next generation of iPhones and iPads. We’ll likely see more and more uses for NFC this year, and a group of researchers at Stanford’s MobiSocial lab has given us a few suggestions on how to take advantage of the technology.
They show us that NFC can be used to share a photo, by pressing two NFC-enabled phones together – as simple as that. In another video, we get to see an app being shared and simultaneously used by two people. In this case, it’s a collaborative drawing app.
Apparently, the researchers first had to make some tweaks to Gingerbread, since it currently only uses NFC for reading tags. Because of this, you won’t be able to try these apps yourself at this point, but the folks at Stanford hope that Android soon will support similar applications.