Recently I stumbled on an interesting blog about developing near field communications (NFC) applications.

Near field communications is a short-range wireless connectivity standard, that allows two devices to connect provided they are within a few centimeters of one another or actually touching (hence, the phrase "near field"). NFC employs RFID tags.

As the site notes, considerable interest exists for near field communications, but a few challenges exist:

"Judging by the number of emails we have received, there is great interest in software and hardware development of NFC applications. The main stumbling block at the moment seems to be working out what development platform to use, and knowing where to get hold of development kits for the various handsets and servers needed to run an NFC application.

Bearing in mind that we haven't used any of these things extensively yet, we are putting everything we know about getting hold of development resources here. Perhaps we can collectively use this post as a way of pooling information on the topic."

A typical example of NFC is that of the mobile phone being used to "read" information, or complete a transaction, or pay for a purchase. The image above, from the Nokia website, outlines an architecture for just such a situation. (See a larger image (PDF) of the NFC architecture diagram here.)

In the United States, however, this may be one of the least prevalent examples, simply because we are behind the rest of the world when it comes to mobile phone usage, by about 2 or 3 years. More information about near field communications can be found here.