Developers urged to find innovative and novel uses for new generation of NFC (Near Field Communication) mobile phones

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  • Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 21:30:29 -0400

MoreRFID.com
Monday, October 15, 2007

Developers urged to find innovative and novel uses for new generation of NFC 
(Near Field Communication) mobile phones

Related Vendor 
Innovision Research & Technology plc 
 
[10/15/07] Near Field Communication (NFC) - a short-range wireless 
communication technology - is about to change the face of mobile handset usage 
and mobile applications where 'touch is the new click'. With the recent 
announcement of the four NFC Forum standard tag types, Innovision Research & 
Technology, developer of the NFC standard number 1 tag type format, Topaz, has 
launched the NFC Innovation Awards, the first UK competition aimed at finding 
the most innovative NFC ideas of the future.
 
The competition, aimed at UK-based teams, requires teams of up to four 
participants to produce an abstract proposing a new NFC application, and if 
shortlisted, a demonstration of the application for a Topaz tag used with an 
NFC-enabled mobile phone handset.

Topaz has a 96 Byte memory and as the smallest and lowest cost NFC tag is one 
of only three proprietary tag types mandated by the NFC Forum, the global 
standards body for NFC. Innovision believes that by learning how to use an 
NFC-enabled phone to efficiently encode these tags, developers will gain a 
valuable insight into the opportunities and challenges presented by NFC 
technology. One interesting challenge for competition entrants is devising an 
efficient use of a tag memory of 96 Bytes - for example, it could be used as a 
pointer to larger databases or specific Internet sites.

Competition entrants will each receive a free competition kit, comprising a set 
of 10 Topaz NFC tags and a Topaz data sheet. Tags are available in four form 
factors suitable for a variety of uses:

30mm round adhesive labels
38mm x 38mm square adhesive labels
38mm x 38mm square cards
ID1 Credit card sized cards

Entrants also need to use an NFC-enabled mobile phone handset with the software 
development kit, available to purchase from Glue4, a software and solutions 
company who is supporting the competition.

"NFC-enabled mobile applications are evolving rapidly and we felt now was the 
right time to see what creative design and development skills are out there 
that can take advantage of a technology that enables a new generation of mobile 
devices to communicate simply by touch," explains Innovision Research & 
Technology CEO, David Wollen .

"The beauty of NFC lies in its simplicity and flexibility - by integrating an 
NFC tag into an everyday object, individuals can simply touch an NFC-enabled 
device against the tag and receive relevant, specific and timely information. 
In effect, it makes any object smart."

The competition timing coincides with the start of the new academic year, with 
an entry deadline of 9th November. A panel will then judge entries and announce 
the shortlist on 19th November, followed by a presentation ceremony in December 
in London .

Competition entrants must be able to demonstrate their project and provide an 
abstract explaining how the project works and how it meets each of the 
judgement criteria. Criteria include the project's benefit to society (social); 
its commercial potential; the possible beneficial effect on the lives of 
individuals (personal); originality (novelty); and its potential for creating 
an effective working environment or organisation culture (collaboration), among 
a number of others.

Innovision's David Wollen , adds: "It's fair to say that we have some of the 
best engineering skills in the UK, and as a British-based company ourselves, we 
wanted to create a competitive environment where teams from around the country 
could present their ideas and come up with commercial, novel and potentially 
life-changing mobile applications based on NFC technology."

Examples of applications already developed using the Topaz tag include smart 
posters used for interactive transport timetables, information and even product 
download. Other use cases, such as the Seeingeyephone from VTT (outlined 
below), and HOTELNOVA by University of Nice , have used Topaz tags to provide 
support for the visually impaired, and to improve the travel experience of 
hotel visitors. Further information on these projects is available online via 
'What We Do' on the Innovision website 

www.innovision-group.com.

An innovative use of NFC - case study: 'The Seeingeyephone'

In May, Innovision highlighted a novel prototype demonstration of its 
proprietary NFC tag Topaz (NFC Forum Type 1 Tag) called the Seeingeyephone, an 
innovative use of NFC developed by engineers from VTT at the Technical Research 
Center of Finland as part of a SmartTouch EU-project. The Seeingeyephone is 
designed for visually impaired people who are unable to read product 
information in shops. The NFC tag containing an ID and address with 
product-specific data, such as the price, use-by date and pack size, is simply 
attached to the shelf next to each product. When the customer holds their 
NFC-enabled phone up to the tag, the text-based information is retrieved and 
the phone's text-to-speech synthesiser feeds the information directly to the 
user in their chosen language. Simple and clever, the Seeingeyephone was 
recognised at the recent European NFC Competition as the 'Most Innovative NFC 
Proposal of the Year 2007'.

About Innovision Research & Technology plc

Innovision Research & technology plc, is leading the next generation of 
NFC/RFID solutions. As the leading fabless developer of Short-Range Data 
Communication semiconductor and system solutions, with particular focus on 
NFC/RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) and ultra low-cost Integrated Circuit 
(IC) and RF electronic design, IRT is pushing cost performance to enable 
clients to get maximum utility for minimum cost.  The company develops 
innovative semiconductor technologies, ICs, RF systems (HF/UHF) and complete 
end product applications for mass volume commercialisation and then licenses 
customers for its incorporation into their own products.

At the heart of the emerging Near Field Communication (NFC) market, Innovision 
R&T designs and develops NFC/RFID IC solutions for the global mobile handset 
and consumer device sectors.  Products include Topaz, mandated by the NFC Forum 
as the NFC number one tag type format, Jewel for mass transit ticketing 
applications, and io, the world's smallest standards compatible Near-Field RFID 
reader.

Headquartered in the UK , Innovision R&T was listed in 2001 on the Alternative 
Investment Market (AIM) of the London Stock Exchange (ticker symbol: INN ).
 


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