Near Field Communication (NFC) technology vendors are already aligning themselves to provide solutions that could be used with Microsoft‘s upcoming Windows 8 operating system (OS), which will include built-in NFC functionality, according to Microsoft’s product presentation and demonstration offered at the company’s Build developer conference, held on Sept. 13-16, 2011. Although Microsoft has yet to set a date for the product’s release, the company reports that the new system will include an NFC function known as “tap to share,” enabling Windows 8 PCs, laptops or tablets to support NFC RFID readers. In that way, the firm indicates, the computing world will join a limited number of mobile phones that are NFC-compatible, acting as 13.56 MHz passive NFC readers and writers that can interrogate tags and capture as well as send data wirelessly when within range of those tags. Last week, Microsoft also released a Developer Preview build of Windows 8, known as Build 8102, for software and hardware developers to download and begin working with.
The tap-to-share application includes software and driver files to enable the use of a plugged- or built-in NFC reader in order to receive or transmit information to or from another device, such as an NFC tag, an NFC-enabled phone or another NFC-enabled computer running Windows 8. With Windows 7, on the other hand, a user can connect an NFC reader to a computer or laptop, but additional software and a driver, supplied by the reader manufacturer or a third party, are necessary to capture and interpret data transmitted to that reader.
During its Build conference, Microsoft demonstrated the tap-to-share application by means of an NFC-enabled tablet computer loaded with an early version of Windows 8. In response to Microsoft’s new OS plans, chip manufacturer NXP Semiconductors has announced that its PN544 NFC radio controller is compatible with the new operating system. In fact, NXP provided the NFC technology used on Windows 8-based tablets distributed at the conference, enabling the computers to not only read and encode NFC RFID tags, but also support peer-to-peer and card-emulation functions specified by NFC standards developed by the NFC Forum.
Last week, RFID tag and inlay manufacturer UPM RFID announced that it has teamed with NFC solutions provider Wireless Sensor Technologies (WST) to provide NFC tags. With this partnership, UPM RFID is providing WST with its NFC tags and inlays that will now be added to WST’s NFC readers, software development kits and customization services, including printing and encoding. Although the partnership is not a direct response to the Windows 8 NFC plans, WST notes, it will make it easier for the firm to respond quickly to customers seeking technology solutions built for Windows 8 devices. Wireless Sensor Technologies already provides an NFC app known as GoToTags for computers running Windows 7, enabling users to communicate with an NFC reader plugged into their computer, and to use it to read and encode NFC tags.
In addition, UPM has released a new portfolio of NFC tags—UPM BullsEye, UPM Circus and UPM MiniTrack—using NXP NTAG203 chips. German company Identive Group is also releasing its new Smartag, based on the same NXP chip.
Semiconductor manufacturer STMicroelectronics indicates that it, too, is an early supporter of Windows 8, by offering its ST21NFCA NFC chip that supports several different NFC communications modes, thereby enabling a device operating Windows 8 to act as a reader or writer, as well as carry out peer-to-peer and card-emulation functions. ST began working with Microsoft earlier this year, according to Lauren Degauque, a representative of STMicroelectronics’ Secure Microcontroller Division, to develop the chip to provide reader functionality for the Windows 8 OS. “As an early supporter of Windows 8,” he says, “we have a unique opportunity to enable plug-and-play NFC features on upcoming Windows 8-based tablets and PCs.”
Microsoft has declined to comment regarding the tap-to-share functionality with Windows 8, instead directing the reporter to NXP’s press release regarding its own offerings.
However, those already in the NFC industry claim that the tap-to-share application signifies that the use of Near Field Communication will grow. “NFC support in Windows 8 should spur the new community of developers and end-product manufacturers to create exciting new applications beyond what we can even imagine today,” says Jeff Fonseca, NXP’s director of business development and sales—which, he says, is critical for the technology’s mass-market adoption.
NXP’s strategy in relation to Microsoft 8’s tap-to-share offering, Fonseca says, is to assist those developers and end-product manufacturers. “By providing the development community and device manufacturers with access to NFC solutions,” he explains, “we enable the creation of new applications and use cases—which will, in turn, drive consumer adoption.”
NFC’s use in personal devices—which may now include tablets and laptops, as well as mobile phones—will enable brick-and-mortar stores to link their products with the Internet, says Craig Tadlock, Wireless Sensor Technologies’ CEO. One example, he says, would be to enable customers to view more data about products in person, while also using an NFC-enabled device to access that information by tapping it against an NFC tag on the product’s shelf. This data, Tadlock says, could provide what has been more typically accessed on the Internet when shopping at home. That could be good business for stores, he notes, since consumers would be more inclined to purchase a product at a store after viewing information about it, rather than going home and conducting research, and then buying the product online.
“It’s exciting to consider how all our devices will be able to communicate with each other and share information through simple touch gestures,” Fonseca states. “Consumers will be able to have the same NFC-driven experience across a multitude of platforms.”
Microsoft’s announcement helps to legitimize NFC, says Michael Liard, the research director for RFID and contactless technologies at ABI Research. “I see this as market enablement in its purest form,” he states, describing the deployment of NFC technology as a multiphase process, the first phase being the action of putting NFC-enabled devices in consumers’ hands. That first phase, he says, is now being met by Windows 8’s tap-to-share function. The next, he adds, will include educating shoppers regarding what NFC technology can provide. This will require NFC technology vendors to provide as seamless a transition as possible for consumers, in order to ensure that the early experiences with NFC are favorable.
“There’s going to be a need for working together as a market,” Liard states, as NFC readers become more commonly used with Windows 8. NFC’s mass adoption, he says, “will require a lot of collaboration.” Some of that collaboration will need to take place in regard to NFC payment options, such as the roles that financial institutions will play in contactless payment systems. This is a complex process that may not be determined quickly, Liard says; for that reason, he predicts that NFC applications other than those for payment purposes are likely to be the first options to which consumers will have access in large volume, because they would be more readily available since they could be used with Windows 8 devices.
In addition to payment applications, NFC solutions could also transfer data from one NFC-enabled device to another, by bringing them within read range of each other, including sharing business-card data, documents or pictures.
Wireless Sensor Technologies acts as an advisor for creators of such NFC systems, and also encodes NFC tags with unique identifiers—a service that, Tadlock predicts, will be in far greater demand with the use of NFC for Windows 8 than for prior versions of Windows, since tag orders in much larger volume will require an encoding service. WST can also encode a tag with relevant data, such as a URL or other details that a user may need when tapping that tag with the NFC-enabled reader, whether via a mobile phone or a Windows 8 device.
For Microsoft, says Keith Kegley—WST’s COO, and a former Microsoft director of product planning and director of product development—NFC capabilities are part of a broader push to enable a variety of sensor applications with Windows. This, he says, will allow a computer or tablet to have a better understanding of its own environment, including its geolocation, lighting or other data, and to adjust itself accordingly (increasing the display’s brightness according to light within a room, for instance). “We spend a lot of time telling our computers what to do,” he says. “Eventually, we will trust the computers to manage us,” since they could use sensor data, including NFC, to understand more about the objects and people around them, and to offer appropriate responses.
It’s not clear when Microsoft, which officially unveiled Windows 8 in June 2011 at the Taipei Computex, in Taiwan, will likely release the new operating system. Microsoft 7 was released approximately 13 months following its announcement. However, Tadlock says, no matter the date, “That’s the wrong date to care about,” since Windows operating systems are not adopted in large percentages until several years post-release.