It is a well-known fact that Intel has plans to enter the smartphone market soon and it looks like they have plans for doing it with Windows 8. Just ahead of the expected Windows 8 launch in mid-2012; Intel has struck a deal with Inside Secure for use of its NFC technology. NFC or Near Field Communications is much like Bluetooth in its convenience but is much more robust and secure. It has become the preferred ad hoc networking technology for almost all future smartphones. Using this technology, you can turn your phone in to a contact-less credit card, security card and much more. It is all the rage in Japan and the rest of the world is just trying to catch up.
What Intel intends to do with this technology is to integrate it in to their chips and make market for themselves in the smartphone category. With Windows 8 coming up, most people are expecting a major push from the world’s largest chipmaker in the smartphone direction with mobile chipsets.
NFC is a technology that is heralded by most industry experts and is all set to explode in the next few years. It is going to be supported by major players like Google (with their Wallet payment system), who are looking to introduce a simple and secure payment method that can be integrated in to consumer electronics. Imagine having a virtual account like PayPal and then waving your phone in front of a machine to make a payment at your local grocery store.
Coming up after that are ticketing services. So if Intel has its way, your Intel powered Windows 8 smartphone might be able to buy tickets online and then act as the ticket itself at the checking gate. Wave your phone at the gate and your ticket is recognized and ‘punched’.
Security is a big issue in such systems and with NFC’s 10cm range, there’s hardly any chance of eavesdropping like there is with Bluetooth. Plus there are industry standard high-level encryption methods at work here.With some tablet makers also thinking of integrating NFC (the official Windows 8 demo tablet has NFC), Windows 8 is likely to become the first mainstream OS to see real utilization of this.
