NFC Technology Helps Smartphone Users With Many Tasks

For most people, the initials NFC — which are short for near-field communications — might as well stand for "Not a Foggy Clue."

Sure, you've probably seen the ads touting NFC in Samsung — the two young hip dudes exchange song playlists by tapping their smartphones together — and other smartphones built on Google's (GOOG) Android. But chances are you're not actually using it.

Though NFC is touted as a way to pay for purchases at specially equipped cash registers using Google Wallet, most U.S. smartphone users don't have access to this feature.

NFC Technology Helps Smartphone Users With Many Tasks

That's because among the big U.S. wireless phone service providers, only Sprint Nextel (S)has enabled the swipe-to-pay feature of Google's mobile payments service. But few retailers are equipped to handle the technology, anyway.

NFC, however, has uses far beyond the cash register.
With some free apps and inexpensive, easy-to-order NFC tags, anyone can use the technology to make life easier.

NFC tags can store any number of instructions, letting you automate a series of actions by simply swiping your phone near an NFC tag. One tag can instruct your phone to, say, connect to your password-protected wireless network. Another could launch a maps app.

Talking The Size Of A Quarter

Thanks to their small dimensions, about the size of a quarter, you can place the NFC tags just about anywhere.
Many even have adhesive, so you can stick them anywhere from your car dashboard to a bedside lampshade.

That makes location-specific tasks easy, such as turning on your phone's Bluetooth when going out for a drive, or silencing your phone before you go to bed.
"I'm astounded by the creativity of people who use our product," said Kulveer Taggar, CEO and co-founder of Tagstand. The San Francisco company makes NFC Task Launcher, one of the more popular NFC tagging apps.

The aptly named Taggar cited one user who stuck a tag on his medicine bottle and swipes his phone to the tag every time he takes the pills.

His phone reminds him to take the medicine if he hasn't swiped the NFC tag that day.
The nonprofit Rock the Vote recently embedded NFC tags into bus-shelter ads, letting smartphone users register to vote by placing their phones up to the ad.

"NFC is a powerful tool to engage consumers in a personal way," said Mikhail Damiani, CEO of Blue Bite, the mobile marketing firm that created the NFC campaign for Rock the Vote.