NFC Teddy Bear

This was one of those WTF moments, I found this NFC enabled Teddy Bear at Prisma in Kokkola.

The Teddy has a unique NFC tag that you register to youself (of course I tried reading it, the tag contains just a URL with a unique ID number) and apparently you can then leave messages on it, or something like that.

A pretty creative idea for NFC don't you think ?

But, notice something in the advert ? The girls is holding an iPhone and last I checked it does not support NFC, so not the most suitable phone to use for advertising a NFC enabled product. (Yes, yes it says QR-Code too, but still)

How to add NFC support to a non-NFC phone, part 2

Have a non-NFC phone ? Friends would like to share stuff with you from their NFC enabled phones without the bluetooth hassle?

Easy, all you need is a NFC tag and another phone to write the Bluetooth connection information to the tag. Obviously this won't magically turn your non-NFC phone into an active NFC device, but will make it into a passive target.

The following video shows what to do.



I got my tags from TagAge

NFC Enabling a non-nfc phone

NFC is a fun technology, the most classic example seems to be the tap-and-share

functionality. Unfortunately, NFC is still pretty rare among phones and none of the more cheaper ones support NFC in any way. (Which is strange, Nokia had two S40 Series phones with NFC already in 2008)

But for the simple tap-and-share from NFC phone to non-NFC there is a very simple solution. Check out this video demonstrating NFC tap-and-share from a Nokia N9 to a Nokia 500.



Next post will explain how to do it.

ICTExpo 2013, Helsinki

I was to the ICTExpo yesterday, the most interesting thing must have been these old computers that Tietotekniikan liitto had on display :)

TeleType KSR 33 (1963-1981)

Osborne 1, C64, Telmac TMC-600 and a Nokia MikroMikko

Also, I like to dabble with NFC and got myself a demo/testing pack with a NFC card and a USB reader (ACR122U).

ACR122U reader

This was also nice to play with, on display at Cubio:s booth, a BlackBerry Z10. (Should be available in Finland next month, price quote was a "very clear" 600-700€. I'd recommend getting it from Amazon or some other out-of-Finland shop for now.

Z10