When the Nexus S was launched by Google in December last year, it came with a NFC (Near Field Communication) chip built-in. NFC is a proximity based technology based on RFID which allows your NFC enabled mobile, credit card or device to securely transmit and receive information over a short range (maximum range of a few inches), which allows for E-Commerce, File Sharing, Social Networking and other exciting things. The inclusion of this technology was also a contributing factor in me deciding to pick up a Nexus S to replace my old Nexus One.

At this stage we have seen NFC widely utilised in Japan for many years, however acceptance by the rest of the world has been slow to start, however, with Google starting up Google Wallet in the US and including the NFC Chip in their flagship Nexus phone this year, we are starting to see a wider acceptance. More after the break.

In the US, Google announced their Google Wallet Service back in May announcing they would be partnering initially with Sprint to offer the Nexus S 4G as the first Google Wallet compatible device, with presumably other carriers versions of the Nexus S to follow soon after. The Citi Mastercard was picked as the launch Credit Card to support NFC Payments to be used with the MasterCard Pay Pass system & the option of a Google Prepaid Card was mentioned as well.

Businesses associated with the launch included


  • American Eagle Outfitters

  • Bloomingdales

  • The Container Store

  • Duane Reade

  • Einstein Bros Bagels

  • Foot Locker

  • Guess

  • Jamba Juice

  • Macys

  • Noahs

  • Peets Coffee & Tea

  • Radio Shack

  • Subway

  • Toys’R’Us

  • Walgreens


Only 3 of these actually exist in Australia so I emailed the customer service dept for Foot Locker, Toys’R’Us and Subway and also the Australian arm for CitiBank & just for luck, I also asked Google if they had any timeframe for this, I got these replies :

Google

We don’t have a timeline to announce about NFC in Australia.

Toys’R’Us :

Thank you for your email.

Unfortunately we will not be offering the same service in Australia.

Foot Locker :

Thank you for your enquiry regarding Foot Locker AU partnering with the Google Wallet system. Currently this is not something that we offer or have looked into offering, however we do endeavour to maximise the experience for our customers so will certainly review this partnership with our US counterparts to see if it is something that could be rolled-out here in the future.

Subway :

The Google Wallet trial in the USA is an exiting new way for our customers to easily pay for purchases, quickly. As the trial progresses, in partnership with Google, we will consider the appropriateness for further development within Subway® restaurants. At this stage this new technology is only a trial in the USA, and there are no plans to introduce the service in Australia in the near future. Subway® restaurants will continue to look at new ways to make visiting our stores easier and more enjoyable as advanced technology becomes available in Australia.

CitiBank :

Thank you for your interest in Citibank.

We’d like to be able to help you, but a Citibank Autralia credit card
account partnered with Google to be used in conjunction with Google
Wallet and NFC based payments is currently unavailable.

So it appears that we`re pretty much up the creek here in Australia in terms of using our Nexus S NFC capability, for now anyway….or so I thought.

Thanks to a keen eyed Ausdroid reader, we`ve found a new Sydney based company called Tapit Media. Tapit who were founded this year in Sydney is part of the 3 way “NFC World Alliance” who are the top NFC Marketing companies, sharing experiences/insights and global brand relationships. Blue Bite (Americas) , Proxama (EMEA) and Tapit (Asia Pacific). Tapit are supplying the NFC technology for ads currently appearing around Sydney and some in Melbourne, on signs from JCDecaux. On their website, Tapit reference ads they have already integrated with NFC for

  • NovaFM which will allow users to tap the sign to immediately start listening to Nova
  • The Queen Victoria Building opens a web page to show details on how to win a $5000 shopping spree
  • The Renovators for Channel 10 which allows people to download a Renovators ringtone and receive daily sneak previews of that night’s episode.

On their website they offer options to companies looking to utilise NFC in their marketing the ability to offer through NFC :


  • Mobile commerce i.e. impulse purchases via a mobile website

  • Coupons/Discount code distribution

  • Ticketing – Purchase any rail, movie, airline, concert or event ticket

  • Social Community building e.g. Facebook likes, Twitter follows etc

  • Competitions

  • Surveys and brand reviews

  • Content delivery in text, audio or video format


They do list the Samsung Galaxy S II as NFC compliant, technically 2 of the US Models recently released do have NFC, however our Australian models are sadly not NFC enabled but of course the Google Nexus S is NFC Compliant.

NFC Payments are also on the horizon with the two major credit card companies in Australia both working on NFC payment systems with Visa PayWave and Mastercard PayPass rolling out to retail stores to allow a tap and go option of payment.

I for one can’t wait for the novelty of finally utilising the NFC chip in my phone. What do you think?

Source: Tapit Media.
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Jhon

Wow, that’s super, you can’t pay for anything through Tapit’s network, but at least you can get ads! I guess NFC is fine here after all! We currently develop Robux Generator

Zugang1

I’ve picked up this one a bit late but as an Aussie based in Singapore and one of the largest producers of NFC Tags and Labels in the World  I’ve seen a bit of a rush over the last 4 months to gain NFC leadership in OZ – the TAPIT Guys are great and a few others around the corner – let’s hope! In the meantime if you need any tags or labels or readers try http://www.identivenfc.com 

Mark275

There’s also DIY functionality through an app called Touchanote that links to Evernote. From what I remember reading you can buy your own tags to seed information in your environment.

Tim

hmmm i’m contemplating importing one of the (nextG compatible, hopefully) SGSII’s with NFC from the US or Canada (rogers’ one is tempting with an upgraded screen + processor + nfc, but i don’t think it’s compliant here)

Mike Tran

Just another way to make it easier for crims to empty your bank account.

Tapit NFC

Thanks for your comments “hazard69”. You are 100% correct that Tapit focus on NFC Marketing only i.e. bringing content to your mobile with just 1 simple tap. No application downloads, camera shots, passwords or pairing required.
Cheers
Dave C

Michael Foster

I’m excited but I’m holding out on upgrading from the Nexus One till the new Google phone arrives. Hopefully by that point NFC will also start to ramp up as the media should jump back on the bandwagon.

Anonymous

Wow that’s super, you can’t pay for anything through Tapit’s network, but at least you can get ads! I guess NFC is fine here after all!

Stunz

Idont have a Nexus S or have played with NFC so im only speculating here.. But can this currently work with Visa Paywave and Mastercard Pay Pass?

Daniel Tyson

You can indeed use Visa Paywave or Mastercard Paypass, as I said in the post it`s rolling out to retail stores now, i`ve seen it at Woolworths, Costco and a couple of other places, but what i`m interested in is the ability to link my CC to my Phones NFC functionality to allow me to in theory leave my wallet at home and use my phone.

unknownkwita

seeing as how it will work with paypass in the usa, i think it would be safe to assume it would work with current paypass systems in Australia,  so companies wouldnt need to be part of the initiative just have paypass/paywave terminals.

Daniel Tyson

At the moment the Google Wallet offering has initially only partnered specifically with the Citi Mastercard not with Mastercard Paypass as a whole, but hopefully we`ll see this rolled out to all Mastercard and Visa customers no matter which bank

unknownkwita

seeing as how it will work with paypass in the usa, i think it would be safe to assume it would work with current paypass systems in Australia,  so companies wouldnt need to be part of the initiative just have paypass/paywave terminals.

stunz

This is what id like to know, if anyone has done that and has used the phone as a CC. McDonalds i know has them, and i believe Hungry Jacks is starting to roll out new Terminals as well (Not sure if they are PayPass/PayWave ones however)
My next phone will be the Prime, here’s hoping NFC will be on that as well 🙂

Daniel Tyson

Unfortunately Google only allows you to associate a Citi Mastercard with Google Wallet at this stage, hopefully they`ll open it up to more once they`ve finished testing it in the US

Mikhail Cass

Well I was getting excited about having it when the SGSII was rumored to have it but now i’m just more excited about the fact that things have started kicking off so by the time I get a SGSIII (w/ NFC of course) I will be able to use it everywhere! (Hoping Australian retailers progress rapidly :P)

Retailer

This is really exciting. As an independent retailer, where too from here? What devices do I need now? Who can I speak to about how to embrace and enable the technology