It’s been a pretty standard feature on the ‘other’ Google OS: Android since the Nexus S was introduced in 2010 and it looks as though the developers behind ChromeOS are beginning to work on building NFC into ChromeOS as well. The source code from the NFC Daemon is available at the Chromium project but there’s very few details so far, what is known is that it :
- Runs with enough permission to access the NFC device.
- Provides D-Bus service for Chrome to access NFC functions.
- Maintains a callback function table so that all NFC requests/events can be dispatched to right process.
- Provides default launcher to work with other system component, for example, a WiFi zero-config passive card can request shill to setup WiFi connection.
NFC works extremely well when pairing devices so this could possibly be used for that purpose. I can’t really see you holding your Chromebook up to a PayPass terminal to pay for something. Not a terribly useful feature just yet but something to bear in mind.
What uses can you see for NFC on ChromeOS?
Source: Francois Beaufort.
10/10 would tap