NFC is not just mobile payment

NFC or Near Field Communication is the big buzz word at the moment and everybody is talking about it. The truth is that the technology is nothing new and it has been around for a long time. Nokia had an NFC enabled phone in 2007, it was called the Nokia 6131.

Google has made the term mainstream with their announcement of Google Wallet and most people think of NFC as a way to pay with their mobile device. But that is not all.

At Razorfish globally we have been exploring NFC for a long time. Just look at the examples that we released in the past: The NFC gumball machine, BrandTable or Razorfish Digital Wallet.

We actually have a wall of NFC to showcase all kinds of uses for the technology right in our office.

So what else can you do with NFC apart from using it for payments?

There are already plenty of examples out there.

Below you can find 6 examples on how NFC can be used right now.

1. Use your NFC enabled phone as the key to your hotel room

For the recent Olympics in London a Holiday Inn Hotel gave their VIP customers a Samsung Galaxy S3 as part of their 40 VIP rooms. The guests were able to check in and out of the hotel, as well as change the AC, control the TV, and unlock their rooms with the phone.

Using NFC in your phone as a key to open doors has been used in the Enterprise world as well. The phones were used to enable physical access systems in buildings and track employee time-clock check-ins and attendance, access staff parking areas or cafeterias and pay for services.

NFC tags could be placed inside meeting or conference rooms, and attendees could tap their compatible devices to silence them or to turn on Wi-Fi, for example.

2. Use it as your travel pass

Disney’s Appmates – the future of iPad gaming

If you have kids and a tablet you know that your kids love them and you hardly get any time with it yourself.

Disney is going to release their Appmates toys next month and then you won’t get your tablet back at all from your kids.

So what is Appmates? It seems to be a new iPad interface which lets the user (or small and big Kids) control a Cars-themed iPad games using the toys above.

The toy cars have special conductive pads that are recognized by the iPad and interpreted by the app.

As you drive around the virtual environment of Radiator Springs, you’ll hear the character’s voice react to each bump or jostle. Mirrors inside the toy car will reflect light from the iPad through the toy’s headlights, and Mater’s siren as well.

Check out the video after the break

The biggest projected capacitive display in the world

and I want one.

I finally had the time to read about this “little” screen at SIGGRAPH, the article has been open in my browser for about 6 days.

And it was well worth the wait.

A projected capacitive display is nothing new, multiple smartphones, including the iPhone has one, but having an 82 inch one is something very special.

check out the video below and dream about having one of these puppies in your living room some day.

http://www.viddler.com/embed/33ac8f58/?f=1&offset=0&autoplay=0&disablebranding=0

Right now this kind of screen is still really expensive ($120 000) and even the  CEO said that consumers will see this in the market as soon as it is more affordable.

I am saving my pennies now.

@maniac13

The Heist: An awesome puzzle game with a tangible reward

Two things I love: slick puzzle games and discounted software. MacHeist, providers of the biggest and best of the charity-contributing Mac software bundles is giving you both with their new iOS game, The Heist.

The Heist is a fantastic collection of increasingly difficult challenges, spread amongst four different puzzle types. The twist with this game is the promise of a real reward at the end. What is it? In their words: “You’ll have to beat The Heist to find out… but it’s fun, and it’s worth much more than the price of entry.”

OK, you’ve got me. Back to it, then.

The Heist is on the AppStore for 99c in the US and $1.19 in Australia.

You might want to check this out.

New Apple TV leaked (and yes we want one)

These leaked images of a full size 50 inch Apple Television (not the hockey puck but a full sized TV using gesture controls for the lounge) arrived in our inbox this morning. From what we can tell you will be able to install TV Channels in the same way you use apps on your iPhone.

You can click the images to see the full size pics.

Making stop-motion magic with the iPad

When a new bit of tech is released it’s always fun to see what crazy/creative new things people can do with it. Dentsu London, in collaboration with BERG have produced a short film exploring the idea of “Making future magic” using the iPad to “paint” 3D objects in the air and bring it all together with long-exposure photography.

Watch the video. They explain it better.

Wired iPad app sales to surpass print sales this month

Wired Magazine have reason to be extra excited about the release of the iPad this month. The iPad edition of Wired, which retails on the app store for $US4.99 has – as of June 7 – been purchased nearly 80,000 – the average monthly sales for the print edition. This is after just two weeks on the app store. This was tweeted by Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson on Sunday:

73,000 purchases of Wired iPad app in first nine days. Should beat newsstand sales of print mag (ave. mid 80s) this month.

He celebrated again during Steve Jobs’s keynote at WWDC10 on Monday with:

Can die happy now. Steve Jobs shows the Wired iPad app on stage at WWDC! http://twitpic.com/1utfrk

Obviously, with the iPad still being so new and shiny, app sales are likely to be much higher for the next few months, but even so, things look promising for the Wired app. In addition to getting all the articles (and ads) of the print version, there are extra animations, videos and sound clips sprinkled in there.

Personally, I think the Wired iPad app is amazing. After seeing the Wired app, the whole iPad thing made a LOT more sense. The iPad (to me) is a reading device. Reading blogs, articles, ebooks, magazines. It’s just so much easier than sitting at a desk or having the MacBook burn my lap on the couch. I’ll be happily throwing $6 a month into Condé Nast‘s pockets. Much better than the $13 is costs on newsstands in Australia.

Hopefully we’ll be seeing more creative use of the iPad from other magazine publishers.

iPad Australian pricing, release date announced.

The iPad is finally coming to Australia. The release date – May 28th. The price – starts at $629 for the 16GB Wifi model and goes all the way up to $1049 for the 64GB 3G.

If those prices agree with you, then you might want to preorder one fast.

“An unbelievable price” says Apple.

The Teminator doesn’t like Apple

or has Microsoft paid him to destroy it?

Leon Wang created a story about a Terminator that needs energy to blow up an apple store

check out the really well done video after the break

Adobe responds to Steve Jobs’ “Thoughts on Flash”

Kevin Lynch, CTO of Adobe responded to Steve Jobs’ ‘Thoughts on Flash‘ open letter (summary here) with a short blog post late last week.Kevin writes that if Apple tried to cooperate with Adobe a bit more, then they could “provide a terrific experience with Flash on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch”.

Kevin wrote:

However, as we posted last week, given the legal terms Apple has imposed on developers, we have already decided to shift our focus away from Apple’s iPhone and iPad devices for both Flash Player and AIR. We are working to bring Flash Player and AIR to all the other major participants in the mobile ecosystem, including Google, RIM, Palm (soon to be HP), Microsoft, Nokia and others.

Read the full thing here.

Steve Jobs’ Thoughts on Flash. Boom.

Today, in an open letter published on Apple’s website, Steve Jobs shared his thought on Adobe Flash and its place (or lack thereof) on Apple devices such as the iPod, iPhone and iPad.

Steve’s “Thoughts on Flash” can be found here. I break down his points after the jump.

The issue of the iPad not being able to print solved

Even though you can design and write things on your iPad, you can’t directly print. I have tried to find some alternatives for the iPad here.

In regards to the printing issue, the guys from engadget have found a solution.

The future of touch includes a stylus

Even though Apple’s Steve Jobs was very clear about not liking a stylus, it looks like Microsoft Research went back to it to combine it with touch input and give the user new tools that weren’t possible before.

Of course this comes from the research department and might never see the day of life, but it looks awesome and I can see this “addition of the past” bringing some useful things to the end user.

check out the video

@maniac13

iPhone OS 4.0: The 7 “Tentpole Features”

A few hours ago, Mr Jobs delivered a presentation introducing the next version of the iPhone operating system. Expected to be released  around the middle of the year for all existing iPhone models, its reported to bring 1500 new APIs to developers as well as more than 100 new user features, seven of which he discussed in detail.

These are the “tentpole” features highlighted briefly.

1) Multitasking

At last! Run multiple applications and swap between them on the fly. Previously only possible on jailbroken phones. This feature will only be available to the 3GS, iPod Touch 3rd Generation and later models.

2) An improved email application

The mail application is getting a major overhaul with a unified inbox, multiple exchange accounts, threaded conversations and the ability to open file attachments in applications.

3) iAds

Apple will be providing application developers access to in-app advertising to help generate revenue on cheap and even free applications. Ads are built using HTML5 and come up at the bottom of the screen like in-video YouTube ads. They can be closed by the user.

4) Game Center

Basically, it’s Xbox LIVE for iPhone games. Their are already a number of systems such as Plus+ and OpenFeint, but a single Apple-run system would likely attract a lot more users.

5) Folders

Another “about time”! With the capacity on idevices increasing yearly, users are installing more and more applications at a time. Now we will have a way to organise them into folders. Folders appear as icons with smaller icons inside.

6) iBooks

Basically, the iPhone/iPod version of the iPad ebook platform. Books can be purchased and read on the device as well as track bookmarks.

7) Enterprise features

Apple is working to make the iPhone more attractive to big companies with a number of new enterprise features such as email encryption, remote administration and application installs, Exchange 2010 compatibility and more.

Tested.com has a detailed breakdown here. Great site, too!

These all look great, but I can’t wait to see the other 93+. I’m sure some of them will give hints about the next iPhone hardware’s features. Going on previous years, we can probably expect a new phone in June and a new iPod in September.

@bradyohalloran

(via Tested.com)

Should I buy an iPad?

The hype about the iPad has been huge and Apple sold 300 000 devices on opening day and over 1 million applications have been downloaded already.

Even Amnesia jumped on the band wagon and we are having an internal competition and the first price is an iPad.

So let’s say I won’t be the lucky one winning the iPad, should I go out and buy one anyways?

if you read this blog on a regular basis you will know that I  like to look at some things from the funny angle, but at least you know now that the iPad is blendable and it is powered by an iPhone. 🙂

I found a few more options and posted them here

We all know that the iPad is not the first tablet on the market and there have been alternatives around for some time now.

take the Modbook for example

you provide the unibody macbook to this company and for US$900 they will turn your 2500 dollar macbook into a tablet that runs full OSX with flash and multi-tasking support.

 

and then there is the Viliv X70 which has been around for over a year now

 

it runs WindowsXP, has GPS, USB, SD card slot and 3G

 

but if those devices would be the only alternatives I wouldn’t think twice and go straight with the iPad

Fortunately new devices are basically introduced every day so there are more options.

 

so it looks like that all different Operating systems will have tablets coming out to I will show alternatives based on that.

Steve Balmer showed the HP Slate off and I was excited to see it and couldn’t wait to know more about it

so finally there are more details available and on paper it has some advantages over the iPad:

1.6Ghz CPU, 1080p playback, card reader, USB port, 2 cameras, supports flash and multi-tasking

another windows alternative would be the Archos 9 PC tablet

 

Next on the list is Linux and this time the tablet is coming out of Germany and is called WePad (how innovative)

coming out of Germany it should be a nice piece of equipment and it has again a few things to offer that the iPad can’t match

larger screen, 2 USB ports, supports all ebook formats, flash support, access to the Android market place

UPDATE: the makers of the WePad announced its availability in August this year with 2 different versions: 16GB version for Euro 450 and a 64GB version that is capable of full HD for Euro 569

Speaking of Android my next choice is probably my favourite – ICDs Gemini

as i said it is running Android OS, has a 11 inch screen which can be resistive or capacitive, a 5 axis accelerometer, card reader, voice calls, SMS, MMS, Wireless N, FM radio, IR, USB port, 2 cameras, GPS, dual speakers and microphones, HD video. email support and flash support

unfortunately there is no release date or price yet, but this little gem looks pretty awesome – there is a great comparison on engadget here

another Android alternative that has been talked about is the Notion Ink Adam

 

Then there is the browser based OS tablet that was born out of controvercy called JooJoo

it has a bigger screen, 1 GB of Ram, USB port, flash support and camera, but everything else I read about it didn’t convince me at all – it seems to have early release issues, but hopefully they will be solved with software updates

 

There are plenty of rumours about Chrome tablets that are coming out – supposedly Google and HTC are working on a tablet based on Chromium

all you can really find online are concepts by Google so there are no hardware specs or release dates or prizes

UPDATE: Google CEO Eric Schmidt has confirmed that his company is developing a tablet device based on the Android operating system. The New York Times reports that Google has “been working with several hardware manufacturers,” and “hopes to make its own apps marketplace available for new slate-like devices.” reported on mashable

So if I have to sum it up, there are plenty of alternatives to the iPad. For me the ICD Gemini is my favourite at the moment and I would love to get my hands on one to really give it a test drive (ICD if you are reading this, please send one my way)

 

But of course this is just my opinion and everybody should make up their own mind. I would love to read your opinions so please leave them in the comments below.

@maniac13

Official iPad Apple video showcases broken NY Times Site

I spotted a few Twitter users talking about this: The official Apple iPad video actually shows the NY Times site with a broken area of the page (apparently a flash video) which is caused by the lack of iPad support for Adobe Flash.

Why is this an issue? Well according to HP (here) 85% of the top 100 sites on the internet use Flash and that 75% of all video on the web is flash based. That’s a lot of missing content for a device that is supposed to be the ultimate content aggregator.

Freezeframe at 1m17s
http://www.apple.com/ipad/#video

 

This space looks set to hot up. Here’s HP’s own version of the iPad out this year demonstrating how Flash should work in a tablet PC:

Apple revealing iPhone OS 4 on April 8

Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m getting a little bit sick of seeing iPad news everywhere. *Looks down at previous post*. Personally, I’m more interested in seeing what Apple has in store for the iPhone. It’s pretty obvious they’re going to be releasing another one this year and many of us that got a 3G are going to be ending our contracts soon.

Good news is, we don’t have to wait long! Apple will be revealing where OS 4 is going at an event on April 8. Strange to do such a major event so close to the iPad launch, but I’m not complaining.

There have been a lot of rumors floating around about what the next phone might have – higher resolution screens, multi-core processors, front-facing cameras for video calls. Seeing what OS4 brings will give us the best hints yet of what we might get later this year.

With all the competition catching up – and perhaps surpassing – the iPhone, they’re going to have to bring something pretty good to stay on top.

@bradyohalloran

(via Engadget)

The iPad has arrived

and the question we all ask us straight away is:

Will it blend?

and here is the answer

The Internet Built My Cable Organiser

Something that has always bothered me about my MacBook Pro is the power cable. Sure, it has those nice little hook things to wrap the “small” end around, but what if you use the extra long power cable? You know, the other that it actually EARTHED so you don’t DIE? That can only be wrapped loosely around the power pack so it can later uncoil and suffocate the contents of your laptop bag.

Happily, I saw the PowerCurl on an Apple blog the other day and ordered it immediately.

Even more interesting than the product itself is the site that birthed it.

Quirky is a “social product development” community. Users can pay to submit an idea for a product which is then evaulated and refined by a larger community. If the product gets enough love, then it goes into manufacture with a percentage of profits going to all the users involved.

Check out  the “quirky in 30 seconds” video:

So I’d like to thank Jeff Scholen of Atlanta, Georgia (and a cast of several dozen others) for the PowerCurl.

Apples new touch gestures for the tablet

Ok Ok I don’t know anything about the tablet, but I read this article on crunchgear and FingerWorks, a company Apple bought a few years back, has an interesting patent about how to extend multitouch gestures.

Check out the video where some of them are explained – funnily enough with the help of a Microsoft Surface table.

It’s going to be even more confusing if all that gets implemented.