Tech terms explained: What is….NFC? Forget cash, the contactless future is here

NFC is the convenient way to pay for goods using your smartphone instead of cash or cards. Here’s everything you need to know about this new technology.

In the ever-changing world of high-tech gadgets and gizmos, a whole load of jargon is thrown our way that many of us don’t necessarily understand.
In our regular series, What is…, we’ll tackle a tech term and explain what it means so you can understand it a bit more, such as NFC.

In a few years' time it may seem very strange to pay for goods using cash or even by slotting a credit card into a reader.

Instead we could all be buying things simply by holding our phones near a reader.  The change to contactless payment isn’t that hard to imagine - in 2015, only 45.1 per cent of transactions were carried out using cash while contactless payments using cards and NFC-enabled smartphones took up a high proportion of the rest.

What is NFC?

NFC (or Near Field Communication, to give it its full title) is a wireless technology that can transfer small pieces of data over very short distances between two devices.

In order for NFC to work, the devices that communicate with each other both need to have an NFC chip.

It is low powered and even works with unpowered devices via NFC tags – microchips which transfer small amounts of data to NFC-enabled devices such as your smartphone.

How does NFC work?

NFC connections always have an initiator – usually your phone – and a target.

The clever thing about the technology is that the target doesn't have to be powered. This means that companies can, for example, add an unpowered NFC tag to an advertising board.

When you bring your phone close to these tags it emits an induction field (a bit like wireless charging, but very, very low power) that's enough to start up the tag.


Read More@ http://home.bt.com/tech-gadgets/phones-tablets/tech-terms-explained-what-isnfc-forget-cash-the-contactless-future-is-here-11363809618244