Touch the Future with a Smart Touch

NFC - Near Field Communication - is a very short range wireless communication technology that supports the use of mobile handsets by touch-based interaction, which is an intuitive and user-friendly way of establishing connections and exchanging information between mobile handsets and other devices by just setting them side by side. The SmartTouch project (ITEA No 05024) has been the largest effort on piloting NFC technology in the European Union. The project started in 2006 and lasted to the end of year 2008, examining the role of NFC in City Life, Home, Wellness and Health, and its Technological Building Blocks, Security and Privacy, and Business Building Blocks. The extraordinary combination of partners in SmartTouch, including technology and service producers, researchers, and organizations setting up first pilots, has been pushing the NFC technology forward in many fronts. This book collects those developments by starting with NFC and its basics and continuing through genuine pilot cases towards an understanding of NFC enabled business areas. Therefore, this book is a valuable source of information for those who want to study NFC as a technology in their business, e.g. as a technology primer, or collecting experiences of NFC in use.