LAS VEGAS -- I didn’t get what was going on at first. As I went from booth to booth at the trade-show floor during the recent NACS Show, periodically someone would put their phone up to my badge and say, “OK, I got your info.”
My Scooby-Doo look of confusion occurred the first couple of times until I finally asked about it. An exhibitor said our badges had near-field communication (NFC) chips in them.
Zoinks!
Invisible to me, the chip in my badge housed all of my pertinent data, and presumably could contain quite a bit more about me, including my interests, booths I’ve visited and potentially my value to that exhibitor as a potential buyer.
I saw the exchange happen in reverse as Anton Bakker of Outsite Networks, Norfolk, Va., showed me a “beacon tap” in his booth.
He brought a cellphone up to a red button that was fixed onto a pump. A beacon in the button wirelessly pushed content onto his phone that included a web link and a timed coupon that a customer could redeem inside a store. He said it drew a lot of buzz because customers don’t need an app to engage the beacon.
OK, I’m going to buy a radio-wave protection sleeve for my wallet so my credit-card information isn’t magically whisked away while I’m standing at a corner waiting for a green light.
Yet as the reality of wireless communication permeates my life, I refuse to go on sleepwalking. My next phone is going to have NFC. I’ll be able to pay for things, rack up loyalty points and biometrically say, “Hey, world, I’m here. Let’s do business,” without the crutch or landfill waste of paper.
Of course, securing my identity will bubble to the top of my priorities, but it’ll be a small price to pay for joining today’s digital community.
Angel Abcede, author for the Mobile 2 Go blog, has written about convenience-store technology for more than 20 years and is senior editor atCSP magazine.
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