By Natasha Lomas, 4 April 2008 16:09
Near field communications (NFC) technology company Innovision, has been showing off its vision of a future where low-cost stick-on NFC tags can turn any object into a 'smart object' - allowing mobile users to 'physically browse' their environment by holding the phone against tagged items.
Innovision is one of the companies involved in O2's six-month Oyster mobile wallet trial in London, which kicked off back in November.
Pictured above is a prototype of the 'Seeing eye phone' - so called as it is designed to help visually impaired people who are unable to read product information in shops.
The NFC tag on the shelf contains product-specific data which the NFC-enabled phone can read once it is held up to the tag. The phone then receives the product info as text, which is then translated to synthesised speech by the phone. The prototype was developed by engineers from VTT at the Technical Research Centre of Finland as part of a SmartTouch EU-project.
Photo credit: Innovision
Comments
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1. Roy Corneloues
Please tell me there is no hidden joke in the "seeing eye" phone and Preparation H appearing in the same photo ;-)
2. anonymous
Kinds of seems like a solution to a question no-one is asking......
You can get all this location stuff by GPS which is in many new phones, or phone mast triangulation of your mobile signal, esp. if you watch CSI :-)
3. anonymous
"Innovision said tags could also be used to help people suffering from forgetfulness to remember loved-one's phone numbers. An NFC tag could be programmed with a person's phone number and stuck to a picture of them. A phone call to that individual could then be initiated by tapping the photo frame containing their picture."
DUH!!!! Talk about solving a "non problem" - surely this is precisely what putting numbers in your phone memory achieves??
Severe case of "solution looking for problem"!!!!!