After handing in our preferences for honours projects last week, we have received our final honours project allocations. My project will be based on the very much current topic within mobile development of Near-Field Communication (NFC). NFC is a technology in which uses RFID chips, one with data on it to read and one to read/write (generally within a mobile device) to capture/write the data. This technology is by no means brand new, it was featured in an earlier Nokia device however it was deemed too costly to manufacture and phones did not have much use for them. 2010/11 is where NFC will come into play, with more mobile devices including the hardware and operating systems such as Android allowing developers to use an API to program the NFC chip. There are many uses for NFC in mobile devices today such as allowing for instant banking transfers, e-vouchers in shops and restaurants and providing advertisements.
One of the main considerations with NFC is security, thus being the reason in which the Android API currently only allows devices to read from NFC chips. Careful consideration is being taken to ensure that a developer cannot write an application in which will steal someones banking details from their phone just by walking past and placing their phone near another persons. It is the security aspect, UI design and uses in which my honours project will identify and address by developing applications using my new Nexus S device with NFC capabilities, testing different security methods and evaluating possible security flaws and advantages within.
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