NFC Forum

NFC Forum Global Competition 2008

Focusing on the theme "Innovation at Your Fingertips," Touching the Future 2008 promoted the development and deployment of innovative and exemplary NFC services. Entries were  judged on their innovation, commercial potential and usability, as well as quality of design and implementation. In the competition, developers in a Commercial Track vied for the honor of having their solutions named “The Best NFC Service of the Year 2008,” while the Research Track recognized “The Most Innovative NFC Research Project of the Year 2008.” Learn more about the winnners, finalists, competition and jury:

The Commercial Track
The Research Track
The Competition
The Jury
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The Commercial Track

First Place Winner: VingCard Elsafe (Norway): Signature RFID by VingCard — Electronic Lock for Hotels

VingCard won top honors for its Signature RFID electronic lock for hotels

VingCard introduced its Signature RFID electronic lock for hotels in June 2006. It is compatible with ISO 14443 A (MIFARE), 14443 B, and 15693, and is also NFC-compatible. Therefore, NFC-enabled cell phones can work as RFID carriers to open Signature RFID by VingCard electronic locks.

By offering this service, hotels will benefit from:

• Significant improvement in guest service perception
• Increased turnover and bottom line results through higher direct sales at higher margin

By securely sending an SMS to the guest's NFC-enabled cell phone with the encrypted key, together with the hotel information and room number, it allows guests to go straight to their rooms without having to go through the check-in/check-out process. At checkout, guests use their NFC-enabled cell phones to check out directly through the NFC-enabled TV in the room or the NFC-enabled automatic check-in/check-out kiosk. Guests receive their invoices either through SMS or printed out at the check-out kiosk. Guests can also receive updates to their hotel loyalty membership cards via SMS.

Second Place Winner: Hansaprint (Finland): TagAge

Hansaprint's TagAge helps consumers and businesses easily create their own smart products

TagAge is a web-driven application that helps consumers and businesses easily create their own smart products. New smart products can be added modularly to answer consumer needs and the developing NFC market. TagAge is a way to bring NFC technology closer to the everyday consumer, thus helping to create new markets and spread the technology to a wider audience.

With TagAge, the user can design and create new NFC-enabled products by combining web-to-print functionality with web-to-encode ability. It can be thought as a platform for creating Smart Products, which can be easily added later as new modules. The basic functionality in all of the modules is the same. First, the user creates a layout by importing the image in a popular image format, such as .jpg, .gif, or .psd. Then the user can add simple text if desired. After selecting the layout, they use the hotspot tool to create NFC-enabled hotspots (Tag positions) and select the information that the tag should include. After creating the layout and selecting hotspots and their functionality, the user can employ the "Virtual Phone" tool to check the hotspot functionality and what the imagery will look like on mobile phone displays, before proceeding to ordering.

During the first stage, TagAge will include three basic modules or Smart Products: Smart Poster, Smart Tag, and Smart Photo.

Third Place Winner: Teliasonera (Sweden): Telia Kvittens

Teliasonera (Sweden): Telia Kvittens mobile and web-based service simplifies field work planning and follow-up

This is a mobile and web-based service that simplifies field work planning and follow-up. Telia Kvittens simplifies planning, administration and follow-up, for example, for cleaning companies, road carriers, delivery services, security companies, healthcare and nursing providers, and enterprises with many service-technicians on the road.

Smart and easy-to-use functions help control and follow up on field activity:

• Always highest-quality and correct information during registration
• Mobile phone and card reader (RFID) in one and the same unit
• Quick and simple registration (of assignments and employees)
• Real-time information on your mobile phone or computer via Internet access
• Data transfer via GPRS and SMS
• Online upgrading of mobile software via the mobile phone network
• Excel format reports for registration of time, activities, and travel time calculation, as well as basic salary and invoice data

Commercial Track Finalists

Adamsoft (Slovenia): Collecting Returnable Packaging with NFC Phones
For wholesalers of beverages and other products, picking up returnable packaging presents a problem without a clear solution. The returnable packaging is an unavoidable element of the distribution process and its value represents 30% of revenue.

The process of ordering, issuing and invoicing in these companies is completely automated and partly paperless. The problem occurs when picking up returnable packaging. The quantity of returned packaging cannot be determined.

The NFC phone is an ideal solution to this problem. It does not represent any additional cost for the company and at the same time it solves part of the problem. The idea of using NFC phones to help in the collection of returnable packaging shows promise for the following reasons:

• NFC telephones are affordable devices.
• Most delivery people already have their own cell phones, which practically eliminates the need to purchase additional equipment for this solution.
• Because there aren't many different types of returnable packaging, the acquisition to telephone can be made with the use of NFC tags. Packaging catalogues are created with NFC tags on the inside back doors of delivery vehicles.
• Recording of quantities is very simple because everybody is familiar with a phone keypad.
• It can be done with only one hand, allowing the delivery person to have one hand free to handle the packaging.
• NFC telephones can be upgraded with new solutions, saving companies the cost of buying new equipment to upgrade.
• Buyers can identify themselves easily and sign documents electronically using contactless cards.
• Records of returned packaging are available on the server in near-real time.
• When the delivery person gets back to the warehouse, there are prepared lists of returned packaging to be checked by warehouse staff.
• This eliminates the need for additional manual entry of completed documents.

The result is increased satisfaction for buyers, delivery people and merchants.

AIRTAG and Oberthur (France): NFC Mobile Kiosk for Fast Food
This NFC solution includes a SIM-embedded application that enables fast food clients to:

• Get promotional coupons through an interactive smart poster
• Build an order through a very user-friendly interface directly on the mobile
• Save choices on the SIM
• Make the order effective by waving the mobile on the reader linked to the cash box
• Pay directly with the NFC mobile phone on a contactless payment terminal

This is the first SIM-centric, fully integrated NFC multi-application service featuring marketing and payment services.

Akbank and Somobile (Turkey): CAP/Campaign Access Point
Today, many credit card companies run promotions to encourage customers to use their credit cards. Most of the cardholders are aware of these campaigns and choose which card to use according to the benefits of the card. From apparel to food and gas to supermarket expenses, credit cards are available everywhere. To ensure maximum usage, all the payment points must be well designed to ensure that customers will use the credit card.

With NFC technology, there's an opportunity to increase card usage by equipping merchants with Campaign Access Point (CAP). CAP is a mobile campaign service which is initiated by the user simply by touching his or her NFC phone to a tag.

CAP aims to improve NFC-based mobile payments by providing interactivity. Card holders will be able to access merchant-based and personalized campaigns in which merchants are equipped with ICC tags. As the cardholder touches the tag with the NFC phone, the mobile campaign service initiates and lets them apply and enroll in the campaigns. After enrolling, the user shops, checks out and pays with the NFC handset.

Contactless Data, Inc (U.S.): Mobilizing the Coupon Industry with NFC
With the proliferation of NFC-enabled cell phones and point-of-sale terminals, coupons may be redeemed along with contactless payment transactions. This opens up an exciting opportunity for the multi-billion dollar paper-based coupon industry to finally start shifting to the mobile arena. MobiFetch is an innovative m-commerce platform developed to address all major concerns raised by the US coupon industry in order to facilitate this upcoming shift.

MobiFetch enables consumers to redeem coupons by just tapping on contactless terminal readers with their mobile phones, eliminating the tedious and inefficient current redemption process. This is possible thanks to the advent of Near Field Communication (NFC) being supported by leading handset and point of sale (POS) terminal manufacturers.

DS Consulting (France): Contactless Card and Reader with Two Physical Levels of Communication Security
This is a new efficient security solution in the field of contactless Smartcards, Access and Identification Manufacturing and Distribution.

The proposed new high-security physical mode is one extension for the ISO14443 standard which prohibits communications beyond 20cm, making "banking" operations, electronic passports, and highly-secure access possible using contactless cards. The system is anti-skimming, anti-sniffing and ISO14443-standard compatible.

At the heart of the system are the reader and the card, both of which are equipped with two identical adjacent flat coils. In the IEC14443 mode, the identical signals (carrier and modulation) applied to the two coils act as a single antenna (common mode). In the highly secured mode, the carriers of the signals injected in the coils are identical, but the modulations are opposed. Beyond a certain distance from the reader, the sum of the signals transmitted by the two coils is an un-modulated carrier (two modulations cancel each other), and information is no longer detectable. When the two coils of the card are near the two coils of the reader, each coil of the card is coupled to a coil of the reader; it is then possible to read and use the signals individually. The communication principle is called "Closed-Space Modulation" or differential modulation. If the card reader distance exceeds 20 cm, intrusion is impossible; remote interception of the transaction is 100 to 1,000 times more difficult than with the current open system.

Futurlink (Spain): Interactive Video Streaming Using Dynamic NFC Addresses
By using a touch screen, the user can browse between different screen-views. Every screen-view has a related video which can be downloaded via Wi-Fi (or via Bluetooth). In order to download the specific video related to the screen-view he or she is looking at, the user approaches with his/her NFC mobile phone and gets the "suitable address" via NFC. This is done by using an application which communicates with the NFC reader through the NFCIP protocol. This results in the application establishing either a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth communication with either the video streaming server or the Bluetooth daemon in order to receive the chosen video.

FuturLink provides technology and software tools that allow the creation of interactive communications channels, loyalty programs and transactional services with the mobile phone of the consumer at the point of sale.

SKIDATA (Austria): Access Control via NFC Mobile Phones
When purchasing event tickets, consumers have limited options. They can visit the box office or pre-sales outlets or they can pre-book via telephone, m-Ticketing (SMS) or Internet, and then receive their tickets by post (with seasons tickets coming in advance). The trouble is that going to buy tickets at a location takes time and is restricted to the business' hours of operation; m-payment usually requires a separate provider account and is not always secure; and consumers have a long "time to ticket" when waiting for their arrival. Consumers want to be able to buy tickets anywhere and any time without having to perform complicated "finger acrobatics" with a trouble-free payment that is cashless and secure – all without waiting in line.

The SKIDATA solution is powered by NFC and offers a mobile phone as data carrier, consumer-friendly applications (e.g., SmartPoster, info downloading), convenient use (just hold towards scanner, no configuration necessary), hardware-based (built-in) security, combined ticketing and payment, and Marketing and CRM options.

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The Research Track

First Place Winner: Lancaster University (UK): Touch & Interact: Applied to a Tourist Guide Prototype

Students at the University of Lancaster demonstrate the capabilities of mobile phones with the screen size of public displays

The limited output capabilities of mobile phones is an ongoing issue for mobile application developers. For this reason, current mobile phones may still fail to fully address the requirements of map, multimedia and information browsing applications.

Introducing Touch &Interact: an NFC interaction technique that utilizes the capabilities of mobile phones and the screen size of public displays. Using the Touch &Interact interaction technique, an NFC phone can touch the display at any position in order to perform selections. During the interaction, both the phone display and public display share the display space. The shared display space is especially useful for separation of public and private information by presenting sensitive information on the phone display. In addition to an auxiliary display, the phone provides extra modalities (e.g., joystick and keypad), storage and additional feedback (audio and haptic).

Second Place Winner: University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis MBDS (France): Ticket Tap

The University of Nice students' Ticket Tap applications pushes promotional information to mobile phone users

Users subscribe to Ticket Tap services to receive Mobile Promotions. The Ticket Tap system uses a PUSH strategy to:

• Push coupons and invitations; e.g., "50% off the price of shirts until 12/6"
• Push reminders; e.g., "your coupon is about to expire !"
• Push Sales Alerts/Mobile shopping; e.g., "tonight's soccer match on sale: remaining tickets at 10€ only … click to buy!"

Key figures:

• 50% of all mobile users use SMS
• By 2010, 50% of cellular phones will be NFC enabled (Source: ABI Research 2005)
• 88% of today's cell phones offer Web-browsing (Telephia Consumer Study Jul-06)

The goal is to create a personalized mobile shopping service delivering tailored, multiple, targeted offers to customers based on profiles. The customer receives promotions and rewards and can easily pay online.

Third Place Winner: University of Applied Sciences (Austria): Theft Deterrent System for Skis

The Theft Deterrent System for Skis earned the University of Applied Sciences (Austria) Third Place in the Research Category

This is an anti-theft prototype for skis using NFC, RFID and MIFARE technology as communication interface between ski bindings, boots and configuration software. The system provides a mobile application as well as a desktop client to adjust a ski. In addition, various security measures have been implemented to secure the system against manipulation by third parties. The final product will provide multiple ways to protect a ski electronically, efficiently, easily and fast.

A skier using the system has the option to choose which client he or she wants to use to adjust their skis. The skier may either use an NFC-enabled mobile phone, such as the Nokia 6131, or a personal computer with a single USB port. To use the mobile phone, a password must be assigned to the binding using the desktop client. This password ensures that a thief also having the mobile configuration software is not able to manipulate the binding by adding his own boot ID to the binding.

Research Track Finalists

Carlos III University Madrid (Spain): NFC Interactive Panel
NFC Interactive Panel is a surface that interacts with mobile phones. The surface can be a display for interactive advertising, information or learning that interacts with people using NFC-enabled phones.

NFC Interactive Panel is a collection of NFC tags placed in a flat surface (panel) that acts as a screen. In this panel, people can interact with different projection options with only a touch. To enable this, NFC Interactive Panel uses a phone with Bluetooth and NFC. NFC provides the touch and Bluetooth the communication. NFC tags are set in the surface and via j2me (or other software code, such as Python or Symbian /c++) it connects to a server that interprets and displays the action on the surface according to the touching activity by the user.

Technical University of Munich (Germany): A Lightweight Framework for User-Centric NFC Applications
NFC needs motivating applications in order to become more widely accepted in a mass market and lightweight frameworks can help to create such innovative services efficiently.

The visions of Ubiquitous Computing, such as seamless and pervasive support of everyday tasks, are fascinating and promising but rarely realized today. In the past, one reason might have been that hardware was not available for a mass market, but the advent of NFC in mobile phones may be the first step towards a truly ubiquitous infrastructure.

Still, NFC application development is complex, which causes people who are interested in creating applications for this new technology to spend a lot of time learning, implementing and testing. Another reason is that most potential users of Ubicomp applications do not know about the benefits offered them and are concerned about privacy.

The objective is to push NFC forward by enabling more people to create applications more easily and efficiently than today. Therefore we propose the development of a web-based development framework that makes NFC-based Ubicomp applications more accessible to a larger number of people and allows rapid development of innovative services.

Technical University of Munich (Germany): News On the Go
This prototype allows users to receive news on an NFC-enabled mobile phone by touching a poster on the go. Users can pick up news content for their mobile phone by briefly touching an information poster. Such posters may be placed in public spaces; for example, at train stations where people are passing by and can pick up the latest information from their favorite newspaper without having to stop.

In the prototype, NFC-enabled mobile phones were used. NFC is a standard closely related to Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). An NFC system consists of two components: first, there are small, cheap tags that can be placed on objects, for example, products or posters. Second, there is an NFC reader in the mobile phone. As soon as the user touches a tag with their phone, data such as an identification number or a URL is transmitted wirelessly to the phone.

University of Applied Sciences (Austria): SmartDoorBell: An NFC-SIM-Based Home Automation System
The SmartDoorBell is a sophisticated and easy to use intercom system. The system features different implementations in which a simple contactless tag (or an NFC reader) can be used as a SmartDoorBell. The SmartDoorBell can be triggered using an NFC-enabled handset. The present system is usable for private home installation, automation systems in the building industry, and also as a system to improve service quality in the service industry.

Touching the doorbell (an NFC reader) with an NFC phone transmits user-specific data to a home automation server inside the house. Alternatively, a contactless tag – positioned near the door – is read by an NFC phone and the data is transmitted to the home automation server. The server forwards the collected information and sends it to an application (Access Management Application) of the homeowner's mobile phone and generates a request to open the door. The homeowner is informed about the guest and decides whether to open the door, leave it closed, or make a phone call to the guest. As a result, the Home Automation-Server is able to open the door or leave it closed.

University of Applied Sciences (Austria): Touch to Network
Who has ever forgotten their business cards or lost an important contact at a trade show? That will not happen with the "Touch to Network" application on your mobile phone. The goal of this project is to exchange your contact information easily by using an NFC-enabled phone. Two people who exchange their contact information will get an email with the vCard as an attachment. Therefore, one does not need to type the contact information from the business card into the contact list on the computer. Notes, links, pictures and reminders can also be added to the email. This application can be easily installed via WAP-Push for each delegate with an NFC mobile phone.

University of Dundee (Scotland): Mobile NFC &Healthcare Services
The focus of this submission is to improve basic healthcare services through the use of mobile phones enabled with NFC technology. The use of mobile phones as a tool for business transactions has always been hindered by the usability factors associated with these devices. Small screen, small keypads and slow surfing speed have been some of the major causes for the bad usability of mobile devices and resulted in sluggish growth of this area. Now all these issues can be bypassed using the mobile phones as a medium of physical transaction with the help of short-range wireless technology like NFC.

The application focuses on enhancing the processes (like appointment booking, drug prescription and drug dispensing) and thus increasing the efficiency of the NHS system. It will also bring new business opportunities in the area of self service and data management.

By using this technology, patients should be able to get a link from an NHS poster to download and register a healthcare application; perform Over-the-Air booking for appointments; perform Self-Service Check-in through a Self-Service kiosk and transfer prescriptions to a patient's mobile phone through GP's NFC-enabled system; and to pre-stage the drug dispense at a desired pharmacy.

University of Rome WLAB (Italy): Remote Grocery Shopping via NFC
The University of Rome WLAB presents a novel remote grocery shopping service that combines the benefits of online food shopping from home with new and improved supply chain RFID-enabled business processes and a more user-friendly NFC-mediated interaction technique. We have designed and implemented a J2ME pervasive software application supporting such a service and successfully carried out initial experiments and a user study on real NFC mobile phones.

Whenever a customer wants to do their shopping from home, he or she can prepare a shopping order on his/her NFC-enabled mobile phone by simply touching the RFID tagged items to be purchased. It is also possible for item-specific information to be integrated with each customer's additional preferences and added to the order via the phone's user interface. Once the order is filled, the customer can submit it to the merchant by simply touching an "ad hoc" RFID tag with the phone to start a wireless communication with a merchant's backend.

On the merchant's side, professional shoppers in the warehouse can ultimately receive orders from a network on their NFC enabled phones and use orders' specific information to write tags on items while they assemble customers' shopping bags before delivery.

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The NFC Forum Global Competition

The competition recieved over 50 submissions from around the globe. A Pre-selection Committee evaluated each entry, and 20 finalists were be announced on March 17, 2008. The winners were selected on the basis of the following criteria:

Track A: COMMERCIAL The most ambitious and successful commercial service

Evaluation criteria:

• Business process improvements,
• tangible cost savings,
• relevant improvement of service,
• enabling new commercial opportunities

Track B: RESEARCH The most innovative and creative new service

Most innovative new service developed by university individuals or teams

Evaluation criteria:

• Creativity,
• innovation,
• business potential of the proposed solution

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Jury members

The competition jury was composed of representatives from the Sponsor organizations, as well as jurists from the academic community. Jurors reviewed each of the finalists submissions onsite at the competition at WIMA. Jurors included:

The Jurors represented the Sponsor companies and academia

Hank Chavers (Nokia)
Jean-Philippe Betoin (Inside Contactless)
Christian Lührs (Stollmann)
Michael Elliott (Over-c)
Manfred Müller (SCM Microsystems)
Serge Miranda (University of Nice)
Josef Langer (University of Hagenberg)
Marc Borrett (Innovision)
Heikki Huomo (NXP)

 

 

 

 

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Thanks to Our Sponsors

The NFC Forum Global Competition would not have been possible without the generous support of our sponsors.

Representatives of the Competition Sponsor Organizations Presented the Awards
Gold Sponsors
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