NFC In Las Vegas

I'm not a big fan of NFC. I think it's an impractical technology except in very specialised use cases. Because it's so rarely seen in the UK I don't tend to post about it much.

The Boy Whatley recently posted about his new favourite NFC toy - the Nokia MD-310 (catchy name, guys!). That reminded me - there was an interesting use of NFC which I'd seen in Las Vegas.

Las Vegas - like most of the developed word - is full of QR codes. They're on fliers, printed on t-shirts, in all the magazines, and on all the posters.

NFC - being cumbersome and expensive - is conspicuous by its absence. However, I did spot some posters up in a couple of the casinos.

Apparently, this NFC sticker would only work with Samsung Galaxy Phones! Luckily I had one on me, eh?

The posters were huge, but the target area which allows you to interact with them is tiny!

The misaligned sticker - sorry TecTile™®© - was just waiting for me! Like most people, I turned off NFC on my phone. I don't need it draining my battery on the off-chance I pass a poster at a casino... Now, what do I need to do in order to make it work?

Brilliant!

Still, I persevered, delved in to the bowels of my phone, fiddled with the settings, held my phone against the TecTile™®©, and waited. Waited a bit longer. Took my phone out of its case, aligned it better with the TecTile™®© and... Bingo!

It's actually a fairly nifty little site. But it's a bit of a palaver to get to it. You need to have one of the few phones on the market which supports NFC (I mean, surely even Samsung aren't stupid enough to make the TecTile™®© work only with Samsung phones, are they?). You need to enable NFC. Then you need to get as physically close as possible, get the exact alignment between the TecTile™®© and the NFC aerial on your phone.

Sure, with QR codes you need to have the app installed - but that's pretty low bar compared to NFC.

Still, I suppose it's nice to see a new technology out there in the wild.

If you want to buy some Samsung TecTile™®©s - they cost $15 for a pack of 5.

Your black and white printer will spit out as many QR codes as you like for a lot less than that.