RFID is becoming more common in mobile phones (under the term Near Field Communication or NFC) from manufacturers such as Nokia. By looking at Apple’s patents we know that the technology is being considered for the iPhone. With the iPhone SDK 3.0 external hardware accessories can be accessed by iPhone software, so third party RFID or NFC readers are also possible.

So what kinds of applications would emerge if an iPhone had an NFC reader? Here we have prototyped a simple media player, which triggers the playback of content on the touch of a tag, and created a set of augmented objects that have relationships to different kinds of audiovisual content.

A lens for media

Compared to other mobile handsets the iPhone is a particularly media-friendly device, with a large, bright screen and high quality audiovisual playback. What if this screen could act as a ‘lens’ to content that resides in the world?

In a screen-based interface content may be buried many levels deep inside an information architecture. But in a physical RFID-driven interface a simple gesture can offer quick and direct access to content. Physical objects afford tangible manipulation that screens cannot, and this is great for playful products. Our Bowl prototype showed a natural blending of media consumption and playful activitiy in children, where media viewing became less passive and a more active experience.

Durrell Bishop has discussed these ideas in a more general way, what if objects were augmented with new properties, that can be perceived through an iPhone lens?

Media objects

In this video demo, the objects have been chosen to physically or visually represent the content. There are some obvious relationships, such as the Moomin figure leading to a favourite episode of a Moomin animation. The less obvious relationships such as the wooden house leading to home videos were chosen because they just somehow felt right. In fact the exact relationship may be of secondary importance, as over time the behaviour of the physical and digital objects becomes known and transparent through exploration and repetition.

Some of the objects felt particularly satisfying. The Make Podcast object for instance—where touching the ‘geek’ plays the latest ‘Weekend project’— shows how an object can be used for exploring a dynamic stream of content.

Going further

This video prototype is basic and intended to open up for discussion and new exploration around the experience of media selection through physical objects. At the moment the interaction is a trigger, but what if the phone doesn’t just react as output but also as input to physical objects? How do we programme and manage our sets of media and applications in these objects?

Overall this points towards opportunities around the distribution of media through physical objects, it is an example of general ideas around an ‘internet of things’ or ‘spimes’ applied to the world of media. What opportunities would the distribution of RFID-embedded products open up in terms of media, gaming, services and marketing? What does this mean for the future of products?

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“If you really want to know what information processing dissolving in behaviour really looks like, catch the way women swing their handbags across the Octopus readers at the turnstiles of the Mong Kok subway station; there’s nothing in the slightest to suggest that this casual 0.3-second gesture is the site of intense technical intervention.”

Some of the most common RFID gestures that have truly become part of everyday life are in contactless ticketing. Here are some images I took in Seoul, South Korea:

Surprisingly, there is not a lot of work on the spatial or gestural aspects of radio-based interfaces. There is some work towards looking at the spatial aspects of camera-based interactions:

Reeves, S. et al., 2006. The spatial character of sensor technology. In Proceedings of the 6th ACM conference on Designing Interactive systems. University Park, PA, USA: ACM Press, pp. 31-40.

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“With the new eTicketing System Touch&Travel from Deutsche Bahn (DB), the mobile phone serves as an electronic ticket on trains, buses, streetcars, subways, etc. The SIM cards inside the phones are provided by Giesecke & Devrient. The Touch&Travel project is initiated by Deutsche Bahn, the German railway, and the mobile operator Vodafone.”

This trial shows one of the ways that NFC changes the infrastructure required for a ticketing or payment service. In this case it is a lightweight, parasitic infrastructure that can fairly cheaply be added to other ticketing methods. The service relies on three elements:

• Passive NFC tags at stations that contain a unique identifier or geographic information for that location. In this case they are embedded inside what must be a cheap container of aluminium, a printed surface and glass. This doesn’t require power or a network connection, and serves the same function as a large, powered, and networked ticket machine.
• The mobile phone is the window into the service; it interprets the location/identification data, connects to the ‘cloud’ and provides an interface. This interface could show location, ticket prices, ticket options, time of journey, routes, transaction history, etc. Here there is the opportunity to create a service that offers more utility, value and experience than traditional ticketing.

• The mobile data network connects the user to the service, in many cases this data connection already exists, and doesn’t require infrastructural development. Of course here there are issues with underground metro systems that don’t offer mobile coverage.

  

  More details on the service/interaction design:

• By waving your NFC mobile handset over the so called Touchpoint before entering the train, located at the platforms, the system registers the beginning of a trip.
• The ticket is stored on the SIM card inside the mobile phone
• The conductor checks the ticket by scanning the phone with a portable reader.
• Having arrived at the destination, the handset is waved over the Touchpoint again. The system registers the end of your trip. The system processes the data and calculates the correct cost for the distance traveled.

• The passenger is billed once a month

  Of course the service requires that NFC handsets are easily available, or that the service is sold through SIM add-ons for existing mobiles (perhaps as an alternative to a contactless card like Oyster/Suica).

  I wonder how a service that relies so heavily on an ad-hoc infrastructure will be accountable to failure and who holds responsibility and the problem-solving ability for errors and misunderstandings?

  Thinking also about the parasitic; might multiple services compete with each other for approachable station space? In a de-regulated environment (I’m thinking of the UK here) who you touch might define what service you get…

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  ]]> http://www.nearfield.org/2008/05/touch-and-travel/feed 3 http://www.nearfield.org/2007/01/nokia-releases-first-mass-market-nfc-handset http://www.nearfield.org/2007/01/nokia-releases-first-mass-market-nfc-handset#comments Mon, 08 Jan 2007 18:49:33 +0000 Timo http://www.nearfield.org/2007/01/nokia-releases-first-mass-market-nfc-handset

  Nokia today announced the 6131 NFC phone, the first integrated NFC handset that will (operators willing) be available to the public. Previously NFC had been confined to ageing handsets like the 5140 and 3220 via add-on covers, both of which did not support the latest NFC standards and had limited capabilities. The new handset will be available in select markets in the 1st quarter of 2007.

  Nokia’s press release:

  “Unlike a simple card or keytag, which only allows for one-way communication, an NFC-enabled mobile phone allows users to realize the benefits of a fully interactive experience. For example, touching an NFC-enabled advertising poster or informational kiosk can automatically link the user to interactive Internet based information, open an audio file, or download new content directly to the handset. Additionally, an extra layer of security is enabled when making contactless payments since the handset can be set to allow payment information only when the user expressly authorizes the transaction via a password, unlike a card or tag, which can be used by whoever has it in their possession.”

  “Along with its NFC features, the Nokia 6131 NFC phone includes an extensive set of today’s most wanted wireless features. A built-in digital music player with microSD card support and FM stereo radio allow customers to enjoy their favorite music on the go. A 1.3 megapixel camera, featuring a dedicated camera button and 8x digital zoom makes it easy to capture and share images. Bluetooth wireless technology enables easy connection to a wide selection of Nokia enhancements and PC’s or even the ability to go handsfree in compatible automobiles.”

  It’s a simple Series 40 phone, not a high-end smartphone, but these features add up to a respectable and hopefully cheap device. It supports Java MIDP 2.0, Bluetooth and EDGE, all of which should make application development with NFC that much easier.

  Now the big question is the rollout of NFC services. NFC technology offers very little without a supporting infrastructure of regionally specific ticketing, payment and custom services. Will we see London Transport selling Oyster phones, or Tesco selling loyalty phones? Without services/applications like these, the handsets themselves are likely to be hard to sell.

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  ]]> http://www.nearfield.org/2007/01/nokia-releases-first-mass-market-nfc-handset/feed 8 http://www.nearfield.org/2006/08/rfid-in-seoul-high-end-smartcards http://www.nearfield.org/2006/08/rfid-in-seoul-high-end-smartcards#comments Tue, 29 Aug 2006 10:20:11 +0000 Timo http://www.nearfield.org/2006/08/rfid-in-seoul-high-end-smartcards The contactless ticketing and payment system of choice in Seoul is called T-Money. Seoul was the first city to use Mifare standard smartcards in 1996. Although retail payment doesn’t seem to have taken off as much as in Japan or Hong Kong, T-Money is fairly ubiquitous and can be used on all public transport, a few vending machines and selected retailers.

  There are two elements to this system in Seoul that are interesting. The first is the availability of customised cards and accessories from market stalls and groceries (the subject of a future article). The second is the availability of high-end products containing the T-Money smartcards. These are designed to compete with other products in categories such as consumer electronics, fashion, toys, music and computing.

  Here are three examples of this type of product.

  RFID Hippo

  

  This ‘Fancy T-Money’ hippo costs 24,800 Won (about €20) available from the online shop. It is a smartcard with a USB interface, which means that you can plug it into your PC and fill it up with money from an online bank account (after installing the right drivers). Inside the hippo you can feel a standard 56×28 mm RFID card that is connected to the mouth via a cable.

  The USB plug in this case is thoughtfully placed in the hippo’s mouth, which means it looks like the hippo is chomping away at the computer when plugged in (not as grotesque as the USB bear or as weird as the USB twig).

  

  Given the Korean love of characters, I’m wondering if the hippo is becoming a symbol or mascot for T-Money, in the same way as the Suica Penguin has become synonymous with mobile payment in Japan. Or will this be the start of a collectible range of characters? Some T-Money is bought with discounts built in (for kids or elderly for instance), it would make sense that this is for children, but I’m not certain that this is the case. Let me know if you know more. More photos at Flickr.

  T-Pop

  

  This is a tiny RFID reader/writer that is bought alongside a standard T-Money card for 9,900 Won (about €8). Plugging the T-Pop into the USB port and placing the card on top allows it to be topped up. The T-Pop is designed with a clip so that it can be carried around, but the clip also acts as a holder when the card is being charged. This might have been a nice compromise on the drawing board, but in practice it seems clunky: the action of charging a card could be embodied in the physical form, rather than as an afterthought. This is interesting as the first consumer RFID reader/writer that I have found.

  

  What does putting the RFID reader/writer in the hands of users do to the service in terms of hackability? One would think that both the near-field and USB transfer of cash could be analysed in detail and reverse engineered in the comfort of one’s own home (it’s very different from trying to analyse transactions in the wild).

  +Plus

  

  This last example is a simple memory stick that also acts as a T-Money card, a 256 Mb version is available for 39,800 Won (about €32). As the designers began to explore the recharging of cards via USB it must have seemed obvious to integrate other USB devices. Thoughtful convergence means that topping up money on this kind of T-Money can be done at the same time as transferring or using files.

  

  There are other convergent examples, some of which I will cover in the future. The T-Money mp3 player, also available from the online shop, was beyond my budget.

  New service touchpoints

  Overall the re-packaging of contactless cards is an interesting mix of service, interaction and product design. The way in which the service touchpoints of the Seoul transport system are fanning out to include the home PC is interesting. By providing software and hardware for charging smart cards at home, T-Money have invested a lot in technical and service development. What kind of studies went into making these products: who said that they needed to top up their cards at home? Would the same service work in other places, with the Oyster card for instance?

  Convergence

  It’s difficult to know the relative success of these convergent devices (MP3 players, memory sticks, even mobile phones). My contention is that the usability benefits of these converged things do not outweigh the drawbacks of using a compromised device, or having options in style, interface, or any of the other things that people like to have choice in. When T-Money cards can be attached to phones, cameras or any other device as straps, embedded within wallets or handbags, or worn in sleeve pockets, the arguments for convergence seem quite weak. Products like the hippo show us that many functions will remain discrete.

  Materials & product design

  Products like the hippo are just scratching the surface of possibility, particularly around the use of materials and the kinds of emotional attachments we have to everyday objects. The underlying technology (RFID) allows easy re-packaging in almost unlimited forms and materials (as long as it’s not metal or liquid). I’d like to see explorations of high-end materials like leather, glass, stone and ceramics, to look at reliability, trust and to think more about the ways in which these functional things could be inflected by fashion, design and everyday behaviour.

  What would the ‘ideal’ payment device look like? Does the fact that these things are designed for public transport place them within a certain category of objects that are mundane and everyday, or even within a certain social status?

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