Online retail site opens for business for NFC developersÂ’ tag needs

Online retail site opens for business for NFC developers’ tag needs

One of the first online retail sites dedicated to the purchasing of Near Field Communication (NFC) tags and related NFC items has gone live.

Created and managed by Innovision Research & Technology, inventor of the Topaz NFC tag, www.buynfc.com was officially launched to developers and consumers at WIMA, the global NFC business and technical developers’ summit this week.

Buynfc.com is designed to offer a one-stop-shop for NFC application developers’ and consumers’ needs and help create a strong community of NFC developers online. The site will provide advice on how to use NFC tags, how to develop applications and practical issues like which tags are best suited for a variety of applications.

NFC adoption resource

Selling Topaz tags in a wide range of form factors, including paper, labels, plastic discs, key fobs and reels, buynfc.com is aimed primarily at those looking to develop non-payment applications of NFC and to create mass-market opportunities for the emerging short-range wireless technology as well as meeting the tag needs of consumers.

Innovision believes the market for non-payment applications has huge potential, and includes smart posters, which allow users to access digital content via an NFC-enabled handset and ‘tag in a box’, where tags are included as part of a mobile phone package.

“The opportunities are endless – payments and ticketing have been grabbing the headlines, but it’s the simple, clever and innovative applications that often capture application developers’ and consumers’ imaginations,” explained Innovision’s vice president of marketing, Stephen Graham.

Smart object interaction

“Tags have the potential to turn everything into a smart object, which will interact with commonly available mobile handsets, whether it’s a photograph, a business card or even a key fob.”

Innovision’s Topaz tag initially offers 96 Bytes of user programmable memory and is mandated by the NFC Forum as the Type 1 NFC Forum Tag Format. The provider added that Topaz is designed to be flexible and cost-effective for a very broad range of applications, whether in standalone NFC tags or as part of a more complex system.