Dozens of NFC-Enabled Handsets Due this Year, Says Google Technical Lead
We’ve been hearing a lot about NFC lately, a technology that is not altogether new but with plenty of room for development and expansion. Google is making a big push for the technology, as evidenced by the inclusion of NFC support in Android Gingerbread and the Nexus S handset. While big G, handset manufacturers, and financial institutions are all getting behind NFC in hopes to bring one-touch payments to the larger market, but the limited availability of handsets with the proper hardware is a major stumbling block in the widespread adoption of such a system.
That will change, and soon, according to Nick Pell, Google’s NFC Technical Lead. At Google I/O he revealed that to his knowledge at least a dozen NFC-enabled Android handsets will find a release by the end of 2011. We already know that HTC plans to release a beefed-up Sensation-like device featuring the capabilities, and Samsung has an NFC-ready variant of the Galaxy S II in the pipeline. We get the feeling Google will push partners to make NFC a standard in most Android devices going forward, so the number isn’t all that surprising considering the rate at which new handsets are released.
[via IntoMobile]