Google Hotpot – the new Google Maps features which make it easier for you and your friends to discover and share places – hasn’t been Google’s most exciting offering, but they’re going to be using it to start promoting widespread use of Near Fields Communications technology in America. Trials in Portland, Oregon will begin soon with businesses placing “Recommended on Google” stickers on their doors and windows. Users with NFC-equipped devices – Nexus S owners only, for now – will be able to pull that particular business’s information in by placing their phone near the sticker and will allow you to read more about the place, read and write reviews, and more. Not the most exciting use of NFC yet, but one must crawl before one can walk. To see more about the trials and more about what’ll be included with the “Business Kits” that participants will be receiving, head on over to Google.
Google is on a path to world domination.
Living in Portland…waiting to use this feature…on my Droid X…maybe in a few months…maybe.
I heard google gave out T-shirts at the Trail Blazer game last night, I’m guessing it was related to this.
Yeah…Portland…really useful…
I swear I saw a Nexus S in the hands of the guy interviewed at Voo-Doo donuts about this story. Anybody need anexcuse to go to Voo Doo and verify?..
No one ever needs an excuse to go to voodoo donuts.
So how do us Portland folks score a free phone on this?
john,
you cant use yoru droid x for this. As the article states you must have a Nexus S which is the ONLY phone right now with near field communication.
can you portlanders still have beer and pizza at that cool cinema in hawthorne street (??)
@chris.
it’s useful for the 2.5 million of us that live here, sorry you weren’t included.
Wildstar, agreed…voodoo is always an option!
fredphoesh, the Bagdad theater (it’s a McMenamins)?