If you have a phone or tablet made after 2014, chances are that it has mobile payment functionality. Most current-generation phones have some form of mobile payment. To be able to use mobile payment, the phones or tablets have what's called an NFC chip. You may have seen the ads for Android Pay saying that anywhere Apple Pay is accepted, Android Pay will also work. Now how can this be? Well, it's actually quite simple: all of these use near-field communication, or NFC for short. How NFC works is actually quite simple: there is a small circuit in the phone and the "tap to pay" pad on the credit card reader. These circuits are so sensitive to electrical changes that when they get close to each other, the powered chip on the phone pulses out very fine electrical charges that the credit card reader's chip intercepts and interprets into sensible information: your credit card number.
Well, actually it is not your credit card number per say, but it is actually a temporary stand-in for your real number. See when you enter your credit card information into your mobile payment, your phone communicates with your bank and sets up stand-in numbers, formally called "tokens," for your real credit card number. These tokens are completely worthless and have a very short period of time in which they will work, and when they run out of time, they are simply deleted and voided. When you pay for something, your phone gives a token to the company, which gives the token to your bank, who then sends the money to the company. If someone were to obtain these tokens from your phone, it's more than likely that by the time they have a chance to use it, it has already expired. But does this technology have other uses?
Surprisingly enough, mobile payment was not the first use of near-field communication. Before paying with your phone, it was used for things such as train station cards, company id's, passports, drivers licences, and many other things of that nature. Since none of those have batteries in them, they rely on un-powered NFC chips that only store information. You can actually purchase these un-powered NFC chips on Amazon. I recently bought these WhizTags NFC Tags with 3M Adhesive Backing 10-Pack with NFC Keychain and Tag
for $9.99 USD, and I'm not disappointed. Not only do you get 10 of the water-resistant adhesive-backed tags for the low price, you are also getting an extra free tag and a key chain with a tag attached to it. The adhesive is quite strong as well, to the point of almost chipping paint upon removal, so you can stick it to your front door to unlock house with a touch of your phone. You might even be able to safely attach it to your car door to start and unlock it, but I have not tried this, so I cannot guarantee that they will stay. If you have a recent Android phone (sorry Apple lovers, even though your I Phones have an NFC chip, you cannot access it to be able to use it as Apple has kept the technology under tight lock-and-key) you can actually program these tags to do anything from store text data or a contact to sending a text-message or phone call to someone to even changing settings or launching an application when you touch the tag to your Android phone. Personally, I have one attached to my bed-side table that mutes my phone when I set it down and plug it in at night. You could also put one in your wallet with your contact information, and use it as an emergency business card if you happen to run out, or even just as a convenient way to give your phone number to friends or family.
for $9.99 USD, and I'm not disappointed. Not only do you get 10 of the water-resistant adhesive-backed tags for the low price, you are also getting an extra free tag and a key chain with a tag attached to it. The adhesive is quite strong as well, to the point of almost chipping paint upon removal, so you can stick it to your front door to unlock house with a touch of your phone. You might even be able to safely attach it to your car door to start and unlock it, but I have not tried this, so I cannot guarantee that they will stay. If you have a recent Android phone (sorry Apple lovers, even though your I Phones have an NFC chip, you cannot access it to be able to use it as Apple has kept the technology under tight lock-and-key) you can actually program these tags to do anything from store text data or a contact to sending a text-message or phone call to someone to even changing settings or launching an application when you touch the tag to your Android phone. Personally, I have one attached to my bed-side table that mutes my phone when I set it down and plug it in at night. You could also put one in your wallet with your contact information, and use it as an emergency business card if you happen to run out, or even just as a convenient way to give your phone number to friends or family.
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