Eric Schmidt showed off some new features of Samsung’s Nexus S Smartphone today at the O’Reilly Web 2.0 Conference today.
It looks like a big differentiator in Android 2.3, Gingerbread will be the support for Near Field Communications (NFC). Conveniently, the Google Nexus S, manufactured by Samsung will carry the hardware to be able to use the new software and allow developers to build applications like electronic payment systems into their Android applications. As part of his Web 2.0 Keynote today Schmidt briefly showed off Gingerbread running on a Nexus S (Gallery) which is expected to launch alongside Gingerbread in the “coming weeks”.
NFS is described as:
a short-range high frequency wireless communication technology which enables the exchange of data between devices over about a 10 centimeter (around 4 inches) distance. The technology is a simple extension of the ISO/IEC 14443 proximity-card standard (proximity card, RFID) that combines the interface of a smartcard and a reader into a single device. An NFC device can communicate with both existing ISO/IEC 14443 smartcards and readers, as well as with other NFC devices, and is thereby compatible with existing contactless infrastructure already in use for public transportation and payment. NFC is primarily aimed at usage in mobile phones.
Although Near Field Communications is often thought of as cash payments systems, it does many other things that developers can work with. Mashable listed 6 things you can do with NFC in May.