People have been singing the praises of “Near Field” tech for the last couple years. I feel like this year could be the year it actually takes off, mostly because of a couple of things. With apparently over 5000 merchants having signed up to use it during the Olympics, 350 vending machines and 3000 contact less payment points in the Olympic park itself and London buses receiving the contact less treatment too, it offers the availably that the technology needs. What is now needed is a consumer device that works with the standard chosen by those establishments.

This is where it gets hard, either mobile phone manufactures have to define a standard then release it through all their phones during their refreshes and eventually years later it will be in common use. Or one company that has everyone already hammering to get the newest device and can spread millions of them in one go does it. The only company that has that kind of control over the market is Apple. No doubt their solution would be elegant, but what they can achieve that no other manufacturer can do is volume. The Olympics is the ideal testing ground for this and I would love to see it happen.