Updates From NFC Forum Include Ability to Show Tickets When Smart Phone Is Off

The NFC Forum, the Wakefield, Mass.-based organization that supports near-field communication technology, on Monday announced updates to three technical specifications and introduced a “candidate” spec. NFC is the technology most often used, for example, to link mobile wallets with point-of-sale terminals.

One update, to “NFC Controller Interface (NCI) Technical Specification Version 2.0,” includes the ability for NFC controllers to emulate NFC Forum tags “autonomously,” as the organization puts it. An example it gives of such an application is the ability for a customer at the entrance to an event to show a ticket stored on his smart phone even if the device is off.

Another update to the same spec allows for a so-called extended Listen Mode Routing mechanism. In this case, a user whose phone had one payment application installed on an embedded secure element and another payment app from a different bank installed on a SIM card inserted in the same phone could choose between the applications “for the next payment transaction,” the Forum says.

The other updates are to the Forum’s “NFC Technical Specification Version 2” and “NFC Digital Protocol Technical Specification Version 2.0.” The so-called candidate spec, “NFC Forum Type 5 Tag Candidate Specification,” allows providers of NFC Forum tags to check whether the tags are compatible with the Forum’s specs.

NFC is the most-often-used technology for contactless payments in stores with cards or wallets. Forum sponsor members include Apple Inc., Broadcom Corporation, Dai Nippon Printing Co. Ltd., Google, Inc., Intel, MasterCard Inc., NEC, Nokia, NXP Semiconductors, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sony Corp., STMicroelectronics, and Visa Inc.