The NFC Forum today made three adopted specifications and one candidate specification available to developers and hardware manufacturers. The three finalized specs were ratified by the NFC Forum in October and ensure compatibility between a wider range of devices. The NFC Analog Technical Specification Version 2.0 targets the analog portions of the RF interface in NFC devices and makes sure NFC devices can read certain types of cards (ISO/IEC 14443 and ISO/IEC 18092). This is important for public transportation, as well as mobile payment mechanisms, and the internet of things. The NFC Activity Technical Specification Version 2.0 adds Active Communication Mode, which is an alternative to Passive Communication Mode. Active mode lets NFC-equipped devices create a field when sending information from the reader to the mobile device. The NFC Digital Protocol Technical Specification Version 2.0 includes NFC-V technology, which adds support for more tag types. The candidate specification is called NFC Forum Type 5 Tag. This defines the Type 5 Tag and how NFC-enabled devices will detect the tag, read it, and write to it. It is based on NFC-V technology and allows for storing and reading of NDEF messages on tags that can contain a wide variety of information and/or instructions. The NFC specs are available from the NFC Forum's web site. Implementing them will eventually bring more features to NFC-equipped devices, such as smartphones.


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