See how Japanese Educate Users about NFC

Education is very important for NFC technology. Although most of the Android phones on the market are NFC-enabled, it just seems that most of the phone users are not awared of the usefulness of NFC.

A mobile accessory company in Japan understands what the users don't know and is trying the teach them through illustrated guides. I guess most of you don't know their language but I believe every one of you can understand what they want to express through the illustrations.

For the guides they have, I think the most interesting one is this. They teach you how to make a key chain using their templates and kits so that elderly can phone relatives, hospital or emergency service when they tap their phone with the key chain. And they also teach you to make a magnet (with their nicely designed icon templates and kits) and smart poster (this one is with a tutorial video).

NFC Sticker on Direct Mail Cards

I found the NFC Direct Mail Cards, again from a Japanese company, to be quite interesting. These cards have peelable NFC sticker on them and I guess these cards might become the future way of promotion for companies delivering their merchandise.

I like the pizza example from the seller as pizza is great as we all want ordering pizza to be as convenient as possible. To enjoy the convenient pizza ordering service, we have to peel the NFC sticker out from the card and stick the NFC sticker to a convenient place beforehand. I think sticking it beside the TV would be nice but metal surfaces like the fridge should not be OK. When we feel like having a pizza, we just have to tap the sticker, then the phone will automatically call the pizza restaurant for our hungry tummies.

Message Coaster as Wedding Souvenir

I believe everybody wants to have something special for their wedding souvenir. And a Japanese company developed a nice idea of embedding NFC technology in wedding message coaster. The message coasters not only look nice but include a bookmark to video message from the couple.

I like both their Japanese style design and nice texture of their material. For most of the NFC goods, including the Pokemon NFC figures, their design is not smooth and completeness is not high but these wedding message coasters just look perfect.

The service was displayed in the smartphone and mobile EXPO in Tokyo and is limited in Japan. It's really a pity. If its available in my home country, I would definitely recommend it to my friends.

Dream Aquarium Takeaway?

I love looking at the tropical fishes swimming freely in water but there are not many aquariums near my home so it's difficult for me to see them frequently. However, I found out an interesting Japanese app that can let me build up my own aquarium and visit it anytime I like.

With the app, when I visit an aquarium, I can add the fishes there to the aquarium in my phone and decorate it let it be my 'Dream Aquarium'. The decoration is simple - just to choose background image and add objects but it looks nice. And the app can be ran even after I leave the real aquarium!

It's a sad thing that the app works only when the aquarium is supporting it. Both Sunshine Aquarium in Tokyo and Kaiyukan in Osaka held campaign with the app a few months before...but there is no aquariums currently supporting the app. Hope that I will have a chance to visit an aquarium supporting the app in the future.

Answer the Door Even When You are Out

You might not always have someone to visit your home but it won't be a nice thing when you miss any of the visits. Sometimes, may be our neighbour or other people came by and left because we were not at home.

Now here is an application to help us to answer the door even when we are out. What we have to do with it is simple - load a NFC sticker with the app and stick it at your door. When visitor came by, they can read the sticker with their phone, then their phone will automatically phone or message you. With the notification, we can contact the visitor right away and will not miss any of the visitors. Of course, you can also choose not to answer the door when you don't feel like it.

Let the NFC Tag Tell You How Healthy Your Dog is

A Japanese company is helping busy dog owners to know more about how healthy their dog is. They sell a NFC tag to be hanged on dog’s neck and it monitors the health condition of pets 24-hours a day, 365-days a year. And the latest 14-days data in the tag can be synchronized to cloud using smartphone or PC. The tag counts steps taken then we can know how frequent we should walk our dog and prevent dog diabetes. It also counts body shaking of our dog so we can know if its stress level is OK. Other than these, it also records the temperature of the environment.

They have both smartphone app and web portal. Through these platforms, we can upload other info like how much food they have eaten and know about how healthy our pets are by taking a look on the data there. As the data is shown as graphs, it's quite easy to read. And we can write diary and upload photos to the cloud and share them to Facebook or twitter.

NFC lights up LEDs on Teddy

I just made a simple mock up/demo for NFC toys which LED powered by the RF power from smartphone. The NFC tag launched the Tapogram app, and the coil separately lit up 2 LEDs. No battery is needed for Teddy bear. The power is small but enough to trigger wake up for other circuit. We can design a lot other applications which can interact with smartphones.

e.g. toys figure, model, smart poster or banner, board game, etc.

Take a Look in the Latest Make-up Tips with NFC

During the semester, I used NFC to help me study, but now exams ended and my holidays came. It's nice to be able to get out and enjoy but here comes a new trouble - how to do my makeup? These days, I installed a makeup app - Beautylish for me to read the latest makeup tips during makeup. And more than that, I found out a convenient way to open the app.

I've set up a NFC tag behind my mirror so that I can load Beautylish with my mirror, even when I am out. The app I've used is NFC Actions. The set up process is really easy. I just have to add a new task - launch an app and then choose Beautylish. Then, with a tap of my tag, the tag is ready to go.