NFC? It might work says Department for Transport Following two years of study, and £355,000 in cash, the Department for Transport has concluded that NFC works OK for ticketing. Probably. The study, which was conducted by Consult Hyperion, included giving NFC handsets to 40 people for six months, and bench testing of Nokia's NFC handset as a payment terminal. The 52-page …
think Bluetooth but way lower power (and way lower range)
the magic which lets your card key unlock a door just by swiping it past the detector
Funnily enough there are countries in the world where NFC enabled phones are a key part of everyday life, don't require huge amounts of user training etc... but the growth in the UK will be stiffled because users will resent another Big Brother tracking technology, no-one will agree common standards (so you'll probably need several phones... one for busses, one for mainline trains, one for the tube and possibly one if you plan to visit Manchester)
How much?! *faints*
This strikes me as a rather nifty set of projects for masters students in buisness, computer science and engineering (rough examples, projects are all inter-disciplinary now anyway), who would be able to, at a fraction of the cost, make a damn sight better judgement on viability and security of the NFC payment system.
A student to work on testing security, a student for working on standards, etc. Gives academics funding, keeps kidlums in academia, one could probably spin this as "building a partnership between government and universities in working towards a high tech britain"
....to introduce a note of negativism here but do we really need a government so callous with taxpayers' money that it hands over this kind of dosh for something a single, qualified consultant could've done in a week and less than one-tenth the cost?
Okay, find me the TorLabLidDem clone who'll say, "We'll stop spending brazillions on government IT follies."
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