August 16, 2010 
Apple’s recent hire of a long time NFC expert could signal that wireless mobile payments are going to get another try. I have been writing about NFC since 2005 so I am not going to get too excited yet. Many companies, including Nokia and Visa have trialed NFC phones and readers but so far the cost of adoption for vender’s point of sales systems and lack of consumer demand has meant NFC was dead in the water, especially in the US.
However, much like it did with online music sales, Apple could push both vendors and consumers out of their comfort zones and drive the overall wireless mobile payment market.
In related news, DASH7, a new wireless sensor network protocol, has been announced as a competitor to Zigbee. From Daily Wireless: “DASH7, however, uses 433 MHz, a much lower frequency that travels further with less interference. It also uses less power and integrates RFID, providing a unique ID for every device. It may even be combined with Near Field Communications for remote payments via phone.”
The DASH7 alliance has a nice feature comparison chart:
Daniel – one comment on the Daily Wireless mention — DASH7 isn’t really being targeted at mobile payments, but rather those non-payment applications that NFC doesn’t do as well as DASH7 — like smart posters, or checking-in to a location via Foursquare. More info on the technology is available at http://www.dash7.org.
Hey Pat – Thanks for the comment and clarification. It seems like DASH7 could be used in conjunction with NFC just like you are suggesting, for location based data. It also seems to be promising for smart grid type sensor data.