Samsung Wants Its TecTiles to Get You Tapping Your Phone

Samsung's TecTile stickers can launch a number of actions in NFC-equipped phones, such as the Galaxy Nexus shown here. Photo: Peter McCollough/Wired

Near field communications technology hasn’t taken off yet. Google Wallet can only be found on a handful of phones, and Isis – the NFC payments platform from the unusual alliance of AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon – won’t launch until later this summer.

But Samsung is hoping some new stickers dubbed TecTiles will get us tapping our phones in anticipation of an expected NFC-everywhere future.

Samsung’s TecTiles stickers will be sold through AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon, as well as on Samsung’s website, at a price of $15 for a pack of five. The stickers can be programmed to trigger your NFC-equipped phone into a set of actions once you tap it on them.

The stickers have a built-in NFC chip with a small amount of storage that allows them to be programmed up to 100,000 times using a free Android app that Samsung launched today called, plainly enough, Samsung TecTiles.

Samsung says the TecTiles will work with any NFC-equipped phone, which isn’t but a handful of devices at this point. But, as far as NFC phones go, Samsung offers the most with the Galaxy Nexus, the Samsung Galaxy S II (on T-Mobile), the Nexus S 4G (on Sprint), and the Galaxy S Blaze 4G (on T-Mobile), all containing NFC chips.

And of course, Samsung’s new Galaxy S III will feature an NFC chip inside, as well.

Among the actions you can program a TecTile to do with an NFC phone are changing a phone’s settings (turning on Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, set a phone to silent or airplane mode, etc.), launch an app, automatically join a specific Wi-Fi network, share contact info or a digital business card.

The stickers can also be used to automatically make a phone call or send a text message to a specific recipient. For example, a parent could program a TecTile stuck to a refrigerator to automatically send them a text message that says “Hey Mom and Dad, I’m home” when their child gets back from school and taps their phone on the fridge.

The TecTiles can also be programmed to show an address on a map, open up a specific website, check-in on Foursquare, “Like” something on Facebook, send a tweet on Twitter, automatically request a connection on LinkedIn, or start a Google Talk.

Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/06/samsung-tectiles/

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