According to AppleInsider, Near Field Communications reports that Apple has built iPhone prototypes equipped with RFID (Radio-Frequency IDentification).

For those unfamiliar, RFID is either super-convenient, terrifyingly insecure, or both. In a nutshell, it broadcasts a signal that can be read from a short distance to process financial transactions (an easy-pay card), determine identity (some nations’ passports), and more futuristic concepts where devices can auto-discover and connect with each other based on their tags.

The convenient part is you could swipe your iPhone to pay for goods or services rather than carrying around cards. Your iPhone could also keep track of tagged item like keys so you can find them between your sofa cushions.

The terrifying part is when hackers and other bad guys read your financial information from a distance, or “see” what country you’re from when trying to determine targets in less friendly parts of the world. Or, just use them to track you instead of your keys.

The future is not for the timid, however, so let us know — do you want?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Apple Building iPhone Prototypes with RFID?

A slew of new Apple patent applications have come to light covering a rather odd range of functionality that may — or may not — make it into future iPhone software and hardware models.

First up is haptic feedback via a “grid of piezoelectronic actuators”, which would provide a varied tactile response when touching the iPhone screen to better orient users (and let them type without locking their eyes on the keyboard, ideally).

Second is a technology that seeks to identify fingerprints — i.e. not only that a user has touched the screen, but which specific finger touched the screen. So, for example, touching with the index finger would produce a different reaction than touching with the middle finger.

Third is for placing a RFID (radio frequency identification) reader in the screen so that, in addition to finger touches (and multi-touches), it could identify the unique tag given to objects as well.

Lastly is a method for letting users sing to the iPhone, and having the iPhone provide feedback on tone, pitch, etc. Basically, rating the quality of your karaoke — or of the latest pre-packaged Hollywood auto-tune single, we imagine.

Again, there’s no telling when, or if at all, Apple will release real-world products based on these patents, but they do give some hint as to which direction(s) Apple’s thinking.

Anyone want any of the them now?

[Via MacRumors twice]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

iPhone Patent Watch: Haptics, Biometrics, RFID, and… Karaoke?!

Nearfield.org (via TUAW) brings us the above video, where innocent toys are scanned by an RFID-reading iPhone which then triggers media playback. Why?

This video prototype is basic and intended to open up for discussion and new exploration around the experience of media selection through physical objects. At the moment the interaction is a trigger, but what if the phone doesn’t just react as output but also as input to physical objects? How do we programme and manage our sets of media and applications in these objects?

Sounds good, but we’ve seen Terminator, the Matrix, and Battlestar Galactica and this is how it always starts. So, we pretty much figured The Powers That Be would be tagging and bagging us via RFID in one dystopian future or another. But going after our toys? Evil.

Still, there must be some use of iPhone and RFID that could be used for the good of humankind?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

iPhone RFID: Object Detector Prototype “Big Brother” for Toys?