In an earlier article, I explain why Japan should NOT be considered the most advanced market for NFC because, although mobile Felica is widespread, this technology only allows the “card emulation” mode, and is missing out the “reader” and “Peer-to-Peer” modes.
Well, its seems that our Japanese friends are coming up with an answer that might well keep NFC away from their domestic playground. They have indeed recently (and discretely) announced the launch of a new technology allowing the P2P transfer of data at an impressive 375mbps speed with no need to pair devices (which is a main drawback of Bluetooth).
“TransferJet is an extremely simple wireless technology which eliminates the need for complex setup and operation. For example, just touching a TV with a digital camera enables photos to be instantaneously displayed on the TV screen. Alternatively, downloaded music content can be easily enjoyed by touching a mobile phone to a portable audio player. TransferJet can be used as a Universal Interface among a wide variety of consumer electronics devices.”
Source: Sony Transferjet
The transferjet consortium (created on July 17th 2008) is composed of the Japanese electronic heavyweights and some other happy few (Sony, Canon, Eastman Kodak, Hitachi, KDDI, Kenwood, Matsushita (Panasonic), Nikon, Olympus, Pioneer, Samsung, Seiko Epson, Sony, Toshiba, JVC).
Looking at the details, they more or less propose the same usages as NFC (as NXP show in their demos). I guess the main difference, apart from speed (which actually depends on Bluetooth and not so much on NFC), is the fact that the Japanese have decided to totally separate the secure usages of mobile devices (mobile Felica), from the non-secure usages (transferjet) -although in both cases they are products of SONY.
The emergence of this technology is clearly, in my opinion, competing with the emergence of NFC. If it is intended for global commercial expansion, it is not going to help NFC much. Hopefully it is just a trick invented by Japanese companies to keep their domestic market from themselves. The fact that secure and non-secure transactions are using different technologies will probably give birth to different business models.
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