Search giant Google, is in the early stages of developing their own mobile payment system based on near field communication (NFC),according to a report by Business Week’s Olga Kharif.NFC is a short range wireless technology that allows you transmit data.The service could launch in 2011.
Google chief Eric Schmidt suggested in November that NFC would eventually replace credit cards. Android 2.3 Gingerbread already includes some minor NFC functionality: it can read NFC tags, but not broadcast them to other devices (like registers). Buried in the Businessweek story is the information that Samsung’s Nexus S handset already has the hardware to support NFC, and it will likely be the test device for Google’s payment system.
Many other tech companies such as eBay and Apple are eyeing the NFC field closely. But it is PayPal in particular whom is voicing special interest in partnering with Google should they actually move forward with their own NFC payment system.
Google introduced NFC into its Android smartphone operating system with the Gingerbread 2.3 release that is currently available only on the Samsung built Nexus S.
