Talkative future for every gadget

Help is at hand for gadget fans tired of struggling to get their different devices talking to each other. Philips, Nokia and Sony are banding together to create a basic technology that will help gadgets automatically connect with each other. Near Field Communications helps gadgets work out the best way to swap data when they are brought within a few centimetres of each other. The first products using the technology are expected by the end of the year. As gadgets get more complicated the numbers of ways to link them up, either with or without wires, grows too. As short-range radio communications systems, such as Bluetooth, become more popular, the simple task of linking a handset to an earpiece could get very tricky, said Sour Chhor, general manager for the Near Field Communications project at Philips. He said linking them simply by searching for the nearest Bluetooth device could produce a long list of potential partners once the technology becomes ubiquitous. He said NFC would offer a solution to this problem as it would help devices brought close to each other to automatically pair up. It was not intended to replace Bluetooth and other radio technologies instead it should help people make better use of them. He said NFC was a standard way of identifying devices and describing what they can do. The announcement about the NFC alliance was made at the giant Cebit technology fair currently being held in Hanover in Germany.