NFC Forum introduces peer-to-peer mobile data sharing

The NFC Forum, a nonprofit industry association dedicated to the advancement of Near Field Communications technologies, introduced its 16^th specification: The Simple NDEF Exchange Protocol, an application-level request/response protocol allowing users to send and receive mobile data between two NFC-enabled mobile devices.

The SNEP advances the NFC Forum's NFC Data Exchange Format, previously applicable only to NFC tags in reader/writer mode. The protocol enables standardized peer-to-peer sharing designed for scenarios like seamless transfer of contact data (e.g., smartphones configured to automatically exchange business card information when an NFC connection is established) and collecting information about forthcoming films by passing by movie posters integrating NFC tags.

According to the NFC Forum, the SNEP effectively negates developer concerns over how their NDEF data is transferred between NFC-enabled devices in much the same way that NFC Forum Tag Type specifications encapsulate the differences between communication layers, heralding a significant step towards global interoperability of NFC applications. The SNEP specification is available for download here.

The NFC Forum was founded in 2004, bringing together mobile communications, semiconductor and consumer electronics companies in an effort to develop NFC specifications, guaranteeing interoperability among devices and services and educating the market. The association now boasts 160 global member companies.

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