NFC-enabled smartphones enable art festival attendees to learn more and share feedback on specific works
NXP Semiconductors N.V., together with start-up U-Approach, is providing visitors of the STRP Festival in Eindhoven – one of Europe’s largest art and technology festivals - the ability to use smartphones equipped with Near Field Communication (NFC) to interact with its cultural exhibits. Using a new Android app, visitors can get detailed information about the exhibited artwork, simply by tapping an NFC-enabled smartphone over an NFC tag, triggering a synthesized voice message.
The mobile app also allows people to ‘love’ an art work (with up to five ‘hearts’), tag it with a keyword, and share it via social media. Works of art tapped during a visit can be converted into a personalized poster, combining collaboratively created visitor opinions. In this way, the Android app encourages cultural participation, enriches the festival experience, and introduces a new dimension to NFC.
View the video demonstrating the NFC app for cultural participation at STRP Festival 2011: Watch Video >>>
Frens Frijns, director of the STRP Festival, commented: “As a cultural festival, we feature artistic and creative experiments with technology. We believe that the ‘Internet of Things’ is evolving into a ‘clickable world’. We are the first festival in the world to provide that experience in a way that helps people better understand the art while giving them the ability to share their own interpretation, introducing a new social dimension to art interpretation in the festival experience.”
Wouter Leibbrandt, senior director and manager of the Advanced Applications Lab at NXP Semiconductors, said: “Last year, the STRP Festival was the first festival in the world to use NFC readers and RFID cards to increase participation opportunities for its visitors. We are now making the next step with NFC-enabled smartphones: giving festival visitors the opportunity to experience a world full of physical hyperlinks. Working with the creative industry gives us access to very imaginative minds and a non-typical audience eager to experience this type of innovation. Being able to do that with the STRP Festival and U-Approach, an ambitious start-up in our own backyard, illustrates the uniquely innovative potential that we have in our Brainport region, the smartest region in the world.”
About NFC
Near Field Communication (NFC), facilitates short-range communication over a distance of just a few centimeters between electronic devices, such as mobile phones, PDAs, computers and advanced consumer electronics, via a fast and easy contactless connection.
Developed jointly by NXP Semiconductors and Sony Corporation in 2002, NFC technology enables consumers to securely exchange and store all kinds of information, simply by bringing two devices close together. It acts as a secure smart key for access to content and services such as cashless payment, ticketing, online entertainment and access control. In addition, NFC automatically configures and initiates wireless connections, such as Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, enabling devices to communicate at longer ranges or transfer data at higher rates.
Today, NFC offers consumers a high level of convenience, interactivity and security with their mobile devices, and further enhances their smartphone experiences by linking the virtual world of applications with the physical environment. Using natural touch gestures, NFC devices can easily pair with accessories, interact on a peer-to-peer level to exchange data, and connect to a huge installed base of reader and tag infrastructures.
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