Using NFC enabled phones to the full

With many top mobile phones available with NFC capability, including top brands like Nokia, Samsung , LG, and many of the Xperia range of phones; we felt it was time to test out NFC using our review handset the Samsung Galaxy S3. 

Where to buy NFC Tags

Turning to London's Covent Garden based RapidNFC, who are quickly establishing themselves as Europe's largest supplier of NFC tags and products, we acquired some of the most popular NFC tags for personal use, to see the potential of NFC. 
 What is NFC? 
For those not really fully understanding what the Near Field Communications chip in their mobile device does we think we'd better give a quick Dummy's Guide to possibly the greatest mobile innovation since BlueTooth. That's not to say that this wireless standard is not quickly becoming the media's darling- during the latest London Olympics athletes were supplied with NFC capable Galaxy S3's to better enable micro purchases through collaborating retailers, like Pret a Manger, who had enabled cash points capable of taking preloaded payments for micro transactions for small values, like a lunchtime sandwich. 
 The new wireless standard allows two capable devices to pass information between themselves. The device can be a mobile handset, or even an encrypted object. This really makes a difference as even an innocuous object like a sticker can be encrypted with information that your mobile can read, and it doesn't require a power source.
 Marketing personnel would immediately see the potential in this for multiple uses like encrypting a personalised sticker to be attached and ready to be scanned in a public place which could provide great, inexpensive advertising. For example if the latest movie like Skyfall has prominent posters in accessible areas like a tube station, then those could be scanned by interested people and carry out all sorts of functions like taking people straight to the movie's website. 

 Uses of NFC 
Broadly it can be used for what we can loosely term personal use such as task launching and more commercial uses such as mobile payments, product identification and even security functions. Commercial uses are so wide ranging that they will need a full article by themselves to cover so with the useful products that we obtained from RapidNFC we're going to look in depth at some of the useful and time saving personal functions of NFC. 

 NFC to improve everyday mobile use.

NFC Products from RapidNFC

 In possession of some of the more popular enabled products I set about making my home and office a NFC enabled zone. What's great about the mini nfc logo stickers and hang tags that I had is that use was only limited by my imagination. The Covent Garden NFC suppliers have the means to encode up to 200 thousand tags a day, but it is completely possible, and very simple, for a user to encode their own tags with any of a number of apps readily available, we'll be looking in to some of the easiest apps for an Android user to use to encode their own NFC tags in a later article. At the moment I've got a set up that works for me by having a small sticker on the bedside cabinet that when tapped sets the daily alarm on and the ringtone to silent. The NTAG203 with a scan strength of 7 even works through the mobiles hardback case. On my car keys I've used a hang tag that when touched puts the phone into Android Jellybean's useful driving mode( where incoming callers are verbally identified and text messages read out), turns off Wi-fi, turns on mobile data and activates Google Maps! Office NFC use sees another of the unobtrusive stickers on the desk activating Wi-Fi again, loading a popular news site and setting the phone to vibrate. The NFC enabled pen is yet to be programmed but certainly provides an office talking point when people enquire about it! 

 As a way to show off your phones capability NFC is definitely future technology today. But more than that it also allows some real time saving and avoids the stress of hunting through your devices to complete often rote tasks.
 Beyond the personal level there are a multitude of 'commercial' uses for NFC. If you're wanting to look into this for any of the above uses or even just for interests sake, the trial samples from RapidNFC proved reliable and functional and their wide range of products provide a great way for either business or personal users to explore modern mobile's immense NFC potential.

Audio Filter for iOS: SpaceSampler

Simple apps that do big and impressive things, is really what we want. Look at Instagram for example, nice, simple and uncomplicated, but the brilliance that it brings to photos is unparalleled. So what other senses can iOS enhance, as visual has already been covered let's move on to the audiosphere. After all Apple originally became massive on the strength of it's MP3 Players, so you'd expect apps to have kept pace with this audio legacy and be bringing some brilliant features to our music. 
Well we think we've come across one of those audio enhancing apps , in some circles SpaceSampler has been touted as "An Instagram for audio". There are clear comparisons:

• SpaceSampler is easy to use
• The interface is uncluttered
• Instant audio gratification is granted at the push of the button.

SpaceSampler Audio Convolution App
So what exactly does SpaceSampler do? In essence you can add effects to music, instruments and voice with this app. Any audio you play through or record with SpaceSampler can be changed and enhanced with a variety of filters added to it. I'm no muso, but this is powerful audio equipment distilled down to the size of an iOS app. I ran the audio app through my iPad, just experimenting with a bit of voice recording. Adding various filters, such as AM Radio and Electro IR Filter just to see how it works and for amusement's sake. The results are clear and instantaneous with over 15 professional IR (Impulse Response) high quality audio filters for your iPad or iPhone this music making app will be very powerful in the right hands.


iOS Apps for Musicians
I've given a copy of the audio filter app to a musician friend and am awaiting a response. Growing up with this muso friend he'd often try intrigue me with his latest music gadget. Instantly he sprang to mind with his Korg Synthesisers and Cakewalk software, because as far as I can tell this powerful audio app from Periscope does all the work and more of an expensive real time hardware filter and all from a cheap and easy to use  app. 
The Clever Maths behind SpaceSampler
Paying a visit to the SpaceSampler Website will give you more of an insight into the brilliance behind this musician's app. Periscope Audio Labs hasn't just number crunched some fancy software to do this apps work but has used the algorithms and sound wave forms from real audio equipment and performance spaces.
Sharing your iOS created Music

• Share via e-mail, MAPI Audio Copy, Dropbox & SoundCloud
• Choose between .wav and .mp4 for file encoding

Download SpaceSampler Audio Filter for iOS

How to become a popular App developer

Apps are the next dot com . Fact. And that is why so many programmers and wanna be programmers are struggling to get their head around how to be an app developer. Here at Gametrender we've come across a multitude of Android and iPhone developers who've all got their own "app developer secrets to success". But right here, right now is one developer who is very much the flavour of the week. An inspirational guy that is slowly starting to transform the app and mobile gaming industry, and will do so for some time to come: Jordan Schuetz of Ninja Pig Studios.

Inspirational App Developer

So how can Jordan Schuetz's story help you to become an app developer and why is he the flavour of the week. Firstly he's a serious Indie who's come from nowhere to create some innovative apps in a variety of genres: from his first gaming dev. of " Beach Ball Mayhem", Jordan has progressed through entertainment apps in the form of his very popular "Strobe Light" app that can be seen at numerous parties and concerts up and down the west coast.Moving on to a little dabbling in business apps which finally brought Jordan to his gem of a game " Annoying Pig Game". Certainly annoying to other developers as THE PIG is making his way to fame and fortune and all from the brains and keyboard of one very young and talented app developer.The Barne's and Noble Nook has also reaped the benefits of Jordan's talent with one of his most popular apps being his renowned  "Gun APP"


The reason that Jordan Schuetz-app developer extraordinaire- is our favourite up and coming dev. is not just that he conjures up great apps in multiple categories. Nor the fact that he is an Indie who is revving the enormously popular Corona SDK to the max. It's not even the fact that if you read up about Ninja Pig's rise to fame you'll find that Jordan loves connecting and is always willing to take his app passion and talent and help out others. All of that makes for a pretty exceptional guy in this lucrative and fast moving industry, but all of these reasons for featuring Jordan pale next to the simple fact that this mega-talented and popular app developer is only seventeen years old and still in High School!


Our industry is the new dot com revolution , with one fundamental difference-apps are here to stay. So to answer your question: "How do I become an App Developer?" Learn and follow in the footsteps of amazing people like Jordan Schuetz, that's how!

Blitz Android Malware with VIRUSfighter

Combat Android
malware

Android Malware is here to stay. It's a sad fact that the open nature of the Android OS, which makes the platform so easy to develop for, also unfortunately is a gateway for shovellers of malware, viruses, spam, bloatware and myriad other programs that you just do not want on your phone. Android developers have begun to sit up and take notice so gradually the Android Market is getting its fair share of apps to combat this problem.

VIRUSfighter is one of the Android anti-virus apps that we have come across in the search to make our mobiles safer. Backed by the well known SPAMfighter name ,the app's parent company is very established and also has anti-virus software for PC's. What we especially like about this app is that due to the obvious significant professionalism of the developers you are really getting a quality app that stays ahead of the hackers of the Android World by updating several times a day, as and when new threats present themselves. Staying ahead of the anti-viral pack is a must in this dark art of keeping our phones malware free, and the fact that the app now also supports the Kindle Fire shows that the developer is not sitting back, but constantly improving their product.

VIRUSfighter for Android

Business users and IT departments will see the obvious advantage of having this powerful anti-malware app running on their comapny phones. Personal mobile users more concerned with everyday use will be pleased to  note that VIRUSfighter has been optimised for phones so that it presents no credible drain on battery life and is quick and easy to use. Some reports do say that the app slows down on MP4 and MP3 scans, but with constant updates this will probably not present a problem for long.

This is a free Android Anti-Virus app, and with the significant backing of what appears to be a very established parent company VIRUSfighter is at the moment my top choice for  Anti Virus, Malware protection of my Android running Xperia Play.

Download VIRUSfighter for free on the Android Market

What can Smartphones do?

Beyond the expected phone calls and the occasional stint on Angry Birds it is very unlikely that the average smart phone owner will have any idea of the amazing tricks that his or her phone can get up to. But what capabilities does a phone actually have and what ingenious ideas could we use

smartphone technology

for? Gps is currently used for much more then I could envisage: from

location based shopping

to assisting augmented reality apps. Then there's  frequency detection across the gsm network (I'm ignorant enough to say that I don't even know what frequencies this is-vhf; uhf?).Of course then there's  connectivity to the internet via 3g which amongst other things opens up a whole world of information that our ancestors never had access to.On my phone there's even proximity detection to stop the  phone turning off during calls, imagine if you could bump up the capabilities on that(imagine a WWII submarine captain using a beefed up proxy sensor on a phone to avoid floating mines!). And then there's the rest: accelerometer, can this be tuned to pick up g-forces and could this be used to help our driving skills?What about motion sports such as Golf-couldn't this accelerometer be used to determine power and angle of your swing. There's also the  led lights for the camera, at their simplest they can be used as a torch, but what other canny uses could they be put to(I believe that the

Pulse app

for Android uses this quite cleverly to pick up your heart rate). What about  the camera itself and of course the microphone and possibly many. many bits of technological wizardry that I can't even think of. Thats a lot of capabilities, perhaps pretending to fight off the piggy menace shouldn’t be the pinnacle of what our

phones are used

for.Smartphone technology has come a long way since the days of monochromatic screens all the power is there but just needs to be harnessed.

Phones of the Future-courtesy of St Martin's college of art and Design

Augmented Reality is also covered in this post.

The future of Smartphone Technology

A friend recently went to a psychics stage show, so I thought I would get an amusing app to entertain her. Ghost scanner came to mind, whilst it’s extremely doubtful if it works, it does give some food for thought. Not about the nature of the supernatural, but what else we could actually be doing with our phones. Ghost scanner claims to detect ghosts using the different sensors on our phones. Well what capabilities does a phone actually have and what ingenious ideas could we use smartphone technology for? Gps, frequency detection across the gsm network, connectivity to the internet via 3g , proximity detection to stop phone turning off during calls, accelerometer, led lights for camera, the camera itself, microphone and possibly some others. Thats a lot of capabilities, creatively perhaps pretending to find the supernatural shouldn’t be the pinnacle of what our phone can do.Smartphone technology has come a long way since the days of monochromatic screens all the power is there but just needs to be harnessed. So creatives youve got some powerful hardware, isn’t it time to actually start using it?