Assa Abloy, a company which makes access controlled door locks, has partnered with Research In Motion to include NFC-based key-card technology in BlackBerry phones.
Assa says the technology will be embedded into the smartphones, eliminating the need for physical access cards. All that a user needs to do is to flash his phone in front of the card reader to open the door.
According to a statement released by the company, the forthcoming BlackBerry Bold and Curve models, which will be released in early 2012, will feature this technology.
Users will be able to swipe their phones in front of a door’s card reader much like an actual card.
NFC or Near field communication technology, is now being included in the phones by all the leading manufacturers and operating systems, like Nokia, Apple, Google.
The technology is expected to be widely used to enable mobile payments, access control system which will replace things like metro train token and card, or toll cards etc. Currently the technology is still in early stages of implementation despite being a talked about technology for long.
The agreement with RIM is not exclusive, meaning Assa Abloy can and most likely will sell its technology to competing device makers.