Asus launches NFC thing

asus-nfc-dongleNFC is slowly taking off, but adoption is still limited. The technology is there, most phones and tablets ship with NFC chips, but very few people and businesses actually use it.

Now Asus has an interesting product that could help bring NFC to desktops and notebooks, but there is a catch.

The company’s NFC Express receiver is a USB 3.0 device that could have quite a few uses. It could allow users to log in using Windows 8 and NFC tags and it could allow the transfer of photos and images without WiFi.

The catch is that the device was designed to be used with Asus Z87 motherboards. It also ships as an accessory with the Z87-DELUXE/DUAL motherboard. It can also be bought separately and it uses two USB 3.0 ports.

Logging into Windows without a password sounds interesting, but NFC dongles could have a lot of other applications. Cheap, off-the-shelf devices could be used to upgrade existing PCs or POS systems in retail outlets. However, for this to happen NFC needs to see a lot more adoption across the board.