Android Beam makes NFC for more than paying for things

So we're all still fresh from seeing Ice Cream Sandwich in all it's glory, but one of the cool new features unveiled during the presentation was Android Beam. 

Taking advantage of the in built NFC chip on the Galaxy Nexus, Android Beam makes it possible to share various kinds of data with another enabled device. The presentation showed loading a webpage on one device, and sending it via Android Beam to another. 

The feature also works with sharing Google Maps information, YouTube videos, contact information, and applications right out of the box. The example, Minecraft being played on one device, beamed to the other and up came the Market link for Minecraft. 

The API is going to be opened up to developers to take advantage of in their own applications too. While a pretty limited market initially, it seems clear that Google intends to get fully behind NFC technology. 

Richard Devine