Galaxy Nexus: Android Beam & NFC Look To Give You New Way To Swap Information

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It used to be that, when you wanted to trade information, you traded handshakes and handed over a business card. But now, on the Galaxy Nexus, you’re about to make things a whole lot simpler. Because now, a handshake will trade your business card…along with any other information you care to transfer by way of a combination of Android Beam and NFC.

NFC, or Near Field Communications, has been getting a lot of press lately for its potential to allow you to pay for things by just touching your phone to a credit card reader. But now, it’s set to combine with Android Beam to allow you to do a whole lot more than pay for a Red Bull at the corner gas station. At the big Samsung event, they showed how you can use Android Beam to trade a variety of different kind of information.

The obvious point is as we mentioned, contact information. But it goes well beyond that to include things like web pages, YouTube videos, people cards, and more. A demo was actually shown in which one phone was playing Minecraft, and then when touched to another phone, the relevant section of Android Market came up to show you where to get a copy for yourself.

An SDK is available right now, though APIs will start shipping soon for developers, so this could start appearing on new devices pretty soon. Personally, I like the idea, myself–used to be that if you wanted to transfer files from one platform to another, you’d have to drag out the right cable and do it that way, or even go through a third device. A quick and easy way to swap information sounds great, though you’d have to be careful not to go beaming your address and such all over the room.

So what do you guys think of the Android Beam concept? Fast and easy way to spread information? Boon to stalkers? No matter what you think, we want to hear about it, so head on down to the comments section and tell us what you think of Android Beam!