At Stanford’s MobiSocial lab, they’re thinking up new ways to take advantage of the Near Field Communications (NFC) chip that can be found in the Google Nexus S, and perhaps many handsets in the future. Right now, NFC is only set up to read data, but with a few tweaks, it can also write data, making it possible to have real-time collaboration between two devices, in a manner that’s far easier than Bluetooth pairing. In these videos, researchers show how sharing photos and collaboration with a white board app can be simple using NFC.

This brings to mind the endless scenarios where real-world benefits can be had with NFC. Sharing photos is obviously one key use, but also sharing URLs, transferring money, or working together on a project could make collaboration between mobile devices easier.