Sunchon National University and Paru Printed Electronics Research Institute in Korea, have developed a new chip technology that has the inclusion of a rectenna. Which is combination of an antenna and rectifier that can pick up residual radio waves from your phone to power itself.
This could accelerate the adoption of NFC technology, with the cheap new generation of NFC-based chips and smart tags that can will be printed in various forms such as a newspaper format.
These new generation NFC-based chipsets could help lower the price of implementing the use of NFC technology and using smart tags in everyday life. Supposedly this new technology could apparently drop the cost of installing NFC to as little as one penny per unit.
Mark Cathey's Tech Site 