After teasing its new Galaxy S 4-compatible TecTiles 2 last month, Samsung today made the NFC tags available for purchase through its online shop. The new TecTiles 2 tags feature an updated NFC protocol that makes them compatible with new hardware, such as Samsung's Galaxy S 4, as well as previous NFC-enabled Android phones. In order to program the TecTiles tags, users can download a special Samsung-made app from the Google Play Store. The new TecTiles 2 tags are available from Samsung's online shop, with pricing set at $14.99 for a pack of 5, and Samsung expects the tags to hit other retailers in June.

Samsung's TecTiles tags are small NFC stickers that can be programmed to perform certain tasks on a smartphone when the device comes into contact with them. For example, users can program the TecTiles tags to set an alarm time, check into a location on Facebook or Foursquare, share contact information, change a setting and send a call or text message. The tags can also be reprogrammed if the user wants to change the task that the TecTile performs. 

While NFC is capable of performing quite a few different tasks, some of them aren't available to everyone. For example, Google Wallet uses a device's NFC chip for making mobile payments, but there are currently only a handful of Wallet-compatible devices that are available on select carriers. These Samsung TecTiles allow many more folks to put their phone's NFC chip to use, and at $15 for a pack of 5, they're fairly affordable as well. If you'd like to give the TecTiles 2 tags a go, you can find them on Samsung's website by clicking right here.

Via PhoneScoop, Samsung, Google Play: Samsung TecTiles