TazTag shows off the TazPad and NFC smart monitors at CES

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TazTag shows off the TazPad and NFC smart monitors at CES

It was last year at CES that a startup French firm called TazTag first showed of its TazPad NFC tablet concept. It wasn’t the firm’s first foray into NFC and, in fact, they were known in Europe for kiosks that supported NFC interactions and transactions. Since then, the TazPad production NFC tablet, with a helpful sprinkling of ZigBee, has been deployed to integrators and the orders just keep coming in according to executives at the firm. Of course, the fact that NFC can be read on both side of the device, its AuthenTec fingerprint scanner and its low price didn’t hurt its chances any. The fact that the TazPad was the first NFC tablet to hit the market globally also gave it a certain fame and a lot of coverage, including here on NFC Rumors.

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Mobile World Congress NFC rumors leaking left, right and center

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Mobile World Congress NFC rumors leaking left, right and center

Mobile World Congress is coming up this next month, and rumors are rife over here at NFC Rumors about all kinds of announcements that are likely to be made. We have been so busy with our CES coverage that we have just been stacking them up, but we know you love some good rumors from industry insiders, so we thought we would let some fly. As usual our NFC rumors come from individuals on the inside of the industry. Yep, those in the know. They tell us what they can, but often have to leave out some details so they don’t identify themselves with specific knowledge that only a few know. So, think what will you of the rumors, and let’s just see which ones come to pass.

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NFC Bootcamp free pre-event to feature Cellotape how NFC works tour

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NFC Bootcamp free pre-event to feature Cellotape how NFC works tour

NFC Bootcamp have arguably done more to educate folks on how to use NFC than any other group. That’s not to say there aren’t many other great teams educating people about how to add NFC features to products or start new businesses. However, NFC Bootcamp tours the US putting on organized training sessions that take developers and marketers from step one to the implementation and marketing of their NFC app, device or service. They are also platform agnostic, which allows for a 360 degree understanding of the industry, challenges and opportunities that are available. In short, NFC Bootcamp is a valuable resource for folks looking to build something meaningful in the nascent NFC market.

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CARTES North America to debate future of EMV and NFC payments

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CARTES North America to debate future of EMV and NFC payments

The European CARTES was arguably one of the biggest shows for NFC this year along with WIMA and a couple of other events. However, CARTES North America is now gearing up to bring its expo and conference state side in March and one big thing that will be debated is the future of EMV and NFC payments. If you are already in payments you will know the US chose not to embrace chip and PIN and EMV early on and now the focus is on “if not then, when?”

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A note about WIMA NFC USA

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A note about WIMA NFC USA

This last week the NFC Rumors team headed over to San Francisco to attend WIMA. The show was a complete success with many industry stakeholders in attendance. We have so many posts coming from the show that it’ll take us a while to get them all out. Joanna Merchie and her team put together a great conference that really tackled issues, opportunities and NFC news that we can honestly say it is better than any other show we have attended about NFC.

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Learn how to build an NFC app at NFC Bootcamp

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Learn how to build an NFC app at the NFC Bootcamp training programs from OTA training

NFC isn’t new to the world, however, it is new to developers and consumers. With the untapped potentials that are associated with NFC development, training is a massive gap required to introduce experienced developers and newbies alike to code innovative apps. Well, we said “is” but really that statement should be “was”, thanks to the NFC Bootcamp. NFC Bootcamp is traveling the US and putting on training sessions in multiple cities training devs on how to develop NFC apps.

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IPI to talk NFC print marketing, QR codes and AR at London Workshop

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IPI to talk NFC print marketing, QR codes and AR at London Workshop

IPI is starting the conversation about mobile marketing using print as a medium, and technologies like NFC (Near Field Communication), QR Codes and Augmented Reality at its next workshop to be held in London, UK. NFC print marketing that uses QR codes for legacy purposes is growing in popularity. By now we are all used to seeing QR codes on posters and print media for a variety of uses.

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NXP creates NFC Android app for cultural art and tech show

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NXP creates NFC Android app for cultural art and tech show

NXP Semiconductors has teamed up with startup firm, U-Approach, and created an NFC android app that promotes cultural participation for the STRP Festival. The STRP Festival is one of Europe’s largest art and technology festivals, and this year visitors will have the ability to interact with exhibits using their NFC Android smartphone and the new app. After tapping their NFC smartphone against an exhibit, visitors can get detailed information about the exhibited artwork.

Frens Frijns, Director of the STRP Festival, commented, “As a cultural festival, we feature artistic and creative experiments with technology. We believe that the ‘Internet of Things’ is evolving into a ‘clickable world’. We are the first festival in the world to provide that experience in a way that helps people better understand the art while giving them the ability to share their own interpretation, introducing a new social dimension to art interpretation in the festival experience.”

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NFC turns on Xmas lights in Cambridge UK with celebrities help

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NFC turns on Xmas lights in Cambridge UK with celebrities help

Hit the UK, head east until you get to East Anglia then swoop up a little until you hit Cambridge – if you get there by 17.00 GMT on Sunday, you will see Christmas lights being switched on using an NFC smartphone and app. Not only that, but you will see the Christmas lights being turned on by one Sheila Ferguson from the Three Degrees. It’s not everyday you see that, right? It may not be everyday you want to see that, or if you are more tender years, you maybe saying “Who?”

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UPM RFID heading to WIMA NFC Event next week with retail applications

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UPM RFID heading to WIMA NFC Event next week with retail applications

The WIMA NFC event is coming up this next week and UPM RFID is promising to show off some innovative NFC applications for the first time. The NFC applications will be based around the retail industry and highlight some of the great uses for NFC tags and how they are due to fit with NFC marketing and NFC services. If you don’t already know, UPM RFID is one of the biggest manufacturers and suppliers of NFC tags in the world.

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NFC isn’t just payments at WIMA NFC USA

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NFC isn’t just payments at WIMA NFC USA

The WIMA NFC USA conference is getting closer and from what we are hearing, it is set to be a packed event with Near Field Communication stake holders stacked to the rafters in San Francisco. The event happens between November 30th through December 1st. Most people NFC Rumors has spoken with lately are heading out to California to see the latest and greatest NFC use cases and applications from industry leaders and to listen to speakers and panels from leaders in every segment.

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Sprint focusing on NFC, developer conference next week

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Sprint focusing on NFC, developer conference next week

We caught up with some of the Sprint team at 4G World this week. They let us know some interesting information about how Sprint is viewing their company these days, which gave clues to what they have planned in the future. Sprint team members told NFC Rumors that Sprint no longer views itself as a telco. These days, the word around Sprint is that Sprint is a mobile ISP. This shows that Sprint is moving with the times. It shows that the Kansas company is aware that mobile data is all that matters these days and calls, email, NFC and all other services are an extension of the mobile ISP services that Sprint supplies.

Sprint Developer conference “Open Solutions Conference” has an NFC focus this year

The Sprint team is getting ready for their developer conference that happens this next week. A focus of this conference is NFC apps. Again, Sprint is looking to enable further services that build on top of its core business of providing data. NFC Rumors actually thinks this new internal identity that Sprint has embraced places it ahead of its competitors. It also shows us why Sprint is not trying to profit from NFC transactions in an Isis type manner.

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NFC Rumors reporting everything NFC from 4G World

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NFC Rumors reporting everything NFC from 4G World

Tomorrow the NFC Rumors team hits Chicago and 4G World to cover the near field communication goodness going on. We will be at the NFC summit to see Koichi Tagawa, the Chairman of the NFC Forum, give a speech. Also, we will be reporting live from Osama Bedier’s Keynote speaking about Google Wallet. However, many more near field communication industry superstars like Constratus, Sequent Software, ViVOtech, Yankee Group and Inside Secure will all be appearing on stage throughout the summit.

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Best Buy and Disney join the list for NFC payments USA

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Best Buy and Walt Disney parks added to the list of speakers at NFC Payments USA

NFC Payments USA is shaping up to be a big affair for industry stakeholders with the addition of Best Buy and Walt Disney parks to the list of speakers. They join AT&T, Samsung, PayPal, Fifth Third Bank, Citigroup, American Express, ING DIRECT, Isis, Nokia, U.S. Bank, TD Bank, Rogers Communications and MasterCard. The conference will bring together 150 NFC experts in one location for the first time in US to discuss how the nascent industry is going to map out the best strategies for successful roll out of NFC payment services.

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NFC Bootcamp heads to Chicago for Near Field Communication training

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NFC Bootcamp heads to Chicago for Near Field Communication training

Remember last month when the NFC Bootcamp hit New York in tandem with thinaire and the NFC billboard? Well, they are taking the NFC Bootcamp show on the road and hitting Chicago on November 16th. We all know that NFC marketing is an area of NFC that is likely to eclipse all other aspects of the technology in the long term. But where do you start?

Well, if you are in Chicago or can be in Chicago on November 16th you start by going to hear what the folks from OTA (OverTheAir) have to say about NFC marketing. OTA are training experts who produce the NFC Bootcamp that is unashamedly targeted at marketers and people who would like to learn how to use NFC marketing.

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Tapit NFC marketing firm wins Red Herring Award

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Tapit NFC marketing firm wins “Top 100 tech up and coming company in Asia” Red Herring Award

Tapit, the NFC marketing firm from Australia, has battled its way through the Red Herring Awards to be named one of the “Top 100 Tech up and coming” companies in Asia. ”Tapit is a Red Herring 100 Asia Winner. So we are a top 100 tech up and coming company in Asia now,” Jamie Conyngham, CEO of Tapit told NFC Rumors.

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NFC enabled Samsung Galaxy Nexus image surfaces ahead of today’s event

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NFC enabled Samsung Galaxy Nexus image surfaces ahead of todays Ice Cream Sandwich event

Need an NFC enabled Samsung Galaxy Nexus pick me up? As you will know at 9.30pm EST this evening we will get our first glimpses of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus / Samsung Nexus Prime. However this morning NTT DoCoMo jumped the gun a little and said that they will be one of the first MNOs to have and sell the Samsung Galaxy Nexus / Samsung Nexus Prime. Shortly after that statement an image “leaked” showing the Samsung Galaxy Nexus / Samsung Nexus Prime NFC phone in all of its glory which pocketnow received.

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Tomorrow’s Android 4 Events with NFC, Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Motorola Droid Razr

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Tomorrow’s Android Ice Cream Sandwich Events with NFC sprinkles, a touch of Samsung Galaxy Nexus and a generous portion of Motorola Droid Razr – ready for your fill?

It seems as if we have been waiting forever for the Ice Cream Sandwich event. It was at Google IO in May of this year that the search engine giant started tormenting us with the sweet, sweet promises of Ice Cream Sandwich loaded with near field communication sprinkles. Since that date a lot has changed. NFC as an industry has changed, with new sticks in the mud like Isis and new potentials like Light Squared actually starting to get it together. Nokia has ruled supremely when it comes to NFC support and BlackBerry has limped into second place with NFC phones that can only read a few NFC tags. We have seen the iPhone launch with no near field communication support whatsoever and recently seen Apple sell 4 million devices in the first weekend. It’s a crazy world and progress always comes hard and slow.

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Social Passport takes top award for NFC and QR Code loyalty program

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Social Passport has taken the title of “Best Start-Up” at the Web 2.0 Expo for its NFC & QR Code loyalty / marketing program.

Social Passport took top honors at the Web 2.0 Expo this week for their NFC & QR Code program that gives consumers discounts and free marketing through social networking sites to businesses. Social Passport unveiled at the showcase their NFC, Reverse QR and Dynamic QR delivery methods for retailers to leverage their customers’ social networks in real time to promote their businesses. A feature for business owners is merchant suite, allowing retailers to incentivize social media through coupons and loyalty cards for free.

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Motorola Droid RAZR render outed waiting to see if it is NFC

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Motorola drops a micro site showing the Motorola Droid RAZR render but doesn’t give any clues on NFC

Motorola released a teaser website today showing company owned renders of the Motorola Droid RAZR, but there were no clues about NFC being on board. On Friday, Motorola announced a couple of NFC headsets and we speculated that because there are currently no Motorola NFC phones that the Motorola Droid RAZR could come endowed with some NFC love.

Like a few potential NFC phones that are about at the moment, the Motorola Droid RAZR has an identity problem, which isn’t uncommon in the rumors circles. The phone has been called the Spyder, Spyder HD RAZR and now we all seem to have settled on the Motorola Droid RAZR. Motorola has now shown off its teaser site that contains images of the phone, but we still only have a few specifications that BGR said they had received which include a dual-core 1.2GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, and a 4.3-inch display of unknown resolution.

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Coke to deploy Visa NFC vending machines for Olympics?

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Coke is in talks with Visa and may deploy NFC vending machines for the London Olympics

You may already know that Coca-Cola is already a sponsor of the London 2012 Olympic Games and you may already know that the city of London is making a concerted effort to go contactless with NFC payments running up to and during the games. It appears Coke wants in on some of the contactless action too and is reputedly speaking with Visa about how that can happen in the form of NFC vending machines.

Sanjay Guha, marketing and Olympics director, Coca-Cola Northwest Europe and Nordics (NWEN), said Coke was looking at an “execution” with Visa and the “opportunity to create cashless payments on vending machines” during the Olympics. Considering that Samsung is producing the official NFC phone for the games this seems to be a natural progression for Coke that would allow NFC vending machines to earn an ROI long after the games are over and potentially get a boost that could pay for the new NFC point-of-sale equipment during the games.

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Motorola counts down to Motorola Spyder event but is it NFC? (Video)

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Motorola counts down to Motorola Spyder event but is it NFC?

Ice Cream Sandwich season is upon us and with it comes NFC smartphone announcements by the bucket load, and we are now wondering if the rumored Motorola Spyder / Droid HD / Motorola Razr HD or whatever it is called will be joining the NFC wunderphone ranks this week. Motorola has now placed a countdown timer on its page to the Motorola launch event that we presume will announce the Motorola Spyder. Interestingly that timer runs out just 7 hours before the Samsung Galaxy Nexus Ice Cream Sandwich is due to start over in Hong Kong, which again shows a concerted effort for announcements to come back to back and an NFC Ice Cream Sandwich phone from Motorola would enable a one-two punch to hit sales of the ever popular iPhone.

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Smart Card Alliance and NFC Forum announces NFC Solutions Summit 2012

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Smart Card Alliance and NFC Forum announces NFC Solutions Summit 2012

The Smart Card Alliance and the NFC Forum have got together to put on the NFC Solutions Summit that will be happening in May of next year. It is currently the middle of the NFC conference season with plenty of great shows coming up in the next month or two. Looking ahead, the NFC ecosystem is likely to change in the next 8-9 months with more NFC phones, more NFC mobile wallets and more NFC marketing taking place everywhere. So who better to put on an NFC Solutions Summit than the Smart Card Alliance and the NFC Forum?

If you are an NFC geek like we are, this is probably one of those summits you won’t want to miss. The Smart Card Alliance said, “The Smart Card Alliance/ NFC Forum Summit will cover the state of the technology, developments in new NFC devices and add-ons, the status of the growing NFC ecosystem, the promise of NFC-enabled payments and other popular applications, NFC implementation, and North American and international experiences with NFC pilots and implementations.”

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Visa Europe to launch Visa Wallet for NFC payments in August 2012

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Visa Europe to launch Visa Wallet for NFC payments in August 2012

Visa announced that its NFC payments Visa Wallet would be coming this fall in the United States, but it now appears that Visa Europe won’t roll out its version until either August or September 2012. Steve Perry, Commercial Director for Visa Europe, confirmed the deployment of Europe’s Visa Wallet at the European security summit in Frankfurt. Details are thin on the ground at the moment about Visa’s European Visa Wallet, but Perry did share some interesting tidbits that shed light on how Visa intends to take a different approach than what might have been expected of the company when it comes to NFC payments and its Visa Wallet offering that we may well see built into the American version.

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Checking into hospital will never be the same with PatientID+ and NFC

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Checking into hospital will never be the same with PatientID+ and NFC

PatientID+ could change your visits to doctors’ offices and hospitals forever. Merchant360, Health Portal Solutions and CliniCard have come together to develop an NFC solution for checking into and paying for services at a hospital or on a doctor visit called PatientID+. The system stores identification, health insurance details, eligibility screening and payments details all in an NFC app on a patient’s NFC phone, or alternatively within an NFC sticker. So no more filling out forms, no more waiting to be seen until you have your paperwork in order and no more worrying about paying for services at critical times when health is more important that sorting out who you are and how you are going to pay. The healthcare sector is seeing some of the most innovative deployments of NFC technology and systems that can bring real practical use cases that lead to better care and PatientID+ is no exception.

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