BlackBerry 3G Playbook with NFC leaks out with 2012 roadmap

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BlackBerry 3G Playbook with NFC leaks out with 2012 roadmap

BlackBerry has had its 2012 roadmap leak this week and among an assortment of NFC smartphones there was a BlackBerry Playbook that rocked on HSPA+ 3G, and is likely to feature NFC if the leaked presentation slides are to be believed. We reported just the other day that BlackBerry had supported NFC in a big way which, since Nokia has said goodbye to NFC at the moment, means the Canadian firm is sitting in pole position for supporting the technology throughout their devices. That support appears to now extend to the firm’s Playbook tablet. The first Playbook came sans 3G data connectivity and was billed as the iPad killer. But without a few fundamentals, like unified mail, the Playbook struggled against the iPad and lately the Android-based devices.

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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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Yale demos NFC door locks solutions at CES for Android, iOS and BB

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Yale demos NFC door locks solutions at CES for Android, iOS and BB

We have reported on Yale and their NFC door locks before. However, we have now seen the locks in action and have far more details about how Yale (an ASSA ABLOY company) plans to bring their solutions to market. The Yale NFC door locks are an exciting prospect because they represent quality products for access control that are built for consumers. Yes, later this year we will be able to cost effectively buy NFC door locks for our homes, offices, and anywhere else we would like to secure and use access control facilities.

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Kids going crazy for Activision Skylanders NFC game

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Kids going crazy for Activision Skylanders NFC game, shown off at CES by NXP

NFC gaming is becoming big and Activision is currently benefiting from this new craze with its Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure game that uses an NFC reader / writer and game characters that hold NFC tags. The whole concept of the game is that an evil overlord named Kaos is invading the Skylanders’ world and turned the characters into toys and banished them to Earth. Luckily, kids who own the game and portal (read USB based NFC reader/ writer) can get the characters back to the Skylanders’ home and help them defeat Kaos. There are battles, puzzles and opportunities to add strength and attributes to each character. You can also collect attributes for characters you do not own for if and when you do purchase that NFC tag based character.

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Sprint Galaxy Nexus and LG Viper hands-on during private CES event

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Sprint Galaxy Nexus and LG Viper hands-on during private CES event

As you may or may not have heard over at CES, Sprint announced that it is going to carry the Galaxy Nexus and the LG Viper NFC smartphones. Well, photographs and details have been very thin on the ground. This is especially true of the LG Viper, which wasn’t even present at the LG booth at CES. What many people didn’t know is that Sprint held a private event over at CES and we were invited. The Galaxy Nexus and the LG Viper were there for some hands-on time and we had the opportunity to play a little.

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BlackBerry Tag deployed already in OS 7.1 update for NFC sharing

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BlackBerry Tag deployed already in OS 7.1 update with NFC goodness all round

You have probably heard of BlackBerry Tag and its NFC capabilities. We popped over to the Blackberry booth at CES to see Blackberry Tag in action so we could see improvements made to the way the OS deals with NFC. Although we couldn’t see how the new 7.1 OS deals with NFC tags, which was a major issue when the NFC capable BlackBerry smartphones launched, we did see its beaming or sharing features in action. We must say that BlackBerry Tag worked flawlessly in the demo we received from Annu Dawar, who is a Product Manager for Research in Motion.

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ZIK Parrot by Starck high-end NFC headphone prototype shown off at CES

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ZIK Parrot by Starck high-end NFC headphone prototype shown off at CES

Okay, the ZIK Parrot by Starck NFC headphones have been unveiled and we feel lucky enough to count ourselves among the first to see, and probably more relevantly hear them in action. Parrot contacted us before CES and told us that they had something to show us that we would be very interested to see. Turns out they weren’t just hyping. We have been in contact with Parrot for some time, and in that time the firm has hinted to us that they were indeed working on NFC speakers and NFC headphones. We knew whatever product the firm released would be high quality, but the innovation that Parrot showed off at CES surprised even us.

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Sony Xperia S NFC smartphone launches 2nd quarter

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Sony Xperia S NFC smartphone launches 2nd quarter

While at CES, we hit up the Sony booth to see their couple of new NFC smartphones, which included the Sony Xperia S. Whereas its stablemate, the Xperia ION (read Nozomi), has been announced to launch on AT&T, the Sony Xperia S is yet to have carriers announced. However, we took a sneak peak under the cover of the Xperia S and saw that the NFC smartphone has an AT&T SIM card lurking inside. Whereas that is far from conclusive proof that the Sony Xperia S will launch on AT&T, it does suggest that it is probably very likely that Ma’Bell will get its hands on the svelte HSPA+ Android phone.

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Taggle social NFC retail shopping is here for consumers and retailers

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Taggles social retail apps use NFC and barcodes to create a social shopping experience all based on Amazon’s web services

Word of mouth marketing has always been the most powerful form of marketing that has ever existed. If you add to the a viral expansion loop model some NFC, a massive database of UPC product codes, some social sharing abilities and shopping you end up with Taggle. Taggle is a new shopping service that allows consumers to scan bar codes, QR codes or read NFC tags associated with retail purchases and either review them or give them a star rating. Users of the mobile apps don’t even need to sign up for an account. Once a product has been scanned, the social bit happens and users can share their buys on Facebook and Twitter.

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White NFC smartphones hitting in time for the holidays

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White NFC smartphones hitting in time for the holidays

A new fad of white NFC smartphones seems to be hitting for the holidays. Of course, all have taken cues from Apple’s white iPhone, but this new push on white smartphones seems to pick on NFC smartphones for reasons that escape us. Nevertheless, more choice is more choice and some of the white NFC phones that are about to be launched do look pretty nice.

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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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Samsung Galaxy Nexus NFC phone announced for Verizon in US

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Samsung Galaxy Nexus NFC phone announced for Verizon in US

It’s official, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus has been announced and it’s an NFC phone of the hero flavor. There have been months of speculation, including false rumors and poets hinting at what the NFC Samsung Galaxy Nexus may hold in store for consumers. Now we know, and the waiting is nearly over before you have the next pure Google experience phone in your pocket. We do have to say though, that the webcast sucked. Obviously here at NFC Rumors, Near Field Communication is a key element we are interested in and tonight we learned that the mighty NFC is on board as you probably expected from Google. Not only that, but NFC is the core component of Android Beam in the Galaxy Nexus.

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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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Motorola ELITE SLIVER and Motorola ELITE FLIP NFC headsets announced

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Motorola ELITE SLIVER and Motorola ELITE FLIP NFC headsets announced with Siri like capabilities ahead of Motorola event

Here’s a turn up for the books as Motorola announces its new Motorola ELITE SLIVER and Motorola ELITE FLIP NFC headsets that have iPhone like Siri voice recognition capabilities ahead of its Ice Cream Sandwich event. The question in our minds is why is Motorola launching NFC headsets when it doesn’t have NFC smartphones? I think we can all guess the answer to that one. Now we are getting excited.

“Seamless integration of elegant design and new ground-breaking technology make Motorola ELITE SLIVER and Motorola ELITE FLIP, the obvious choices for consumers from the tech savvy to the fashion conscious,” said Yossi Cohen, Senior Vice President of Companion Products at Motorola Mobility. “In designing these headsets, we built custom software to deliver new user experiences. Multiple technology advancements such as NFC, HD Audio Plus featuring wideband audio and My MotoSpeak provide an additional layer of superior and innovative functionality.”

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Nokia NFC Luna Bluetooth Headset

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Nokia NFC Luna Bluetooth Headset

Nokia released its Nokia 603 Symbian Belle NFC phone today and what would a Nokia launch be without an accessory to match, which is why Nokia also launched the Nokia NFC Luna Bluetooth Headset.

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Nokia N9 NFC phone starts shipping, fails to say where

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Nokia N9 NFC phone starts shipping, fails to say where

Nokia has finally started shipping its Nokia N9 NFC smartphone around the world. In a press release today Nokia confirmed that the Nokia N9 will be in consumers’ hands imminently, but failed to say which markets would see the Nokia N9 and which carriers would be selling the first and last Nokia Meego device.

“Since we announced the Nokia N9 in June this year, the feedback that it has gotten from discerning and avid smartphone users across the world has been nothing short of fantastic,” said Ilari Nurmi, Vice President of Marketing at Nokia. “With the innovations in industrial design, user interface, and the Qt developer experience, the Nokia N9 sets the bar for how natural technology can feel, and represents the first in a number of products from Nokia that will be brought to life in similar fashion.”

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Yale NFC door locks caught on video

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Yale NFC door locks caught on video

We covered the Yale story when the company made the announcement that it had developed NFC door locks earlier this month. At the time we had questions about how the system worked and backup considerations and appealed for anyone who was heading to the CEDIA Expo to grab some video and photographs of the Yale NFC door locks in use. It turns out that CEPro did just that and turned up some extra details on the NFC door locks too.

Ever since that fateful day, when shampoo met conditioner in a single bottle we humans have been fascinated by the efficiency of converging things. We want to save time, save energy and save space and NFC looks to add a whole lot of convergence to our lives, including chucking out the keys and using our NFC phones to gain access to our homes via NFC door locks. Yale has the NFC door locks and there are plenty of NFC phones sprinting their way to market.

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T-Mobile hocks NFC BlackBerry Curve 9360 for $79 September 28th

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T-Mobile will hock you a BlackBerry Curve 9360 for $79 September 28th

We have seen the BlackBerry Curve 9360 NFC phone before. Back then it was known as the BlackBerry Curve Apollo. Now the NFC phone has a carrier buddy in T-Mobile, which means you can get one for the affordable price of $79 after a $50 mail in rebate. Remember the BlackBerry Curve 9360 comes sans a touch screen so don’t get your heart broken if that’s what you wanted. However, the little BlackBerry Curve 9360 does have quite a lot going for it as you can see below in the specifications.

In the technical sense the BlackBerry Curve 9360 is an NFC phone, but don’t be surprised if when you get your new NFC pocket mate the NFC is switched off at the software level. We exclusively revealed that RIM has not fully built out and worked out the bugs in their NFC drivers as yet, but you will at least have a phone that will be NFC capable at some time in the future. If you look below in the press release, you will see no word on the NFC capabilities that the phone was originally marketed with. We have been assured by people close to the situation that the NFC chip is still there, just waiting to be woken up with a software update.

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Intel Medfield Android NFC Tablet?

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Intel Medfield Android Tablet shows NFC by mistake? Or was it a “Microsoft aren’t the only ones with an NFC tablet moment”?

Last week Microsoft held their developer conference and Intel held theirs. It turns out both were showing off NFC tablets.

An NFC tablet is rarer than NFC phones at the moment. In fact, they are as rare as Sarah Palin at a Planned Parenthood clinic opening. Last week, we think it’s fair to say that there was a fair amount of hurrah surrounding the Microsoft announcement that let the world know that Windows 8 would feature NFC. They even gave away NFC tablets to conference attendees to prove it. Strangely enough, at that very same time Intel was holding its developer conference also. We all heard the news that Google would optimize Android so that it would support Intel processors.

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LG LU6200 NFC phone to be LG’s hero NFC smartphone?

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LG LU6200 NFC phone to be LG’s hero NFC smartphone?

Haven’t heard of the LG U+, which is also known as the LG LU6200, NFC phone? Nor had we until a few days ago, but it is impressive to say the least. LG hasn’t really lived up to its smartphone prowess lately and the NFC phones that the company has announced have been geared more towards budget conscious consumers. Meanwhile, arch rival Samsung trots out hero phone after hero phone to the point it has started to threaten Apple in a big way. That could change very soon, in LG’s homeland Korea anyway. The team at Engadget came across a new NFC phone known as the LG LU6200 on the Korean website MovePlayer. If the LG LU6200 NFC phone shown on this little Korean website is half true, it will look as if Korea will soon have an LG LU6200 NFC wonder phone on its hands. Today more photos have been accidentally on purpose “leaked” which you can see below.

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BlackBerry Curve Touch 9380 NFC phone snapped in the wild again

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BlackBerry Curve Touch 9380 NFC phone snapped in the wild again and coming to Telus very soon

We know we have shown you a photograph of the BlackBerry Curve Touch 9380 NFC phone before, but this time BGR managed to catch a few shots of the upcoming BlackBerry, which will join the 9350, 9360 and 9370 NFC phones in the BlackBerry Curve Touch line up of budget NFC phones. It seems that RIM is attempting to saturate the market with a plethora of phones that have a slight variation on each other. This may explain why they are getting not-so-hot sales results from the BlackBerry 7 OS devices.

With more Curves and Bolds than you can shake a stick at, we all just want to know where the QNX NFC phones are. If you are in the market for a small budget NFC phone that’s probably going to cost less than $100, we doubt it can hurt any to add another to the pile.

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Microsoft unveils Windows 8 with NFC support and an NFC tablet

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Microsoft shows off Windows 8 OS with NFC support and an NFC tablet at the BUILD conference

Microsoft have said since last year that they would design Windows 8 to work on tablets, netbooks and PCs, but what they forgot to mention is that the latest and greatest Windows OS would support NFC, which ties in with rumors we have reported on for the last week. Today at the BUILD conference the company showed off the new Windows 8 OS along with a few NFC tablets, notebooks and desktop computers all running the aforementioned preview version of the OS that features the new Metro-Style UI.

NFC tablets, NFC PC’s and NFC laptops are getting ready to hit the market.

BGR reported that Microsoft is giving out a “Samsung Windows Developer Preview PC”, which in actual fact is a Samsung NFC tablet, to 5,000 developers at the BUILD conference. It’s equipped with 4GB of RAM, a 64GB SD card, a microSD card slot, HDMI-out, NFC support, Ethernet and more. AT&T will also provide owners of the tablet with one year of free data service with 2GB of data per month. Be sure to check out the gallery below for shots of all the great hardware Microsoft showed off at BUILD.

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File Expert Android app promotes NFC to management and leaves Bluetooth doing the manual labor

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File Expert Android app promotes NFC to management and leaves Bluetooth doing the manual labor

The problem with Bluetooth is that it never took the effective communications class. It won’t make friends at a party and instead stands in the corner clutching its drink. However, NFC is a veritable social butterfly in comparison. Some may even call it loose in the way that it will hook up with any device with no questions asked. Yep, NFC is a dirty stop out and will chase anything in a case. Back in its school days, NFC was never in the athletics club at school. It’s not a strong or fast as Bluetooth, and NFC never worked out at the gym. These days, it relies on Bluetooth to do the heavy lifting. That’s why the big bosses over at Geek Software Technology Inc. have promoted NFC and allowed it to pimp Bluetooth out in their File Expert Android app.

NFC Bluetooth pairing for file sharing on one of Androids best file sharing and management apps

Okay now you know that NFC handles the ice breaker situations and gets a phones number quicker than you can blink, but when things get a little more complex, it hands off to Bluetooth for the deep and meaningful exchange of information. Let’s look at the app. File Expert is probably the best file management app we have seen for Android. Its features are so comprehensive that this sentence doesn’t do it justice and the six million downloads the app hqs enjoyed so far are a testament to that.

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Nokia N9 launching in Australia on three mobile networks this October

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Nokia N9 NFC phone launching in Australia on three mobile networks this October

Australia is going to get the Nokia N9 NFC phone next month (October) on three – count them, three – mobile network operators. Optus, Telsta and Vodafone have all signed up to bring another NFC phone down under. The Nokia N9 was denied the option of heading to the States, the UK and Germany but Australia has got lucky and will receive its Nokia N9 slabs of MeeGo goodness next month and Nokia has even put up a page to let you sign up to find out the exact date it will be in your area. The old Nokia is in its death throws before it shuts up shop and reopens as a Windows Phone only house, but the gang from Espoo want to go out with a bang and the Nokia N9 definitely qualifies in that arena of quirky coolness.

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Nokia announces three new NFC phones the Nokia 700, Nokia 701 and Nokia 600 all toting Symbian Belle

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Nokia announces three new NFC phones the Nokia 700, Nokia 701 and Nokia 600 all toting Symbian Belle

Nokia today trotted out not one, not two, but three new NFC phones. The Nokia 700, the Nokia 701 and the Nokia 600 are official and are all touting Symbian Belle and are all NFC smartphones. We have covered all of these NFC phones in our rumors over the last couple of months, but it’s great to see them all come to market with a bang. Whereas the specifications hadn’t altered much from the leaked roadmap we reported on a month or so ago, there are certainly more details available starting with the release date. Nokia has said that the NFC phones will be released in the third quarter and we have heard that it could be as soon as the next few days when we get some carrier details. These may be the last days of Symbian and a non-Microsoft Nokia, but it appears they are going out with a bang. So, without further ado let’s get down to the nitty gritty details you love.

Nokia 700 / Nokia Zeta NFC phone

Up until today, we have known the Nokia 700 as the Zeta. Nokia is claiming that the Nokia 700 NFC phone is the world’s most compact monoblock smartphone. With dimensions of only 50 cubic centimeters, weighing 96gm and at 110 x 50.7 x 9.7 mm, it isn’t going to weigh you down or bulge your pockets.

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