INSIDE Secure allows you to turn your phone into an NFC phone

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INSIDE Secure allows you to turn your phone into an NFC phone

INSIDE Secure today announced its NFC card emulation solution that fits into a standard SIM card form factor. NFC SIM and NFC microSD cards are not new. So when the product comes to market, it will enable non-NFC phones. However, so far many NFC SIM and NFC microSD solutions haven’t gives a great NFC experience. Because these solutions are slotted inside of phones that weren’t designed with NFC in mind, other components have often affected read and write distances and generally held these products back. INSIDE Secure’s new solution is said to achieve industry standard 4cm or greater contactless read distances in a mobile device with an antenna footprint of less than 1cm2. If these performance claims are true, NFC SIM and NFC microSD solutions could be deployed en masse.

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Verizon will carry the Galaxy Nexus and NFC is to be enabled

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Verizon will carry the Galaxy Nexus and NFC is to be enabled

It’s official, Verizon will be carrying the Galaxy Nexus and NFC will be enabled, according to the press release coming out of Big Red this evening. We don’t have a date or pricing for the Samsung Galaxy Nexus as yet and we have no clue whether Google Wallet will be available for consumers. But if you have been waiting to know whether the new leader of the pack in NFC super phones was going to hit an LTE network in your neck of the woods tonight, you can rest a little easier.

Verizon will carry the Galaxy Nexus and even if it has NFC enabled, it is likely that there will be no Google Wallet

The information sent out by Verizon names Google services that will be available on the Galaxy Nexus including “Android Market, Gmail™, Google Maps™ 5.0 with 3D maps, Google Earth™, Movie Studio, YouTube™, syncing with Google Calendar™ and a redesigned Google＋ app.” Guess what’s missing? Yep, no Google Wallet.

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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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NFC changes Healthcare as NFC Forum and Continua Health Alliance partner

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NFC evolves Healthcare as NFC Forum and Continua Health Alliance partner to standardize Near Field Communication for the health industry

The NFC Forum and Continua Health Alliance have challenged themselves to expand standards-based connectivity technology using Near Field Communication in the health IT industry, which is no small undertaking.

Both Continua and the NFC Forum have stated that they are proponents of simplifying digital content exchange to establish a system of personal connected health and wellness products and services. This partnership is said to enable consumers, caregivers and healthcare providers to more proactively address ongoing healthcare needs using our favorite little protocol.

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NFC Forum membership explodes with BarclayCard, C-Sam and many others

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NFC Forum membership explodes as BarclayCard, C-Sam and many others signup

The NFC Forum has announced that Barclaycard has become a Sponsor Member, which is the highest level a company can join at. As part of its new Sponsor Member status, Barclaycard will have a seat on the NFC Forum Board of Directors which governs the organization.

“Our newest members demonstrate the broad appeal of the work of the NFC Forum, and the variety of sectors that are represented emphasizes the value NFC technology can provide to businesses and consumers,” said Koichi Tagawa, Chairman of the NFC Forum. “We are pleased to welcome these new organizations’ participation in our work, and their contributions to the global NFC ecosystem. We are especially gratified that Barclaycard recognizes the leadership role of the Forum as demonstrated by their joining at the highest membership level.”

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Ortho-tag looks down under to get to the top in NFC smart implants

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Ortho-tag hires Australian Ken Laing to be CEO as it launches medical NFC smart implants it calls TNFC

Ortho-tag has announced that it has hired Ken Laing as CEO to aid the company in reaching pole position for NFC products and services in the healthcare space. Ortho-tag are getting ready to launch a suite of products for the medical industry that utilizes near field communication technology that the company says “will take medical technology to all new level of smart diagnostic products for the betterment of patient care.”

“I am honored to have the opportunity to lead this innovative company with such incredible potential and to uniquely apply TNFC technology to the medical industry,” commented Laing. “Ortho-tag will provide cutting-edge technology advancements to the way surgeons monitor their patients, and will contribute to the future integration between smart implants and telemedicine.”

We love to see how NFC is finding its place in practically every market segment, and healthcare is shaping up to be a very competitive market.

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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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Isis announces NFC phone allies for the looming wallet wars

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Isis announces HTC, LG, Motorola Mobility, RIM, Samsung Mobile, Sony Ericsson and DeviceFidelity as NFC phone allies for the looming wallet wars

Isis today announced that HTC, LG, Motorola Mobility, RIM, Samsung Mobile, Sony Ericsson and DeviceFidelity have committed to supporting the upcoming mobile wallet provider with NFC phones. For a service that won’t even open the doors until as late as the middle of next year, Isis is certainly making a lot of noise about its as yet non-existent service. We very much view this announcement as an obvious non-news statement to detract attention from Google Wallet. Of course, these OEM handset manufacturers are going to produce NFC phones that use SIM based NFC. They wouldn’t want to cut out the ability to get on to Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile USA’s networks. However, there are a few interesting aspects of this news that we will go into later in this post.

The official line from Isis:

“Isis’ technology standards provide the direction and certainty needed for the development and deployment of NFC devices and the mobile commerce ecosystem,” said Scott Mulloy, Chief Technology Officer at Isis. “Working together with the device makers and our founding mobile carriers, Isis can provide the consumer choice and scale necessary for widespread adoption of mobile commerce.”

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Broadcom unleashes its first BCM2079x NFC chips

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Broadcom outs its first BCM2079x NFC chips in 40 NM that brings connectivity to Bluetooth and WiFi

Broadcom has announced that its first NFC chips are ready to roll in a 40 NM flavor. We are pretty excited about Broadcom’s announcement because its NFC chips represent an evolution that is already taking place in near field communications hardware. The BCM2079x is the first near field communications (NFC) chip to be manufactured in 40 NM CMOS process which allows for a smaller size and subsequent power consumption, the company explains. In fact, Broadcom goes on to explain that these new NFC chips are an industry first.

“Broadcom BCM2079x family slashes power consumption by more than 90 percent, uses 40 percent fewer components and has a 40 percent smaller board area, making it the smallest and most power efficient NFC solution on the market,” the company says in its release.

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Fiserv gets ready for NFC, produces personalized EMV cards for now

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Fiserv gets ready for NFC, produces personalized EMV cards for now

Fiserv, the financial services technology solutions firm, has started to produce personalized EMV cards and is helping to prepare the infrastructure for NFC to follow in its footsteps. Based around a very similar concept as NFC payments, the EMV card (which stands for Europay, MasterCard and Visa standard) uses contactless technology to make payments. When a consumer goes to make a payment at a contactless POS terminal they must first put in their PIN number and then wave their card across the reader.

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GlobalPlatform launches its compliance trademark

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GlobalPlatform launches its compliance trademark

Global Platform has announced the launch of its compliance trademark to ensure the creation and maintenance of an interoperable, sustainable and trusted end-to-end environment for managing applications on secure chip technology. If you come to NFC Rumors on a somewhat regular basis, you will know that we yarn on about security, Secure Elements and standards like those put forward by organizations like the NFC Forum. Global Platform is the cross industry, not-for-profit association which identifies, develops and publishes specifications that facilitate the secure and interoperable deployment and management of multiple embedded applications on secure chip technology. GlobalPlatform are the organization that put forward the technical specifications to ensure that the secure element in your Google Nexus S is secure, or an NFC SIM or NFC USIM is tamper-proof.

NFC has started to reach a tipping point where mainstream usage is all but assured. Secure Elements are expected to be used globally across finance, mobile/telecom, government, healthcare, retail and transit industries. In the future, GlobalPlatform’s trademark will also be applicable to card products issued by banks and governments.

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STMicroelectronics supports NFC in Windows 8

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STMicroelectronics supports NFC in Windows 8

When Microsoft announced that Windows 8 would support NFC it wasn’t really surprising to hear that much of the existing industry would rally to support Windows 8, and today you can add STMicroelectronics to that list. In fact, STMicroelectronics has worked with Microsoft to enable ST’s NFC solution support for the upcoming Windows 8 operating system.

Windows 8 support for NFC has taken NFC out from the cold and thrust it in the lime light. The question we hear now is not if will NFC take off, but when it will be available in PCs and consumer electronics. That shift has happened over the last three months. What people who are new to NFC are starting to realize is that there has been a bustling industry here for quite some time, and that it is now ready to support near field communications in consumer electronics. The Windows 8 support is useful on a grander scheme of integration for our lives and professional needs.

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Adobe Flash Player 11 & AIR 3 now supports NFC, Devs go wild

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Adobe Flash Player 11 & AIR 3 now support NFC for pairing and potentially payments

We knew that the new version of Adobe Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 would finally getting Flash on to the iPad and iPhone, but what we didn’t know until recently was Adobe has built in some NFC goodness too! Games and video playback can benefit from NFC. Switching from an iPad to a PC or from a phone to a tablet, saving game play where you left off or handing a video over at the exact moment you stopped watching on one device, so it starts playing on the next device all becomes reality by allowing NFC and Flash work together. Adobe hasn’t really elaborated much on exactly what functions will be available or whether its support for NFC includes emulation, peer-to-peer and, of course, read / write.

From what we can tell based on one small paragraph of text which refers to NFC support, AIR 3 allows developers to use existing code libraries with deep native hardware and OS capabilities. As well as the usual slew of sensors including gyroscopes, magnetometers, light sensors, etc.), multiple screens, native in-app payments, haptic/vibration control, device status, the new development Adobe Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 will add NFC (Near Field Communications) to that list. Check out the videos below to see it in action.

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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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Visa, American Express and Discover Card sign on for Google Wallet

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Google lands Visa, American Express and Discover Card for Google Wallet

We knew Google Wallet was launching, but the big news today is that Google has reached deals with Visa, American Express and Discover Card who will be joining MasterCard on the Google Wallet platform. Ironically the Visa press release hit 15 minutes before the official Sprint release hit our inbox. Below we have the Visa payWave press release for your viewing pleasure, but in essence Google Wallet agreement extends Google Wallet to Visa account holders worldwide. What isn’t clear is whether this is the beginning of Google taking Google Wallet and Google Offers platform planet wide, or if it just means that Google Wallet customers can use payWave merchants who are equipped with contactless NFC POS terminals on a global basis.

The Google Wallet may soon be global thanks to Visa who wishes to push NFC payments

We have been waiting for the Google Wallet to launch since May. We have witnessed how Isis attracted Visa, American Express and Discover Card a few months ago. There also hasn’t been any new NFC phones that would support Google Wallet. However, on the back of today’s news, Google has come out in fighting form.

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Google Wallet is live

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Google Wallet is live on Sprint, Google Nexus S 4G owners can now get their NFC mobile wallet on

It’s official, Google Wallet has launched! We reported earlier today that Google Wallet was likely to go live today and it has. The press release winged its way out of Sprint’s HQ at nearly 4.30PM this afternoon announcing that America finally has an NFC mobile wallet, and it is Google Wallet that has got to market first. At the moment the only folks who can use the Google Wallet will be Sprint subscribers who have the Google Nexus S 4G in their pockets. More NFC phones are expected within the next couple of months, which will likely include the much rumored Google Nexus Prime and other Ice Cream Sandwich devices. They are likely to come fitted with the all important NFC antenna and secure element that is required for NFC payments.

“Sprint is thrilled to be the first U.S. carrier to offer Google Wallet,” said Fared Adib, Vice President of Product at Sprint. “Nexus S 4G is the first to receive new versions of Android software, and today’s upgrade puts the near-field communications, or NFC, chip in the phone to work so customers can have a secure virtual wallet on their phone. NFC capabilities on smartphones open the door to a new level of convenience and security.”

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Tyfone licenses SideTap MicroSD & NFC secure element to AboMem

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Tyfone licenses SideTap MicroSD & NFC secure element card technologies to Taiwan memory manufacturer AboMem

Tyfone announced today that it has found a new manufacturing partner in Taiwanese firm AboMem for its SideTap MicroSD NFC products. The partnership will also include widespread distribution rights, which is set to include China where AboMem has an extensive distribution network already in place.

“Tyfone’s partnership with AboMem in China enables Tyfone to scale its business with a recognized leader in manufacturing memory products, and unleash its established distribution supply chain.”

Tyfone’s patented SideTap microSD product can be added to existing mobile devices and it enables secure element functionality with NFC connectivity. SideTap is a unique feature of Tyfone’s u4ia platform that provides end-to-end mobile financial service solutions, from informational services and commerce to secure identity and  NFC payments.

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UPM RFID launches new NFC tags after NXP NFC tag announcement

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UPM RFID launches new NFC tags after NXP NFC tag announcement

Hot on the heels of the NXP Semiconductors NTAG203 announcement, UPM RFID has launched its new line of NFC tags that incorporate the new technology. If we were the suspicious types, we would swear that these press releases were timed to coincide with one another. UPM RFID announced this morning that they have an updated portfolio of NFC tags that embrace the NXP NTAG203 technology across their product lines. Products that utilize the new sensitive NFC tags include the UPM BullsEye, UPM Circus and UPM MiniTrack. Each of the new NFC tags plays nicely with the new NXP NTAG203 chip and offer 1300 bits /144 bytes of user memory, and we are told also offers “significantly improved performance and faster response times” when reading NFC tags with an NFC phone.

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The NFC tag has evolved as NXP announces improved sensitivity NFC tags

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NFC tags just evolved as NXP Semiconductors announces improved sensitivity NFC tags that can be smaller with the same read distances

The humble NFC tag just got a shot in the arm with NXP’s announcement that they have evolved the humble tag and have managed to make it more sensitive. When it comes to NFC tags we like the sensitive types. The more sensitive an NFC tag, the better read distances can be achieved and the smaller the tag can be. NXP Semiconductors has today revealed its new NTAG203, which is an NFC Forum-compliant Type 2 tag. This new NFC tag structure will be used by OEMs, inlay customers and end users, according to NXP. Until now smaller NFC tags has meant smaller read distances, but that is set to change with the NXP NTAG203. Up until today, it has been very common to find and use a 45mm NFC tag to ensure the read distance was sufficient on an NFC smartposter to read through other materials, or so that an NFC tag could be read through glass. The enhancement leverages existing MIFARE-based NFC tags which are the top selling NFC tag type worldwide.

“Together with our customers, we analyzed market demand as well as new use cases, to enhance our portfolio of NFC tag ICs. The result is the NTAG203, an NFC tag IC that can enhance the performance of existing tags, or enable the design of smaller tags without compromising performance,” said Chris Feige, General Manager of Tags and Labels Product Line,  Identification Business, NXP Semiconductors.

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Windows 8 could get Alps and Cirque’s NFC GlidePoint trackpad

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Windows 8 devices such as laptops could incorporate Cirque’s NFC GlidePoint so your trackpad is your NFC antenna. Integrated NFC trackpad solution from Cirque to support Windows 8 “Tap to Share” and “Tap to Pair” features. Microsoft announced Windows 8 this week and for us in the NFC industry the big news was that NXP [...]

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NFC Watch coming to market in 2012??

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NFC Watch coming to market in 2012? Bizarre press release leaves us in the dark, but with plenty of stories

Winwatch is an RFID and NFC watch maker headquartered in Switzerland with a presence in China also. Here at NFC Rumors we see a lot of  press releases hit our inbox, but today we saw one that just plain left us wondering what was going on. Until today we hadn’t heard of Winwatch or their NFC watch products and we are still a little confused as to what the company is actually selling, but it nonetheless sounds interesting. The press release doesn’t really give us a lot of information other than you can pre-order an NFC watch that connects to your NFC phone with a tap. There is apparently also a growing number of apps that the NFC watch supports and once NFC apps are loaded on your NFC phone the watch will somehow interact with the phone.

The company describes its NFC watch as being fashioned in a diving watch style, although it is unclear whether the NFC watch is actually waterproof. The company encourages people to pre-order the watch, but upon visiting the website that is not given in the press release we could find nowhere to actually see the watch, let alone pre-order it.  What puzzles us even more is that the NFC watch works with Android or Symbian devices, so we are not sure whether that means that there will be multiple versions of the watch or if one device does it all which strikes us as unlikely. Our favorite phrase in the NFC watch press release below is “you are the storyteller!” In fact, we like “you are the story teller!” so much we are thinking about making it the NFC Rumors site slogan. NFC Rumors says, you too can tell super lucky shiny happy fancy stories with your friends and their dogs and their submarines. We challenge you to come up with more obscure phrases to describe the NFC watch in the comments.

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OSPT Announces First Public Release of CIPURSE for Public Transportation Ecosystem

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CIPURSE: An Open Standard for Next-Generation Transit Fare Collection

OSPT Announces CIPURSE™ Now Available to the Public

CIPURSE is here, but what is it? The OSPT (Open Standard for Public Transport) Alliance, who has made the announcement, is an international group seeded by four technology firms with the goal to solidify a unified global standard for NFC transactions in the transportation industry. Think public transportation and transit systems that rely on speed and timeliness to operate. Now, the OSPT operates as an alliance organization, and thus accepts members to join them in the push to standardize technology that will reduce costs, provide more flexibility, and increase security measures. CIPURSE, OSPT’s first public release, has been championed as an open platform, or as they say “open security standard specification”. The advantage if CIPURSE being an open standard is that it is more conducive to the exchange of information between vendors and provides greater versatility for transport system operators, all resulting in lower costs. This means higher adoption rate, greater chance of vendor neutrality, and the opportunity for more advanced developments as the CIPURSE and the OSPT community matures. CIPURSE Version 1.0 is currently ready for reading and evaluation.

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Yale demos NFC door locks using the ASSA ABLOY Mobile Keys platform

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Yale, an ASSA ABLOY company, will demonstrate residential NFC door locks at CEDIA Expo 2011, September 7-10 in Indianapolis, IN

Yale Locks & Hardware is moving into the 21st century as it adopts residential NFC door locks. As a company, Yale has certainly been about for our whole lives. In fact, it was founded in 1868 Lenoir City, Tennessee. It has had such an impact on our vocabulary that to this day we still call a  pin tumbler lock, a Yale lock. However, things over at Yale have changed a lot between now and when Linus Yale, Sr., who founded the company, was improving locks at his father’s lock shop. The company has passed hands a few times since its inception but has always remained (you see what we did there). As we have been writing this post we have wondered what Linus Yale would have thought to the NFC door locks.

These days Yale is part of the ASSA ABLOY empire that houses such power security brands as HID, ActivIdentity, FARGO, VingCard Elsafe and LaserCard to name but a few. You may remember that ASSA ABLOY completed the first ever trial of the NFC mobile keys platform at the Clarion Hotel in Stockholm, in which 28 frequent hotel guests were invited to use the technology over an eight-month period. That platform has since been released for commercial application and deployment within hotels by subsidiary VingCard Elsafe. This uses the very same system that Yale intends to use for its NFC door locks.

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NFC self-service terminals to become more accessible in Europe

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APSIS4All NFC self-service terminals to become more accessible in Europe

A new European Union funded project called APSIS4All is getting underway to make self-service terminals like public transport ticket vending machines or public information kiosks and ATM’s more prevalent and accessible in six European countries using NFC technology at its core.

The new European project will be aimed at helping disabled people and pensioners, or people over 65 years of age, starting in Barcelona from September this year and then moving to provide NFC ticket vending machines in Paderborn, Germany in January of next year. The European Commission is contributing €3.41 million to the three year project, which is half of the required budget.

European Commission news is like London buses when it comes to NFC, nothing for months and then two turn up at the same time. It was only yesterday all our troubles seemed so far away, and then the feisty MNO Three UK spoke up to be counted and attempted to have the UK NFC joint venture prevented from doing business, disbanded or made to write sorry letters to everyone in Blighty, and ordered to write a hundred lines on the black board – “I must not nefariously try to get rid of competitors using unethical business practices, cripple new markets that would help the economy, or attempt to negate and abuse British consumers’ rights.”

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NFC Marketing trifecta, NFC World Alliance

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NFC Marketing trifecta formed as Proxama, Tapit and BlueBite come together for an NFC World Alliance

The newly formed NFC World Alliance will cover the Asia-Pacific region, America’s region and the EMEA region for NFC marketing

An Englishman, an Australian and an American… Oh you’ve heard that one. Rather than a joke you may be interested in some NFC marketing news then. Well, Proxama, the English power house that helped Nokia, BlueBite, the American mobile marketers who you will remember were part of the New York VH1 show NFC marketing campaign, and the new kid on the block, Australian firm Tapit, have got together to form an NFC marketing alliance. The three companies are calling this collaboration the NFC World Alliance, and arguably these three companies are the biggest NFC marketing players in their respective markets. By forging a collaboration, they have now made up the first premier NFC marketing trifecta on the face of the Earth.

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