Microsoft “Build Windows” developer sessions for Windows 8 NFC

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

Microsoft “Build Windows” developer sessions Windows 8 NFC

Today Microsoft announced its support for NFC, or near field communications, in the upcoming next iteration of its Windows OS – Windows 8. Microsoft has worked extensively with NXP Semiconductors to build the NFC drivers for developers to incorporate into applications to push the NFC ecosystem further. To develop NFC applications on the Windows platform, developers will need to understand the APIs that Microsoft is providing. Getting to know your way around the new code is what Build is all about, and Microsoft are putting on two near field communications sessions within the next couple of days.

read more

Microsoft unveils Windows 8 with NFC support and an NFC tablet

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

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.

read more

Biometric industry set for massive growth thanks to NFC

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

Goode Intelligence new report suggests that the biometric industry set for massive growth thanks to NFC

The biometric industry is set to grow substantially according to a new study by the research firm Goode Intelligence. We all know that NFC payments are coming. We are all expecting NFC mobile wallets to become pervasive and we all have our security concerns whether they are rational, factual or not. Trusting our financial stability and accessibility to funds to our NFC phones doesn’t come easy. That’s because psychologically one of our needs in being human is to ensure we have security. It’s a natural protection mechanism and any technology that doesn’t meet those needs is likely to have a tough time getting off the ground. In reality NFC mobile wallet payments are one of the most secure payment mechanisms we have ever had access to, but it’s new. In a world of hackers and skimmers, if you aren’t educated in more salubrious parts of society and technology, the security of how you pay for the things you need may appear to be at risk.

A way to negate many of those risks to to prevent anyone who gets hold of your NFC phone gaining access to sensitive data and biometric security offers manner in which security can be achieved. We have written a few articles on biometric security and you can find them over on the right of this post. However, here’s the quick run down of biometric security:

read more

Gentag gets touchy feely with NFC skin tags patent

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

Gentag announces that it has been awarded a patent for its NFC skin tags

User access and social uses are expected to be major growth areas for NFC tags in the next year, which is what makes Gentag and its new patent for NFC skin tags is so important. When we look at the bigger picture of NFC we come to a concept called “the internet of things”, which to speaks to a world where miniature sensors are hooked up to most things in our life from grocery products to medicines.

From alarm clocks to TVs and cards – the concept is that the cloud is where our lives will be managed and everything we own and do will be updating our cloud services or updating organizations we choose to share information with. If you are thinking that sounds a little 1984 for your liking, we hear you but who knows what legislation and protection could come along with technology that enhances/detracts from our quality of life in such a radical way.

read more

NFC Marketing trifecta, NFC World Alliance

Posted by Seth Planck

1comments

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.

read more

NFC Rumors, concerning Google Wallet, BlackBerry and a certain OS maker (Exclusive)

Posted by Seth Planck

1comments

Fall into NFC: Massive NFC Rumors getting ready to break this Autumn

We receive a lot of tips from people who have some knowledge but dare not share all what they know. This week there has been a lot of whispers coming our way and many are so cryptic they intrigue us, but we can’t do anything with them. Now, we wouldn’t normally post NFC Rumors as obscure as we have received but these ones come from trusted sources and are potentially huge. In this post we will give you the rumor and then let’s do a little speculation to what it could mean. From what we can tell it isn’t going to be long before this news starts to break. However, we are calling for more information from you guys within these companies and within the industry. Our sources have already put us on the trail and we now need a little more detail to round these NFC Rumors out. Please use the Tip Us form – any information you send will be treated in complete confidence and your identity will never be compromised if that is your wish. Okay, here are the NFC Rumors…

read more

74% of British consumers think NFC payments are a good thing

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

74% of British consumers think NFC payments are a good thing according to IAB and Work research agency

The UK based Internet Advertising Bureau has released its latest research that shows that the average mobile transaction has increased 43% to £17.49, and the majority of UK consumers view NFC payments as a positive step forward

IAB has conducted research with Work research agency to determine UK consumers’ views and habits when it comes to NFC and mobile payments and the results are positive. Research houses that conduct surveys can gauge public opinion pretty quickly. The hot topic of the day being NFC and mobile transactions and industry players will be pleased with the positive growth and public opinion NFC contactless payments are attracting. The study was based on 1,000 interviews nationally to represent a cross section of UK mobile owners. The research focused on the four key areas of M-Commerce, researching on mobile, experience enhancement, purchasing direct to bill and purchasing on card / bank details. The research revealed that the reason consumers use their mobile for purchases are changing. In previous studies, consumers said that purchasing on a mobile was an experiment (25%), to being the “easiest way to do it” (42%).

read more

Open Mobile Summit tackles NFC this year

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

Open Mobile Summit tackles NFC this year in San Francisco, the fun starts November 2nd

The big topics being covered this year at the Open Mobile summit will be NFC and 4G in North America, where Light Squared CEO, Sanjiv Ahuja, will give the keynote speech.

The Open Mobile Summit conference is coming up fast and the organizers have just confirmed that Light Squared CEO, Sanjiv Ahuja, will be giving the keynote speech tackling subjects like the company’s planned fully open LTE network and NFC. NFC is due to give mobile commerce a massive boost and newly created and expanding LTE 4G networks are providing data access that is turbo boosting mobile internet beyond what has been available before.  The convergence of fast data and mobile payments is changing the very structure of commerce and the way consumers interact with the world around them and in many ways goes hand in hand.

read more

STMicroelectronics launches Android app helps devs highlight its NFC dual-interface EEPROM capabilities

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

STMicroelectronics launches Android app to highlight its dual-interface EEPROM capabilities

The semiconductor giant has released an Android app that allows developers to test their innovations with the wireless dual-interface EEPROM. We could soon see refrigerators and TVs with NFC capabilities.

This post about STMicroelectronics’ new Android app is going to get a little technical, but fear not. We are going to break it down into easy-to-digest terms so you can understand why this NFC breakthrough is so important. When it comes to the semiconductor industry all known logic and language can appear to break down, and terminology and apparent quantum physics can seem to take place and appear completely incomprehensible to anyone who is not a semiconductor electronics engineer. Semiconductor giants, like Ti or STMicroelectronics, operate in a world of their own and their press releases can read like the recipes for life, matter and the universe at large.

read more

What NFC marketing campaign do you have planned for the holidays?

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

What NFC marketing campaign do you have planned for the holidays?

This fall there is expected to be an explosion of NFC phones in the marketplace, which for the first time makes NFC marketing a viable engagement strategy for retailers to create campaigns. However, the concept of NFC marketing is somewhat new and marketing departments are slow on the uptake in deploying bricks and mortar virtual campaigns. The beauty of NFC marketing is that it can be simple to put together, or it can be highly technical and embedded with other technologies.

On the simple side, an NFC marketing campaign can be as simple as a smart poster that signs people up for your company’s newsletter and then rewards them with a discount coupon. Your tracking metrics can be done at the register and you could even run a concurrent tell-a-friend campaign on the same smart poster. That could work out great for a mom & pop store who wants to dabble in NFC marketing before investing in an integrated platform approach when ROI is known. An investment of a few hundred dollars could be all that is needed to secure more sales if your campaign is creative and novel. On the technical end, if you have the ability to accept NFC payments or have an NFC marketing system, the sky is the limit.

read more

Could the Nokia 703 be the first NFC Windows Phone?

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

Could the Nokia 703 be the first NFC Windows Phone?

Nokia has promised that it will support NFC in all handsets from this point on which includes Windows Phone 7 smartphones. A spy shot of the Nokia 703 Windows Phone 7 (Mango) has surfaced with some specifications coming along for the ride. So, a new Nokia Windows Phone 7 phone should in theory be an NFC capable device. We are starting to get the idea that NFC will be well supported in Windows Phone 7 devices after seeing rumors circulating around the Samsung Omnia W suggest that it too will be an NFC Windows Phone 7 device.

read more

Isobar Create 48 NFC Hackathon Boston Event

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

Isobar Create 48 NFC Hackathon Boston Event

If you are an Android app dev, like the sound of NFC capabilities and want to get the low down from those in the know, you will make sure you are in Boston on September 13th – 15th for Isobar Create 48.

If you live somewhere round the Boston area or can get there between September 13th and the 15th, you can take part in a unique experience the guys and gals from FutureM are calling Isobar Create 48. The point of the get n’ code together event is to explore the possibilities of Near Field Communication (NFC). NFC is going to be built into products, services and marketing from here on out and for those with some solid knowledge of managing NFC developments, the future will likely be bright. The Isobar Create 48 NFC Hackathon will be the first of its kind to explore the NFC chip inside the Google Nexus S and find greater uses for this NFC. The Isobar Create 48 organizers are inviting local developers, programmers and hackers to create what they see as their visions for uses of NFC technology.

read more

Samsung Omnia W to have NFC and a 1.4GHz processor (WP7 rumor)

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

Samsung Omnia W to have NFC and a 1.4GHz processor Windows Phone 7 rumor

This evening brings an NFC WP7 Rumor that could gain some traction because it has been suggested by SamFirmware that the upcoming Samsung Omnia W will feature NFC support, which was reported by WMPowerUser. SamFirmware has a good track record in Samsung rumors tweeted earlier today that the as yet unannounced Samsung Omnia W Windows Phone 7 smartphone is due to feature NFC, have a 3.7-inch display and skip along on a 1.4GHz processor. This revelation really does fall in to the realm of WP7 rumors and has not been confirmed as yet in anyway but it is in line with other whispers that have circulated about Samsung’s upcoming WP7 Mango smartphone.

read more

Verifone is expanding its NFC footprint in Europe

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

VeriFone is expanding its NFC footprint in Europe with a direct sales and service strategy that builds upon the staff left over from the Hypercom acquisition

VeriFone have announced that they intend to expand into Continental Europe after the acquisition of Hypercom concludes with a focus on building their NFC POS terminal business. VeriFone will initially set up offices and support services in Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Austria and Switzerland, the company reports. Companies in the aforementioned countries will now be able to obtain products, services, support and value-added solutions directly from VeriFone.

read more

Canadian BlackBerry owners will get NFC payments app thanks to Payfirma

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

Canadian BlackBerry owners will get NFC payments app thanks to Payfirma

NFC payments will hit Canada for BlackBerry owners in the form of the Payfirma NFC Mobile Payment app that will allow Canadians to accept payments right on their phones using a Square type app. The company has just launched its non-NFC version and has committed to launching the near field communications payments version next.

It looks like the NFC capabilities of recent BlackBerry NFC smartphones is going to be put to good use in Canada thanks to Payfirma and its upcoming BlackBerry NFC Mobile Payment app. It was a month ago that Payfirma launched their iPhone app and now they are back with a Mobile Payments app for BlackBerry phones that have recently been released. BlackBerry phones that support NFC include the BlackBerry Bold 9900, BlackBerry Bold 9930, all three new variations of the BlackBerry Curve, and the rumored Bellagio is also reputed to include some NFC goodness. The next iteration of Payfirma’s Mobile Payment app is promised to have NFC Payments built straight in.

read more

HID Global announces next gen NFC Access Control readers and contactless smart cards

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

HID Global announces next gen NFC Access Control readers and contactless smart cards

When you think HID you think about access control, secure ID’s and RFID. Here at NFC Rumors we can’t get into our office without waving our RFID dongle in front of a reader, and just the other day we gained access to a parking lot that required a HID smart card and used a system that took us from the lot to our hotel room in an elevator that literally opened up the doors in our room – all with the smart card authentication.

Put simply, HID Global is the 100-pound gorilla of the access control and secure ID market and it seems they are moving with the times. The word of the day from the ASSA ABLOY Group brand subsidiary is NFC and we are liking what we are seeing, and that’s not just the coffee talking!

read more

New EMV Academy launches in US offers NFC training

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

New EMV Academy launches in US offers NFC training

You can always tell when an industry is maturing because experts start to build training facilities and courses to educate the rest of us on particular subjects. EMV and NFC are coming of age and experts are starting to emerge. One example of this can be found in the New EMV Training Academy that has opened up its doors to support professionals in the United States and Canada. The aim of the EMV Academy is to educate and enable banking personnel and payment industries to tackle migration and enable solutions that are more secure.

read more

Samsung trots out three new Bada NFC Wave smartphones

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

Samsung announces three Bada NFC smartphones, the Samsung Wave M and the Samsung Wave Y and the Samsung Wave 3

Samsung today announced the Samsung Wave M, Samsung Wave Y and the Samsung Wave 3 – two of which are NFC phones and one is a maybe. It’s been a busy couple of weeks for Samsung, and in the run up the the IFA show next week, Sammy is showing no signs of slowing down. Samsung today announced the three NFC phones we had been expecting for sometime featuring the new Bada 2.0 mobile OS smartphones which we featured last week. All three phones are NFC enabled (optional) all three phones have the innovative WiFi Direct, voice recognition and multitasking. Samsung identifies the NFC capabilities being useful for mobile payment and transport pass-card recharge.

read more

Nokia commits to NFC in all mobile phones from now on

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

Nokia commits to NFC in all mobile phones from now on including upcoming WP7 phones

Nokia has installed NFC chips in all of the phones the Finnish handset maker has launched this year – the Nokia C7 / Astound and the Nokia N9. Nokia just this last week also announced the Nokia 600, Nokia 700 and the Nokia 701 which all feature NFC (near field communications). So far, in the new NFC phone market Nokia, and to a lesser extent BlackBerry, have been the biggest manufacturers to embrace near field communications technology in their phones. However, Nokia has been playing with NFC for years and have been involved in multiple use case projects. The company has recently also launched its NFC-Hub website that concentrates on the marketing uses for NFC. This supported the Museum of London in enabling visitors to learn more and hear the sounds of London using NFC phones and NFC tags to provide immersive experiences. Nokia at this point is famed for now including NFC payments secure elements as they want to concentrate on NFC’s other capabilities that include content sharing, content marketing and social NFC.

read more

NFC marketing hits Australia with startup Tapit

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

NFC marketing hits Australia with startup Tapit

A new NFC marketing service – Tapit Media Pty Ltd (Tapit) – has launched in Australia and brings NFC marketing abilities to advertisers and NFC engagement for consumers. If you’re a regular over here at NFC Rumors, you will know that we have a soft spot for marketing. We also love to let our readers know about the awesome potential that NFC brings to marketing products and services and adding a frictionless experience to engage consumers wherever they may be. NFC tags allow marketing campaigns to be tailored for specific demographics in specific locations and allows for sharing, permission based marketing, location based alerts and adds real metrics to campaigns that previously would have been slotted in the branding category of marketing. NFC smart posters are expected to be a massive growth area in the marketing industry allowing for a level of engagement on all marketing pieces in the real world that has not previously been available with the use of NFC phones. Yes, NFC marketing has a big future and will become ubiquitous in our homes and anywhere else we go within the next few years.

read more

Isis gets $100 million investment from Verizon, T-Mobile & AT&T

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

Isis gets $10 million investment from Verizon, T-Mobile & AT&T as it plans to fight Google Wallet and prepares for the NFC wallet wars

Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc. and T-Mobile USA are planning to invest more than $100 million in the Isis joint venture, which allows customers to pay for goods and services with their NFC phones, people close to the matter told Bloomberg’s Business Week. The war chest capital injection sets up Isis to compete in the upcoming NFC wallet wars that will see Google Wallet, PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, potentially Apple and Isis enter into the fray to duke it out to see who rules consumers’ bank accounts and payments. However, the amount of funding that Isis actually receives is said to be dependent on how many banks and merchants the joint venture can secure. The funding is private so is not public knowledge and full details may never be known. Many aspects of the Isis joint venture’s plans have been secretive so far with no word on issues that may impact consumers’ choices and the ability for competitors to compete on the three major networks.

read more

Check Out the NFC Summit at 4G World 2011

Posted by Thomas Gamboa

1comments

4G World’s Special Event: NFC Summit

As the world’s largest event focused on 4G and the mobile web, 4G World is a must for anyone who is also interested in near field communications (NFC) and contactless technology. If you’ve read our previous post on the 4-day conference, you’ll know that 4G World is hosting a highly anticipated special event – a full day NFC Summit.

What 4G World Means to the Industry

The 4G World conference is a venue for current and future industry leaders to share, discuss, and learn the emerging issues and developments that mobile technology brings to the connected world. There are slated to be over 300 sponsors and exhibitors, 200+ speakers, and 80 interactive sessions throughout the course of the 4-day conference event. It’s not just technology and business on the plate at 4G World – the impacts of mobile technology on retail and buying experience, health care, logistics, operations, networks, and consumers will all be issues of discussion throughout the event.

read more

Could we see Google Wallet capable QNX BlackBerry’s?

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

BlackBerry QNX phones are going to support Android apps, so could we see Google Wallet capable BlackBerry’s this next year?

BlackBerry phones haven’t had an easy year as market share has diminished month after month succumbing to the might of Android and more modern mobile OS’s. We have known for sometime that RIM is building a new mobile OS, dubbed QNX, as we speak. Yesterday, Bloomberg reported that QNX is going to be able to run Android apps. Although Bloomberg broke this story yesterday, we have to say we have seen BGR tackle this topic in the past also, specifically referred to the BlackBerry Playbook gaining the same ability. In a “can’t beat them so join them” tactical approach, RIM may have found a way to keep the Blackberry relevant. The question we are left with is will QNX NFC-enabled BlackBerry devices be able to utilize Google Wallet for NFC payments?

read more

Nokia Symbian Belle announced with NFC features

Posted by Seth Planck

2comments

Nokia Symbian Belle announced with NFC features for new Nokia 700, 701 and 600 plus many more Nokia smartphones

The Nokia news is coming hard and fast today, and joining Nokia’s new NFC phone is the latest, greatest and probably last rendition of the once mighty Symbian mobile OS. Nokia announced Symbian Belle today exactly as it promised on its Facebook page earlier this week. This new upgrade news comes just over one week after the Nokia C7 Astound, Nokia N8, Nokia C7, Nokia C6-01 and Nokia E7 got access to Symbian Anna and the C7 had its NFC turned on for the first time. Nokia’s Symbian Belle builds on those strengths and then some, so let’s look at what’s new.

Nokia Symbian Belle features

The first thing to know is that many of the new features revolve around NFC. Not all the phones that will be eligible for the Symbian Belle upgrade will have an NFC chip installed so obviously won’t be able to benefit from that specific set of functions. First out of the gate is Symbian’s new 6 home screen setup which works very much like an iPhone’s different screens for you to store apps and widgets. The second new feature is the dynamic widgets which ships with live widgets for chat, email and social updates that are housed straight on one of those six new fancy home screens.

read more

TazTag’s NFC tablet the TazPad is getting ready to launch (Exclusive)

Posted by Seth Planck

0comments

TazTag’s  NFC tablet, the TazPad, is getting ready to launch for as little as $400 in volume

Are you still looking for an enterprise NFC tablet for under $500? Read on. When AuthenTec’s press release hit the sphere this week announcing its biometric fingerprint scanners being built into TazTag’s TazPad, we didn’t cover it because quite frankly, it was old news. TazTag and its NFC tablet, TazPad were one of the first companies we covered in-depth here at NFC Rumors. We have to admit, we have a special place in our cold, cold hearts for them. However, that place was earned with their innovation and the way that the company addressed so many needed areas with their product.

TazPad quite literally has the best enterprise hardware specs of any tablet, let alone any NFC tablet in the space. When we say best hardware specifications, we aren’t talking about the processor or the RAM, we are not even referring to its Gingerbread OS because there are tablets that run newer versions of Android.

read more