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T-Mobile will have NFC turned on in Samsung Galaxy S II NFC Rumors Exclusive

Rumor

Posted by Seth Planck

October 06th, 2011 at 5:33 PM Filed Under Latest News, Rumor

T-Mobile will have NFC turned on in Samsung Galaxy S II NFC Rumors Exclusive

We have received exclusive information from a reliable source that suggests that the T-Mobile variant of the Samsung Galaxy S II will have its NFC turned on. This is great news for consumers and NFC in general, that there will be yet another NFC super phone available in the US. There were some doubts as to whether T-Mobile would enable NFC in the Samsung Galaxy S II after the company disabled NFC in the BlackBerry line up and AT&T turned off NFC on its Samsung Galaxy S II variant. We already gave an exclusive a week or so ago that T-Mobile is planning on bringing at least five and up to eight new NFC smartphones to market this year. Now we know that the Samsung Galaxy S II will rock NFC as it was intended to. Although both AT&T and T-Mobile are part of Isis, it appears that T-Mobile is taking a very different approach to NFC than AT&T, which we must say that we are relieved to see. However, that could be short lived if AT&T gets its way and is able to acquire T-Mobile. We won’t be keen on Isis while its model is based around control as it is, but credit where credit is due in regards to the Samsung Galaxy S II and NFC T-Mobile is doing the right thing for its customers.

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Samsung Galaxy Nexus “Nexus Prime” NFC phone specs outed

Feature Rumor

Posted by Seth Planck

October 06th, 2011 at 11:44 AM Filed Under Latest News

Samsung Galaxy Nexus “Nexus Prime” NFC phone specs outed

We finally have the near full specs for the NFC Nexus Prime, or what we have now learned is to be called the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, and they are a little lower than we would have liked, but still very impressive. BGR got this scoop this morning and now we finally have a near complete picture of what we should expect from the latest and greatest pure Google experience NFC phone. The great news is the Samsung Galaxy Nexus doesn’t have a 4.5-inch display; it is actually going to ship with a colossal 4.65-inch 1280 x 720-pixel Super AMOLED HD with curved glass. We saw the teaser the other day that suggested that the Samsung Galaxy Nexus would have a curved glass screen, but we certainly didn’t know it would stretch our an extra 0.15 inches which puts it in a class leader position.

Source: BGR

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NFC stocks: Is it no NFC in the iPhone 4S hitting Apples stock price?

Feature

Posted by Seth Planck

October 04th, 2011 at 8:01 PM Filed Under Latest News

Is no NFC and no LTE in the iPhone 4S hitting Apple’s stock price? Or was Apple’s stock artificially inflated by NFC stocks?

Apple stocks took a tumble today which may have partially been because the iPhone 4S is without NFC

A lot of people were disappointed with the iPhone 4S, and we can speculate that just from what we have seen happening out on the social networks. We can also speculate that people who are interested in NFC stocks may have quietly been buying Apple stock over the last few weeks and then dumped it on the news that Apple has not included NFC in the iPhone 4S. As far as investors were concerned, it was Tim Cook’s debut today and for the new CEO to inspire confidence in investors, he needed to show that the company could deliver a forward thinking product that probably incorporated NFC and LTE. However, Cook spent far less time on stage than Steve Jobs would have and Apple delivered a somewhat lack luster device after a three month lag in their standard release schedule.

NFC stocks are a hot topic for investors at the moment and if Apple has announced that the iPhone 4S would feature NFC it would have been natural to think that Apple would have pressed that advantage and would have delivered an NFC mobile wallet that would have added the massive NFC payment recurring revenue to Apple’s bottom line.

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Apple iPhone 5, hours to go to learn the fate of NFC

Posted by Seth Planck

October 04th, 2011 at 3:01 AM Filed Under Latest News

Apple iPhone 5, hours to go to learn the fate of NFC

Here we are, just hours away from the Apple iPhone 5 announcement. In the early days of Apple iPhone 5 rumors we went chasing the rumors that could mean that Apple was planning to launch an NFC iPhone 5. We even made an infographic that showed how it made sense from a business perspective for Apple to go the route of NFC. However, as the months went on we noticed that Apple either had their supply chain tied down so much, or the horror alternative would be that Apple wouldn’t support NFC in the iPhone 5 after making consumers wait so long for a replacement for the iPhone 4. NFC has hit its swing, whether Apple supports NFC or not this time around. We have witnessed that Apple has applied for enough patents to own NFC outright. So on one hand, it wouldn’t make sense if the company didn’t support it. We wouldn’t be overly surprised if Apple has become so arrogant that it thought NFC was only happening when they said it is.

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Want Google Wallet on the non 4G Nexus S? XDA Developers cracked it

Posted by Seth Planck

October 03rd, 2011 at 8:20 PM Filed Under Latest News

Want Google Wallet on the non 4G Nexus S? XDA Developers cracked it

I think we can all agree that today venumx over at XDA Developers gets the top person in NFC award after enabling Google Wallet in all Nexus S variantsOfficially the only NFC phone that is capable of running Google Wallet is the Samsung Nexus S 4G on Sprint. All of the Google Nexus S variants have the necessary NFC chip and Secure Element, but because of Isis, Google hasn’t been able to provide the service on any other mobile network operator’s network. This has shrunk the potential user base of Google Wallet significantly and the three Isis joint venture mobile network operators have even been switching off NFC in other Android phones like the Samsung Galaxy S II. They haven’t been switching off the feature because it doesn’t work, they have removed the NFC capability because they are not ready to monetize it with their own Isis NFC mobile wallet at this time, and they have feared exactly what has happened today.

Source: XDA Developers Forum
Via: Engadget

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Is Verizon big enough to buy the law it wants as it opposes net neutrality and NFC consumer protection

Posted by Seth Planck

October 03rd, 2011 at 12:38 AM Filed Under Latest News

Verizon opposes net neutrality, what does that mean for NFC?

Fair minded and “open ecosystem” friendly Verizon has decided it shouldn’t have to follow Net Neutrality rules, and so they have mounted an appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit of the Federal Communications Commission’s December 2010 Report and Order (FCC 10-201). We can’t say we didn’t see this coming, and Big Red didn’t fail to disappoint when filing its appeal. Verizon refers to the FCC’s mandate to protect consumers and businesses from telecom providers and internet service providers from prioritizing traffic, allowing some, disallowing other traffic and charging others for access. Make no mistake – NFC is in danger of being abused.

That traffic includes NFC payment data that travels over the MNO networks in the form of SWP (single wire protocol). If you are new to NFC payments, think of SWP like you would an encrypted SMS message that conveys transactional details to payment networks like Visa and MasterCard. Should Verizon be successful in breaking any type of Net Neutrality influence and regulation of mobile network operators or telecom providers, it leaves it free to control NFC payments on its network as it chooses despite what is in consumers’ best interests. Net Neutrality was regulated for a reason, and that reason was to protect consumers and businesses from being gauged and controlled by mobile network operators. It now appears that Verizon could be too powerful to have to obey laws, and furthermore, may have the power to change laws as it pleases.

Source: SaveTheInternet

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AT&T doesn’t care that you want NFC turned on in Samsung Galaxy S II

Posted by Seth Planck

October 02nd, 2011 at 9:17 PM Filed Under Latest News

AT&T doesn’t care that you want NFC turned on in Samsung Galaxy S II

AT&T has elected to not have the NFC in the Samsung Galaxy S II switched on. In doing so, we look at what this means for consumers, what it means for NFC and what it in turn means for AT&T. The redeeming quality of the AT&T Samsung Galaxy S II was that it has an NFC chip built in, and the mobile network operator has had the chip turned off. This raises the question – would this affect you purchasing the NFC phone when you can’t use the NFC chip you have paid for?

AT&T decided they didn’t want to go for the beautiful 4.5-inch screen that T-Mobile and Sprint opted for. They also decided their customers wouldn’t have the opportunity to benefit from that 1.5 dual-core processor that other competitors can boast. However, the one thing that the phone had over the Sprint phone was that it has an NFC chip built in which would have enabled social NFC actions, pairing with peripherals and sharing contacts. It could have also enabled payments too, but it appears because Isis is not quite ready to control your finances and market that you will not be getting any NFC goodness from the Samsung Galaxy S II at this time.

Source: Engadget

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Nokia launches NFC Device Kit, kills Symbian but you can still invest

Posted by Seth Planck

September 30th, 2011 at 12:44 PM Filed Under Latest News

Nokia launches NFC Device Kit, kills Symbian but you can still invest

Nokia must have some Nokia C7 handsets kicking around that they want rid of because they have just started to offer them in an NFC Device Kit for Symbian. The irony of Nokia killing its development of the Symbian platform and the asking developers to develop NFC applications while it’s in its death throws isn’t lost on us or developers. But let’s assume it’s worth it to you to develop apps that will have no market in a year or two, let’s see what Espoo is offering.

Nokia NFC Device Kit details

First thing’s first, only registered Nokia developers can buy the NFC Device Kit. The company explains that where as there may be simulators and emulators, there is nothing like having the real device in your hands when debugging. This is true. Without the real handset you have no way of knowing how accurately that specific representation of the the user experience will be.

Source: Nokia

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Australian media company Adshel launches NFC marketing campaign with Coles

Posted by Seth Planck

September 30th, 2011 at 1:18 AM Filed Under Latest News

Australian media company, Adshel, launches NFC marketing campaign with Coles at 50 locations in Melbourne

The Australian national media company, Adshel, has got together with Coles supermarkets to deploy an out-of-home (OOH) NFC marketing campaign. From a shaky start with endless banking trials, Australia seems to be embracing NFC in a big way. Companies like Adshel and Tapit aren’t hurting the awareness campaign to educate Australians about the benefits of using NFC through NFC marketing. NFC marketing is one of exciting use cases for NFC and is arguably the glue that holds a lot of other services together, including NFC payments, loyalty, coupons and engaging content aggregation.

Source: Adshel

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Isis announces NFC phone allies for the looming wallet wars

Posted by Thomas Gamboa

September 27th, 2011 at 2:43 PM Filed Under Latest News, Press Release

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.”

That is indeed true. Isis will have the majority of US phone subscribers at their disposal for marketing purposes. It would make sense that NFC phone manufacturers would jump on the chance to sell more phones by adding NFC support, which they will have to do anyway in most markets around the world. Of note is the fact that these NFC phones will have to work with CDMA and the GSM carriers networks. So different radios will be required and we can expect to see different variants of each phone that is produced.
Source: Isis PR

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HTC Amaze to hit T-Mobile USA with NFC support October 10th

Posted by Seth Planck

September 26th, 2011 at 4:39 PM Filed Under Latest News

HTC Amaze to hit T-Mobile USA with NFC support October 10th

The NFC phone news just keeps on trucking today as T-Mobile announce the HTC Amaze that’s loving some NFC goodness. We have known that the HTC Amaze has been rumored for some time, but we didn’t know if it would come adorned with onboard NFC until today. So far, we have only known the HTC Amaze by its code name “Ruby”. Today, we also learned that the NFC phone will bring its love to town thanks to T-Mobile USA.

Source: T-Mobile USA

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Top 11 reasons why you shouldn’t buy a phone without NFC

Posted by Seth Planck

September 25th, 2011 at 7:33 PM Filed Under Latest News

Top 11 reasons why you shouldn’t buy a phone without NFC

NFC has reached a point where its inclusion in everyday life is a certainty within the next couple of years, and for consumers to benefit from NFC features they will need an NFC phone. Whether your penchant is for NFC payments or you like the Bluetooth pairing to speakers, near field communication is coming. Within the next year or so, we expect NFC keys to cards starting to become popular. Also expect NFC features built straight into our cars. Smartphone manufacturers are already starting to produce NFC phones and they are becoming more prevalent by the day, but there are still going to be non NFC-phones marketed to consumers. This post is about why you shouldn’t tie yourself into a contract on a phone that doesn’t come with the aforementioned capabilities.

Companies like Microsoft, Google, Intel, Nokia, Research in Motion, Huawei, Acer and Mozilla have said they intend to support NFC in products from now on. Service companies like Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express, Rogers Communications and many more are building their businesses around the model of harnessing near field communications for their customers. However, the big “will they, won’t they?” question lays with the Apple iPhone 5. Many doubt that Apple will include a near field communication chip within its latest and greatest smartphone. We still think it is a 50 /50 split on the probability that the company will support NFC. However, if Apple doesn’t support near field communication, Apple fans will have been done a disservice by the company and there are plenty of Android handsets that are just as, if not more capable, than the iPhone.

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America’s Isis crisis in NFC mobile payments

Feature

Posted by Seth Planck

September 22nd, 2011 at 9:22 PM Filed Under Featured, Latest News

America’s Isis crisis in NFC mobile payments

Since Google launched its Google Wallet earlier this week the Isis crew have been out in full force talking about Isis, which probably won’t get to market until in Salt Lake City and Austin until early-mid 2012, and that is  just in a couple of test cities at that. If you have never heard of Isis let us give you some back story. Isis is a joint venture formed by AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon where the three mobile network operators have come together to go into the NFC mobile payments business together, effectively controlling most of the market in the United States. Each mobile network operator intends to charge companies for having an NFC payments capable app stored on a subscriber’s phone and then Isis will act as a trusted service manager that provisions security apps being installed and acts as part of the payment process. If you would like to know more about what a trusted service manager is and does, check out our post here.

Source: PCMag

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Consumers have smartphone security concerns but don’t install security apps as NFC payments arrive

Feature

Posted by Seth Planck

September 22nd, 2011 at 3:59 PM Filed Under Featured, Latest News

A NPD Group study suggests that consumers are not managing smartphone security as NFC payments arrive

NPD Group found that people are worried about security but do very little about it when it comes to smartphones – we wonder will it still be the same for NFC phones? Google Wallet just launched, but there are still people out there who are concerned about the security of NFC mobile wallets and NFC payments. A new report out today from the market research firm NPD Group reveals some concerning facts and figures about just how many people are taking action to protect their sensitive data housed on smartphones. The irony is that nearly 40% of all smartphone users are concerned about threats such as activity monitoring, hacking, and credit-card security, and viruses, while more than 33% are worried about harmful apps, malicious emails, and the potential for user-location tracking.

We think you will agree that there are significant amount of concerns surrounding the security of smartphones, we have also seen report after report that suggest people are also worried about NFC payments. So it is amazing that the report found that 82 percent of smartphone users have no security apps installed on their smartphones.

Source: NPD Group

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

Contains Gallery PR

Posted by Seth Planck

September 21st, 2011 at 5:35 PM Filed Under Galleries, Latest News, Press Release

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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Orange, France getting NFC Samsung Galaxy S II in October

Contains Video

Posted by Seth Planck

September 20th, 2011 at 11:36 AM Filed Under Latest News, Videos

Orange, France getting NFC Samsung Galaxy S II in October which will be the first NFC Android device to be sold in Europe, will head to the UK soon

Orange has scored itself the first NFC Samsung Galaxy S II in Europe and intends to deploy the legendary hero NFC phone in France next month. The NFC version of the Samsung Galaxy S II has been a long time coming to European shores, especially after it was announced that the UK would get an NFC Samsung Galaxy S II in June. The model of the NFC Samsung Galaxy S II that will hit the Orange network is not the recently upgraded Samsung Galaxy S II, and aside from NFC, it features the original specifications of the phone launched in the UK.

It’s a pity that Orange elected to not give the European that beautiful 4.5-inch Hercules screen or upgrade the processor to the 1.5GHz processor, but at least NFC payments will be an option and so will the rest of the benefits that NFC brings to hero phones. The NFC Samsung Galaxy S II will be the fourth NFC capable phone for Orange’s Citizi customers. Citizi is the brand Orange is using to deploy NFC payments and services in France. According to Orange, 150,000 French consumers have already signed up for the Citizi NFC service, which provides passes for the local urban transport, payment in the partner shops over 1000 shops, loyalty, couponing and tag reading all using NFC.

Source: Orange

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Will you get the NFC Samsung Nexus Prime? Is leaking the details a crime?

Rumor

Posted by Seth Planck

September 19th, 2011 at 1:12 PM Filed Under Latest News, Rumor

Wax lyrical information leaker publishes NFC Samsung Nexus Prime details to Twitter in a poem

Will you get the NFC Nexus Prime? Is leaking the details a crime? We want to be sure, this guy is no bore, but without proof his poem’s not worth a dime.

Poetry is not dead when it comes to rumors, and last night saw the beginning of yet another poem that leaks information about the upcoming NFC Samsung Nexus Prime. The Samsung Nexus Prime is said to be the next Google Nexus hero phone that will debut with Android Ice Cream Sandwich. Rumors have been rife about the NFC Samsung Nexus Prime all summer and we have even seen Samsung confirm the phone’s existence when it threatened someone who has potentially got a hold of an Android build for the new NFC wonder phone.

Late last night Twitter user @tfleming223 started to recite a poem of his or her own making that started to potentially reveal some details about the upcoming NFC Samsung Nexus Prime hero phone. However, @tfleming223 would only release information, or the next line when he got to a certain amount of followers. That’s a bit corny, but does ensure his message gets out to the masses. From what we can gather so far, the NFC Samsung Nexus Prime is due to be released on the 3rd of November and is likely to be a world phone at that. The accuracy of this poem is completely unknown but it wouldn’t be the first time this has happened and been absolutely correct. Hit the break for the poem so far.

Source: Twitter
Via: TechCrunch

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NFC development problems NXP/ Microsoft/RIM [Exclusive]

Rumor

Posted by Seth Planck

September 17th, 2011 at 3:39 PM Filed Under Latest News, Rumor

NFC development problems NXP/ Microsoft/RIM [Exclusive]

Whispers have been getting louder all week about NXP Semiconductors, Microsoft and RIM. NFC is getting more pervasive and so are the rumors that echo around the halls of NFC Rumors HQ. There are whispers in corridors, the water cooler attracts a crowd and everything goes quiet if you enter a room. NXP, Microsoft and RIM have some issues on their hands and we have heard about them from some pretty direct sources. We have been sitting on these revelations for a few days because alone we didn’t feel they were strong enough for a post, but together they start to paint a picture of just how nascent NFC is and how uncooperative it is acting with major software and hardware giants.

We called the problems BlackBerry was having with NFC over a month ago, we speculated that a major OS company would make an announcement that it was supporting NFC, but we didn’t hear about NXP until this last week. Want to know more? Of course you do, that’s why you clicked on this post.

Thanks to: To all of our sources for this post

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Can PayPal rule the world without NFC?

Posted by Seth Planck

September 15th, 2011 at 11:16 PM Filed Under Latest News

Can PayPal rule the world without NFC? Can PayPal survive without NFC in the offline world?

Just yesterday we reported that PayPal is embracing an NFC mobile wallet over in Sweden. Yet today in the States, PayPal has been saying that it is not supporting NFC and it thinks its non-NFC strategy is correct. We beg to differ, and this shows a complete different mantra in the US than in Europe. AllThingsD reported on how PayPal intends to go into 2012 with an NFC-less strategy and they are confident enough about this decision to laugh at competitors who are entering the payment space and their models. We can’t help but think that PayPal is a little out of touch with what is happening and have made so many non-NFC acquisitions that they now find themselves justifying those purchases by not embracing NFC.

Whether PayPal likes it or not, Visa and MasterCard are bringing NFC to consumers and merchants alike. The process of an NFC payment is more frictionless than having to input your phone number and then a PIN number into a POS terminal. The point of swiping a physical card as PayPal has outlined in its go-to market strategy has little benefit in the user experience outside of security. Google Wallet also has a similar product it calls the GCard, but that is based within the phone and uses NFC for to make payments quick and easy.

Source: AllThingsD

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SK Telecom announces worlds first NFC on USIM SIM cards, adds NFC to phones

Posted by Seth Planck

September 15th, 2011 at 3:22 PM Filed Under Latest News

SK Telecom announces worlds first NFC on USIM SIM cards, adds NFC to phones

SK Telecom has announced that it developed the world’s first USIM card equipped with an NFC chip, and it’s being calling “NFC on USIM“. If you aren’t familiar with USIM cards, they basically look and act like a traditional SIM card that your GSM mobile carrier supports in mobile phones. SK Telecom’s new USIM card allows a non-NFC smartphone to become an NFC-enabled if it has the right software. The problem with most smartphones in consumers’ pockets today is that they do not have NFC chips or antennas built into them, so they can’t interact with NFC tags or use any of the other cool functions that NFC facilitates, like peer-to-peer or emulation. SK Telecom are set to change that with their USIM card and potentially enable millions of smartphones with NFC capabilities, and that has to be a good thing.

So, if you have a smartphone and want NFC payments or to be able to collect coupons or to swap contact details, an NFC on USIM solution is heading your way. SK Telecom expect to commercialize NFC on USIM in October 2011 for enterprise customers and will open NFC on USIM- related Application Programming Interface (API) to outside developers to boost the development of diverse NFC-based services. So, in other words, by the first quarter of next year you may well be able to give your smartphone some NFC love if your carrier supports it.

Source: SK Telecom

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Monitise snags a UK virtual payment cards patent

Feature

Posted by Seth Planck

September 12th, 2011 at 8:00 PM Filed Under Featured, Latest News

Monitise snags a UK virtual payment cards patent

Monitise today announced that it had been awarded a patent in the UK for virtual payment cards.

UK outfit Monitise today announced that it has been granted a patent for virtual payment cards like the ones we have seen with Citi and Google Wallet and exactly the same as CSI’s virtual cards program that we covered a few months back. The patent has been granted in the UK covers virtual payment cards that are separate to any bank account that consumers top up which reduces any risk of a would-be thief getting account or card details. The theory is sound, and protects consumers whether they are shopping online or whether they choose to use virtual payment cards with an NFC mobile wallet.

Whereas NFC mobile wallets are safe, there is always a risk just as there is by using a traditional bank card or credit card. Virtual payment cards negates that risk by only having the funds you want to risk within your virtual account. Monitise generates the “virtual payment cards details” on the mobile phone to enable a consumer to shop in a secure way without them having to divulge data from their credit or debit cards such as personal account numbers, card expiry dates and security codes. The consumer chooses which account to use as the funding account for the virtual payment cards.

Source: Monetise Group

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HTC Holiday Android NFC phone caught in the wild testing AT&T’s LTE network

Rumor

Posted by Seth Planck

September 07th, 2011 at 12:40 AM Filed Under Rumor

HTC Holiday Android NFC phone caught in the wild testing AT&T’s LTE network, it’s fast!

The HTC Holiday NFC phone seems to get caught out in public more than a teenage pop star. Today it was seen out in the field in Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas testing the new AT&T LTE network. The image we have was sent to BGR and we have to say it is not the normal blurrycam photos we are used to seeing. The word on the street is that the HTC Holiday, or HTC Waikiki, which is another potential name for the device, could be AT&T’s inaugural LTE device that launches its LTE network later this year.  From a network perspective, this image shows the HTC Holiday topping out at a crazy fast 29Mbps, which looks good for Ma’Bells network. Although, we have to remember it is an empty market at the moment that the testers have to themselves. Even based on that, it is faster than speeds we have seen on Verizon’s network. Let’s just hope that Light Squared and its even newer LTE network makes AT&T’s look slow with equipment that gets faster from deployment to deployment. The HTC Holiday / HTC Waikiki is an Android device that is rumored to be one of the first Ice Cream Sandwich devices along with the Verizon Droid Prime, which up until this point we have known as the Samsung Nexus Prime.

Source: BGR

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

Posted by Seth Planck

September 06th, 2011 at 10:18 AM Filed Under Latest News

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.

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NFC iPhone conjecture ongoing

Rumor

Posted by Seth Planck

September 04th, 2011 at 5:47 PM Filed Under Latest News, Rumor

iPhone NFC conjecture ongoing, Apple could struggle if it passes on NFC

It isn’t going to be long until we know one way or the other whether the iPhone 5 has NFC (near field communications) technology built in. We already know that Apple have developed  a lot of apps to potentially use NFC inside and outside of payments, so a formalized NFC payments market isn’t required for the iPhone to have success using NFC. Day in, day out here at NFC Rumors we share uses for NFC that extend far beyond payments and it is hard to believe that Apple doesn’t realize this and want to capitalize on the capabilities that the Cupertino company could bring to the technology.

Rumors are circulating that the iPhone is going to be available on Sprint (the only non-Isis carrier in the United States) and that the screen is of the sub 4-inch variety. See the BGR photo below that shows BestBuy is expecting a Sprint iPhone next month. Yet of late the expectancy of NFC being included in the iPhone has been quiet with most assuming that the issue has been put to bed and the expectations have been set that Apple will not support NFC this time around. However more so, now more than ever the iPhone is facing increasing competition and the iPhone 4 is no longer competitive on specifications or features that are offered in Android and other handsets. With Nokia banding together with Microsoft, the competition is about to get more ferocious than ever. Apple could sue every single handset maker out there and it still wouldn’t dull the consumer demand for more convergence and higher specified phones one bit.

Source: BGR

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Canadians can Pre-order you NFC Samsung Galaxy S II LTE on Rogers now

Posted by Seth Planck

September 01st, 2011 at 11:09 PM Filed Under Featured, Latest News

Canadians can Pre-order their brand new sparkly NFC Samsung Galaxy S II LTE on Rogers now today

We reported that Canada folk would get their hands on an NFC Samsung Galaxy S II courtesy of Rogers and today the mobile network operator came through with a pre-order form for the legendary phone with a touch of LTE 4G goodness. However, we should warn you that they want you to put some skin in the game if you are going to order this beast and they want $40 up front. We posted the details straight from the Rogers site after the break.

Source: Rogers
Via: Engadget

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