UPM RFID & Waldemar Winckel offer NFC tags in Touch2go store

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UPM RFID & Waldemar Winckel offer NFC tags in Touch2go store

Today Europeans have another place to buy NFC tags from after UPM RFID and Waldemar Winckel, one of Europe’s leading RFID label manufacturers and system integrators, have got together to provide NFC tags through the Touch2go e-commerce store. Part of NFC tags becoming ubiquitous is having them available from many retailers in the market. UPM RFID have arguably formed more relationships and set up more partnerships than any other NFC tag manufacturer.

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Svelte Panasonic NFC smartphone with no name? I should coco!

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Svelte Panasonic NFC smartphone with no name? I should coco!

Okay, okay before you start frothing at the mouth too much at the sight of this good looking Panasonic NFC smartphone you should calm yourself as we probably won’t be seeing it Stateside. However, those lucky Europeans are likely to get their hands and a “D” shaped slice of style in March. In somewhat of an odd press release Panasonic announced its plans to enter the NFC smartphone race globally starting with Europe early next year, and penned out their plans for world domination. Well, world domination may be a little strong, but healthy growth is projected.

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Google and Apple will force MNOs to play nice with NFC mobile wallets

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Google and Apple will force MNOs to play nice with NFC mobile wallets says ABI Research

ABI Research has gone out on a limb by stating that Google Wallet and Apple will force mobile network operators to cooperate in the mobile wallet wars. ABI goes further to project that MNO market share will erode between 2012 and 2016 as Google and Apple claim loyal users. We hear similar sentiments daily about how MNOs will ultimately have to give way to a free market approach, as heavy weights show they can take consumers away from networks that don’t support a particular NFC mobile wallet that a consumer wants to use.

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Samsung announces Secu-NFC Chip, combines NFC IC with Secure Element

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Samsung announces Secu-NFC Chip, combines NFC IC with Secure Element

It’s a busy week at CARTES and Samsung just outed its new Secu-NFC Chip, which will no doubt cause some stirring within the industry. The new Samsung Secu-NFC Chip combines an NFC controller and a secure element into one unit allowing various advantages over current ICs. The secure element is the storage area in an NFC phone where personal and sensitive data is securely stored. That storage area isn’t directly accessible through your NFC phone’s operating system and secure elements generally have tamper proof features that ensure the memory locks up if someone attempts to access personal information without proper authentication. What makes Samsung’s announcement notable is that their new SENHRN1, or Secu-NFC Chip, combines both the NFC chip and secure element into one efficient chip.

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

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

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

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Mobile payments to be worth $945 Billion in 2015

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Mobile payments set to grow by a 30 fold factor from 2010 levels

IE Market Research have released their latest research and are projecting that global mobile transactions will be worth a total of $945 billion by 2015 which is a 30 fold jump over 2010 figures.

The Canadian research firm IE Market Research Corporation have released their third quarter Global Mobile Payment Forecast which projects that NFC mobile payments and transactions could top $945 billion by 2015. Over the months we have seen figures that run the gamut from just 100 billion to topping $1.2 trillion in NFC mobile payment transactions. However there appears to be somewhat of a settling of figures of late and IEMR’s latest study sits right in the center of educated guesses of the upcoming splurge on NFC and general mobile transactions.

“Our usage surveys reflect a trend of mobile payments growing commonplace in the Western world, corroborated by the fact North American and Western European markets are geared up for the beginning stages of a full-fledged adoption of the digital wallet.”

Twenty ten saw just $31.5 billion in mobile payments and transactions and that figure is set to soar up to or even beyond $945 billion by 2015. The research house states that this projection is based on its expectations that mobile payments and, we can assume a vast majority of that is NFC payments, will go main stream between 2012 and 2014. However, the report doesn’t see NFC having that big of an impact in mobile payments leading up to 2015.

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Visa Europe is bringing contactless cards and NFC to the French city of Strasbourg

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Visa Europe deploys contactless in Strasbourg as the French city gets ready for a sans contact revolution that will accommodate the approaching storm of NFC phones

le paiement Visa sans contact arrive à Strasbourg they cry in France as the credit card company works with French major banks to make contactless payments reality in the French city

Visa Europe has teamed up with Banque Edel, BNP Paribas, Banque Postale, Banque Populaire d’Alsace et Caisse d’Epargne d’Alsace (Groupe BPCE), Crédit Agricole, Crédit Mutuel-CIC, HSBC and LCL et Société Générale for a contactless or NFC pilot in the French city of Strasbourg. The pilot’s focus is based around the distribution of contactless payment terminals and cards so that citizens can start using NFC or contactless EMV cards in their daily lives.

Visa Europe’s ambitions for Strasbourg are in line with the work being carried out by the French Ministry of the Economy, Finance and Industry, which aims to make contactless payments by card and NFC mobile widely available all across France.

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UK firm devises imprinted electronic label that lights up for NFC and RFID readers

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UK firm devises imprinted electronic label that lights up for NFC and RFID readers

NFC and RFID have always held the promise to sort out genuine articles from reproductions. This has always been something that brands have wanted from near field communications and it now looks as if an English company may have cracked that nut with its imprinted electronic label. UK imprint lithography startup, PragmatIC, and the world’s largest commercial security printer and papermaker, De La Rue, have developed an NFC-like tag it calls an imprinted electronic label that holds an image that shows up when placed in proximity to an NFC reader. The £600,000 development is supported by a grant from the UK’s Technology Strategy Board and the project’s name is RAIL, which is an acronym for “remotely activated labels.” We think there will be a lot of interest in a of a visual feature (a light or logo) that is triggered by consumer interaction that is not only easy to use with an NFC phone but that is intuitively understood which tends to be the challenge with new technologies.

Imagine a tag on a piece of clothing in a store that when is placed within the radio field of an NFC or RFID reader shows an image that proves that article is genuine. This could save brands millions every year and could prevent consumers from buying inferior quality products mocked up to look like branded goods. The company says the imprinted electronic label enables unique products for brand protection and anti-counterfeiting possibilities.

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Three UK opposes UK NFC joint venture and stands up for consumers

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Three UK calls out the UK NFC joint venture anti-competitive plans and moves to block the partnership with the European Commission

The mobile network operator Three UK (Hutchison Whampoa) is seeking to block the UK NFC joint venture entered into by Vodafone, Orange, O2 and T-Mobile. The UK NFC joint venture plans to create, run and control a common mobile payment and advertising platform for retailers. Three is arguing that the companies’ influence in the market would result in high fees for consumers. Three UK is attempting to submit a formal complaint that requests that the European Commission blocks the UK NFC joint venture. Three said they were already in talks with the European Commission before formally applying for approval later this year. Three UK will only be able to lodge a formal complaint when that approval is given by the European Commission.

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

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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…

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Neotion adds contactless payments to pay per view TV with Zoosh, will add NFC later

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Neotion adds contactless payments to pay per view (CAM) TV capabilities with Naratte’s Zoosh, and plans to add NFC later

French company, Neotion, has enabled the world’s first mobile to conditional access module using Narrate’s NFC “like” Zoosh technology. Neotion’s innovation allows TVs to communicate with phones and tablets using Zoosh’s inaudible sound, and like other Naratte developments works, without any need for an NFC chip, tags or any other paraphernalia. TV has been a one-sided conversation for too long and that limitation to a large degree has seen the decline of TV audiences that are increasingly switching to the web to view and interact with content.

As a society, we now live in an on-demand world where we want the content we want, when we want, delivered perfectly to a device of our choosing and using Netflix as a perfect example we don’t even mind paying a little to get it. The nature of that on-demand content consumption has created opportunities for VOD (video-on-demand) and pay-per-view but until recently you had to call your provider or order this content through a clunky TV user interface that could not be described as frictionless.

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Stollmann acquires HARMAN, Automotive NFC infotainment system to follow

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NFC may sound great soon as Stollmann adds near field communications to HARMAN in car infotainment systems

Stollmann acquires high-end audio company HARMAN, Automotive NFC infotainment system to follow

How would you like NFC capabilities in your car that could allow you to connect your phone to your infotainment system? If Stollmann has its way that is exactly what you are going to get. The German company, Stollmann, has made an exciting acquisition and has bought itself an audiophile’s dream. It has purchased the audio manufacturer HARMAN, which is known for its high-end audio brands like AKG, Harman Kardon, Infinity, JBL, Lexicon and Mark Levinson. HARMAN’s brand are known in all audio venues including home cinema and computer speakers, but what has caught Stollman’s eye is the fact that HARMAN has a lovely auto infotainment business that it would like to add some NFC goodness to. Where we come from, that’s just manner from heaven and the blending of two of our favorite technologies.

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

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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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Brits leading the push for cashless society according to Visa’s Contactless Barometer

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Bring on the NFC – a new survey conducted by Visa Europe has found that UK residents’ attitudes towards contactless payments are changing and moving towards a cashless society, according to Visa’s quarterly Contactless Barometer.

Being a Brit sometimes has its advantages. You have Heinz Salad Cream, Quality Street over the holidays, you know that  substance is called Marmite instead of Vegemite (whatever that is), and to seal the deal, you have the BBC and a legendary self effacing humor that others can only marvel at.  You can also add to the list of things that make you more civilized than the average person that you now live in a nation that has some of the most progressive views on moving to a cashless society on the face of the globe according to Visa Europe. Visa has been conducting some small scale surveys every quarter that it likes to call its “Contactless Barometer”.

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U.S. Files Antitrust Complaint to Block AT&T and T-Mobile Merger

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U.S. Files Antitrust Complaint to Block AT&T and T-Mobile Merger

This morning Bloomberg is reporting that the U.S. government has sued to block AT&T‘s attempted acquisition of T-Mobile USA stating that the merger would “substantially lessen competition” in the mobile network operator market. AT&T Inc. proposed a $39 billion acquisition earlier this year and has faced challenges from Sprint stating that the deal is anti-competitive, and it now appears that the U.S. government agrees. In fact, Sprint’s CEO, Dan Hesse, testified before members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, voicing opposition to the proposed takeover of T-Mobile by AT&T.

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Verifone is expanding its NFC footprint in Europe

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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.

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Canadian NFC Samsung Galaxy S II LTE heading to Rogers this fall

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NFC Samsung Galaxy S II rocking LTE heading to Rogers Canada this fall

Oh Canada, Oh Canada you get a Rogers NFC Samsung Galaxy S II (we don’t think that rhymes but you get the point). Okay, well the Americans didn’t fare well with today’s Samsung announcements. Our hearts sank as we learned that Samsung was dealing out no NFC on any US network for the long awaited Samsung Galaxy S II variants. That said, until the machines have a tear down we won’t know that for sure since Samsung is rumored to be fitting NFC in an inactive state and then switching it on later when carriers ask them to. Will America get an NFC Samsung Galaxy S II? The chances are looking bleak today. Back to Canada and the Rogers NFC Samsung Galaxy S II though.

Samsung has finally started releasing the by now legendary and possibly aging NFC Samsung Galaxy S II to North America. AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint had their announcements earlier and Canada’s Rogers appears to have trumped them all by getting the NFC Samsung’s Galaxy S II version for their network which is in line with the news lately that suggests Rogers is deploying NFC payments. Canadians won’t get their hands on their version of the Samsung Galaxy S II until later in the fall, but we can at least know what’s on its way now.

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New EMV Academy launches in US offers NFC training

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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.

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Fujitsu launches F-09c, F-11C and F-10C NFC phones on DoCoMo

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Fujitsu F-09c, F-10C, F-11C waterproof NFC phones with AuthenTec biometric fingerprint sensors hits NTT DoCoMo Japan with a 16.3-megapixel camera

Fujitsu, in partnership with AuthenTec, have released a trio of new NFC phones: the F-09c, F-10C and F-11C. The bevy of NFC phone goodness comes with AuthenTec biometric fingerprint sensors and have debuted on DoCoMo Japan. However, we have seen documentation that suggests that the NFC phones are also heading to Europe after they passed through the European version of the FCC. No word as yet as to whether we could see these NFC phones Stateside, but we do know that the phones include AuthenTec’s AES1750 smart sensor for multiple touch-powered features, including one-touch security and personalization.

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Samsung Galaxy S II US variants image leak

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A US Samsung Galaxy S II variants image has leaked ahead of Tuesday’s press event

An image has surfaced showing all three of the Samsung Galaxy S II variants that are due to be announced on Tuesday. We already knew that AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint were due to launch a Galaxy S II variant, and we had been tipped off that Verizon was likely to hold off and launch an alternative Galaxy S II like device. The image that PocketNow got their hands on tends to suggest this information was correct. The hotly anticipated Samsung Galaxy S II line of phones has taken its sweet time to get to the US market and Tuesday’s event is now in some doubt due to hurricane Irene’s potential path that could wash out the event.

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mpass: German mobile network operators launch NFC payments joint venture

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mpass: German mobile network operators launch NFC payments joint venture

Telefónica Germany, Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone have announced a joint venture under the brand mpass that will bring NFC payments to Germany in early 2012 using NFC stickers and then transition to NFC phones.

Another day, another European country announces a mobile network operator NFC payments joint venture – this time it’s called mpass and has been announced for Germany. Again, Vodafone, Telefónica and Deutsche Telekom (The Three Musketeers) have come together as they have with all other European joint ventures for NFC payments in Germany. Same old gang, same old mission – to control and own NFC payments in another European market and prevent rivals from entering the market. The three companies have signed a letter of understanding to combine their networks to form mpass, which will facilitate and act as a trusted service manager for all three networks. We are starting to wonder if we shouldn’t just write up a quick post for each European country now that doesn’t have a “joint venture” announced and just change the dates, because at this point, it really isn’t all new joint ventures or collaborations, it is merely three companies’ efforts to control the European continent’s NFC payments.

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Google snaps up Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion

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Google has just come to an agreement with Motorola Mobility to acquire the company for $12.5 billion

Google this morning announced that it has come to an agreement to purchase Motorola Mobility for the handsome sum of $12.5 billion. Yes, as of today Google is in the smartphone business and the proverbial cat has just been set among the pigeons. Motorola Mobility hasn’t exactly been doing so well. This last quarter, the company posted a loss of $56 million, and Google may just be the tonic the company needs to turn that situation around. It’s not all Skittles and beer though, according to Motorola’s CEO, Sanjay Jha, Motorola was planning to pull out its intellectual property portfolio and go to war after a string of suits have recently been brought against Android partner OEMs. So, legality appears to be the name of the game. Google will no doubt get Motorola’s IP and patents in the deal, which will strengthen its ability to protect its partners against the licensing claims of Microsoft and Apple.

To say Google has been embattled lately is an understatement. Microsoft and Apple have been gunning for the company in an attempt to slow down its Android mobile OS through its partners, and regulators are snooping around on the grounds of anti-competitive behavior. Patent trolls have been coming out of the woodwork by the day, trying get their cut of the pie. How does Google respond to this? Does it put together a war chest to battle with? No, it buys out a pretty major mobile phone OEM and shows support in its Android operating system, and gains some IP patents that may have just sorted out some of the IP battles once and for all. Apple, Microsoft, Nokia, brace for impact – you will need your lawyers at the ready!

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Revenues from TSM for the NFC services will reach $468 million by 2015

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Frost & Sullivan reports projected revenues from TSM for the NFC services will reach $468 million by 2015

Frost & Sullivan has released a new report that outlines the role of trusted service managers within the NFC ecosystem, and has projected the net worth of the industry by 2015, which will likely hover around $468 million or €330 million. Those figures represent a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 75% for the period 2010 – 2015. To say that being a TSM is a lucrative business is an understatement. Frost & Sullivan expects that life cycle management of applications and management of the secure element are anticipated to remain the main sources of revenue during this period. However, the headlining figures for trusted service management for the NFC services, are not the important part of this report and we’ll show you why Frost & Sullivan has hit the nail on the head with its very acute article.

If you are a part of the NFC industry or a regular here at NFC Rumors, you will be aware how tempestuous and new the NFC industry really is. You may also be aware that there are very few companies that actually have experience in NFC payments outside of Visa and MasterCard, who have been testing the technology for a few years. But even Visa and MasterCard have not had mass market experience with the NFC super complex ecosystem. Aside from experience, there are larger problems with NFC adoption that need to be sorted out in short order for the technology to be able to bloom. At the moment, those problems are deepening further and are preventing NFC from adoption.

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Smartphone Sales Grew 74 Percent year on year says Gartner

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If you thought smartphone sales had peaked, your were wrong – they, in fact, grew a whopping 74% year-on-year according to Gartner

Phew, just when you thought there was nothing left to speculate on, we find that Gartner has been at it again, giving us statistics to analyze, ponder and argue over as to their real world meanings. With more people in the world using mobile devices than those who have running water, you can imagine it’s big business. In big business, we see winners and losers and many industry insiders wait with either excitement or dread for these reports to hit the media. Gartner today reported that mobile device sales grew 16.5% compared to the second quarter last year. That’s 428.7 million units in the second quarter of 2011. Mobile devices in general are a mature market now and a 16.5% increase in a globally bad economy is certainly news for celebration if you happen to be a market winning mobile device manufacturer.

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