Inside Secure supports new Kovio RF Barcode ready NFC tags

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Inside Secure supports new Kovio RF Barcode ready NFC tags

Inside Secure has announced that it now supports the Kovio RF Barcode ready NFC tags in its Open NFC protocol stack. Okay, that may be a bit of a clunky headline, so allow us to explain why this is big news and what it means for the adoption of NFC on the whole. The overall goal of NFC tags has been to allow them to become very cost effective, especially for retail usage. The concept that has been flying around over the last few years has been printed NFC tags that use printed silicon to achieve mass market penetration at a fraction of the cost of conventional NFC tags.

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NFC Forum and WIMA Monaco call for entries for NFC competition

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NFC Forum and WIMA Monaco call for entries for the Tap Into Innovation: NFC Global Competition 2012

WIMA Monaco is coming up fast, and in our small but rapidly growing industry we like to call NFC, it’s kind of a big deal to win an award at WIMA. The NFC Forum and WIMA get together and put on the Tap Into Innovation: NFC Global Competition every year, and more than a few companies apply for the honor. So, if your firm thrives on being recognized as an innovator in the NFC space and you want your profile raised, it probably wouldn’t hurt you too much to enter the WIMA competition.

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Merry Christmas (or whatever you celebrate) and an NFC New Year

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Merry Christmas (or whatever you celebrate) and an NFC New Year

Our team over here at NFC Rumors want to take the opportunity to thank everyone who swings past the site and wish them a great holiday season. It has been our first year and we have grown massively during that time because of your support for what we do. Over this year we have met some really great people, had the opportunity to immerse ourselves in great innovation and have been supported by our visitors and the companies who have come to embody Near Field Communication. We love bringing you the latest NFC news, adding our own opinion and starting conversations about the opportunities and challenges that NFC brings with it.

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INSIDE Secure supplies Intel with NFC tech and secure elements

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INSIDE Secure supplies Intel with NFC tech and secure elements

Intel has selected INSIDE Secure to supply it with its NFC technology as it moves further into the Near Field Communication industry. In the last few months, Intel has come from being absent in NFC to looking like a main proponent of the nascent technology. It was just last week that they upped their membership status in the NFC Forum to the top level of Sponsor and pulled up a chair at the big table of directors. It was around two months ago that we saw a tablet sporting an NFC logo at an Intel industry event also. One thing for sure is that Intel plans to add ubiquity to NFC, and in doing so will educate consumers about the technology on a mass scale.

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NFC stocks? welcome to the NFC funding paradox faced by startups

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NFC stocks? Welcome to the NFC funding paradox faced by startups

NFC has faced a few paradoxes since its inception and NFC Stocks and NFC funding is just the latest iteration of some of the challenges Near Field Communication has faced in its rise to ubiquity. We have said it before and we will say it again, NFC has the ability and potential to change the way we do most things by bringing frictionless physical interactions and the web together for powerful information discovering and sensor integration in most products and services we use.

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Intel gets serious about NFC and upgrades NFC Forum membership

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Intel gets serious about NFC and upgrades NFC Forum membership

Today NFC scores another step forward in becoming ubiquitous as Intel upgrades its membership to the NFC Forum from a Principal member all the way to the top position of Sponsor level. First things first, this shows Intel’s intentions towards NFC .We have already caught sight of an Intel NFC tablet and the firm has also announced their intentions to support NFC and secure payments in their line of UltraBooks.

What makes the announcement of Intel upgrading its membership important is that the firm represents ubiquity across PC and Mac platforms. Its support of NFC represents mass deployment of NFC enabled devices that include PCs, tablets and laptops / netbooks. That alone will undoubtedly bring NFC capabilities to most users’ machines within the next few years. We have already seen Microsoft, Google, Samsung, Nokia, RIM and other large firms throw their support behind NFC, but very few have the clout of Intel. Because Intel is part of so many manufacturers’ product lines, the Intel announcement is as big as the Microsoft Windows 8 announcement in bringing NFC mainstream.

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NXP creates NFC Android app for cultural art and tech show

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NXP creates NFC Android app for cultural art and tech show

NXP Semiconductors has teamed up with startup firm, U-Approach, and created an NFC android app that promotes cultural participation for the STRP Festival. The STRP Festival is one of Europe’s largest art and technology festivals, and this year visitors will have the ability to interact with exhibits using their NFC Android smartphone and the new app. After tapping their NFC smartphone against an exhibit, visitors can get detailed information about the exhibited artwork.

Frens Frijns, Director of the STRP Festival, commented, “As a cultural festival, we feature artistic and creative experiments with technology. We believe that the ‘Internet of Things’ is evolving into a ‘clickable world’. We are the first festival in the world to provide that experience in a way that helps people better understand the art while giving them the ability to share their own interpretation, introducing a new social dimension to art interpretation in the festival experience.”

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PC and Ultrabook NFC payments are coming thanks to Intel and Mastercard

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PC and Ultrabook NFC payments are coming thanks to Intel and Mastercard

Intel and MasterCard are teaming to bring contactless and NFC payments to its line of Ultrabooks and future generations of Intel based PCs. Back at the beginning of last month we glimpsed a Medfield NFC tablet from Intel, which gave us some clues that the monolithic processor manufacturer has Near Field Communication on its mind. Today, Intel and MasterCard have announced that they are partnering to bring PayPass secure payments initially to its Ultrabooks, which is a huge step forward for NFC. We already know that Windows 8 is coming loaded with support for NFC and now Intel appears to be bringing some hardware and security support to make payments using your NFC phone or contactless card a reality.

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It’s a good time to be in the NFC IC market says ABI research

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It’s a good time to be in the NFC IC market says ABI research

ABI Research has another report out that focuses on wireless connectivity and suggests that NFC IC manufacturers are in for a boom when they tot up their year-on-year sales at the end of 2011. Most of us have a Bluetooth, GPS and WiFi direct capable smartphone these days. ABI says that in some markets adoption has hit 100%. However, NFC is the new kid on the block and provides a huge growth area for IC manufacturers.

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NXP Working on 10 NFC tablets and 90 NFC phones

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NXP Working on 10 NFC tablets and 90 NFC phones

If ever there was any doubt that NFC tablets were heading our way NXP squashed that misconception at 4G World a couple of weeks ago as Jeff Miles Vice President Mobile Transactions Worldwide at NXP announced that NXP was currently working on over 100 NFC devices that was made up of 10 NFC tablets and around 90 NFC phones. We have some video of this announcement we will put up on the site within the next week or so. However, this shows that tablet manufacturers are starting to see NFC as a must-have feature to be competitive.

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

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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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Intel Medfield Android NFC Tablet?

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

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

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

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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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First Windows NFC app hits from Wireless Sensor Technologies, partners with UPM RFID to boot

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First Windows NFC development app hits from Wireless Sensor Technologies, partners with UPM RFID to boot

The announcement came yesterday that Windows 8 would support NFC in tablets, PCs, laptops and other devices. GoTotags, which is a subsidiary and software division of Wireless Sensor Technologies, have already launched a Microsoft Windows NFC application and NET-based software development kit (SDK) which gives Windows computers access to NFC functionality. Wireless Sensor Technologies are becoming a larger and larger player in the NFC space and have also partnered with the mighty UPM RFID to supply custom NFC tags through their BuyNFCTags.com online store.

What makes the Los Angeles and Seattle outfit, Wireless Sensor Technologies, different to most NFC tag stores? Its commitment to offer developers strong APIs and tools to develop applications. Now that the company has partnered with UPM RFID the quantity, supply and costs of its NFC tags is assured. UPM RFID and Wireless Sensor Technologies have joined forces to deliver near field communication (NFC) products and services to seamlessly connect the physical and online worlds (read internet of things) via wireless sensors and devices.

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Biometric industry set for massive growth thanks to NFC

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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:

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NFC pairs the Nokia BH-505 Bluetooth headset to your NFC phone, perfect for the Gym

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NFC pairs the Nokia BH-505 Bluetooth headset to your NFC phone and joins Nokia’s growing collection of NFC-enabled headsets

Nokia has yet another NFC / Bluetooth headset to add to its growing collection. Earlier this week we brought you the news about the potential sighting of the Nokia 801 NFC phone in a video shown at the IFA trade show in Berlin. In that video we got a couple of glimpses of the Nokia BH-505 NFC pairing Bluetooth headset. The Nokia BH-505 was announced back in May, but we really haven’t seen anything more about it here in the States. It has been available in Europe for some time and is for sale in the United States. Nokia didn’t really market this NFC headset, so for many of you this could be the first time you have heard about them. A few weeks ago Nokia enabled the NFC in the Nokia C7 NFC phone with a Symbian Anna update and now the Nokia BH-505 is becoming useful in a whole new way.

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Nokia N9 launching in Australia on three mobile networks this October

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

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

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Nokia N9 MeeGo NFC Smartphone

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Nokia N9 MeeGo NFC Smartphone

Nokia has shown the world its second NFC Smartphone, the Nokia N9, which is the company’s first MeeGo phone. In case you find yourself saying WhoGo? MeeGo is an open source smartphone platform that has been built in a collaborative effort between Intel and Nokia. Stephen Elop, the head honcho over at Nokia, promised that the company would deliver a MeeGo Smartphone by the end of the year and thus it has appeared.

We must say the Nokia N9, which is also known as the Lankku, slab is easy on the eyes and will come in a veritable amount of bright colors as well as a really quite lovely matte black. In fact, these colors are part of the polycarbonate shell, so even scratches and dings only result in the uncovering of more of the same color because the case is colored all the way through.

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